Raspberry-Chocolate muffins

Today I baked. It's my favorite thing to do in the kitchen, but lately I haven't baked much at all. This time I made a batch of muffins. So easy and fast to make, and nice to eat as well... I found this recipe in a book that I was just about to return to the library and they don't have much sugar in them. Originally the recipe said to use white chocolate, but since I only had dark at home I simply used that instead. That might be the reason why they aren't so sweet. Not that that is a problem in any way...

For 12 regular size muffins I beat 200 grams of butter with 1,5 deciliter sugar. Then I added 4 eggs, one at a time. I mixed 4 deciliter of flour with 1 tablespoon of baking soda and added that together with 100 grams of frozen raspberries as well as 75 grams of dark chocolate. After about 20 minutes in 175 C they were ready to enjoy.

Our gardens

Yes, I know. I have been terribly bad when it comes to updating my blogs. But I haven't forgotten about them so don't give up on me quite yet.

We have some projects going on both inside and outside our house. Most of them are still only in our heads, but since Matts will go on vacation next week we'll have more time to actually get started. First we (that is Matts) will work on the walls in the living room. We already have bought the new wallpaper but before we (that is Matts) can put it up we (!) need to tear down the old, structure one. Hard work, but it shouldn't be impossible.

What we have done is some work in the gardens, both front and back. But we have lots of plans for these parts as well.

The first picture shows that some flowers, in this case geraniums, really can make a big difference. We still only have our small balcony table that we bought in Lund, but for next year we plan to buy a bigger table with a sofa and two chairs to go with it. If we are lucky, we'll find it on sale later this summer.

The second picture shows our front garden. The flowerbeds really need some work and the lawn is not as green as we want it to be. But in a couple of weeks we will do some work on the lawn and the flowerbeds will be upgraded as soon as we have time and energy for it. At least our front garden is not the worst in our area (luckily, this is Sweden and not Switzerland!).

Thirdly you can see our letterbox that is almost buried under our spiraea... We have a brand new pillarbox that we (that is Matts again) will install probably during next week. Eventually we'll do some work on the spiraea as well.

On the fourth picture you can see our jungle, aka back garden. Matts already did some work there, taking down some Alpine currant shrubs that had really gone crazy. They are already coming up again (you can see them in front of the "log") and will probably become a quite nice hedge when taken care of. But there's still much to do. We have some beautiful flowers; a sweet pink peony (that's now owerblown) and a gorgeous red rose (that you can see in the background) as well as both rhubarb and strawberries. But we also have lots and lots of weed that needs to be taken away... The plan is to plant more berries and stuff along the white wall; American blueberries, blackberries and red currant, as well as work on the lawn parts here too.

As you understand, we have quite some work to do - and this is not talking about everything we want to do inside as well. We try not to be totally stressed out about everything and focus on the things that we can do right now. Not everything will come true this year, but we plan on staying here for a while, so there's really no rush. Except when it comes to the so-called doorstep to the left: it's really dangerous and the plan is for Matts to build a new one as soon as possible.

Refund

Unlike in Switzerland, the soda cans and bottles in Sweden are recycled with refunds and therefore we don't have special bins for them. But it's not always you feel like dragging an empty bottle around until you can recycle it so many cans and bottles end up in the regular garbage cans. However, this is not always the last stop for the empty containers since some people; elderly, homeless or just bored, go all around downtown to scan the garbage bins and earn themselves some money by recycling. A while ago when I was walking through Uppsala I saw these pillars here and there - give and take stations for bottles and cans! How clever!

The Vasa ship

Last Sunday we took our guest back to Stockholm and to the Vasa museum where the more than 300 year old Vasa ship is preserved. It is one of my favorite museums and I still find it fascinating that 95% of the original ship is right there on display. This time, however, Inga and I didn't pay 100% attention to the ship, instead we trained on walking - Inga's new favorite thing...

Tree climber

Matts decided to do some morning work on our apple tree while I prepared breakfast. When I looked out of the window I suddenly saw that he had left solid ground and actually worked on the tree from the inside so to say...

Easter and runes

Last Friday night we cheated a bit and had an early Easter dinner. Egg halves with mayo and shrimps, smoked eel, preserved and raw cured salmon, pickled herring, quiche on Västerbottenost, meatballs, chipolata sausage and Jansson's temptation. To that Easter beers and påskmust. Yummy!

On Saturday we went to Uppsala. We started out with a lunch in one of the student houses and continued to the dome, walked past some stones with runic characters, took a look at the Silver Bible in the university library Carolina and enjoyed the view over Uppsala from the castle courtyard. A very nice and sunny day.

Apples and guests

This past weekend we had visitors sleeping in our guest room for the third time. The first time it was my mother in law. She helped us with the move and had to sleep in-between boxes and living room furniture. Our second visitors were my parents and the day they came, we went to Ikea to buy this daybed that Matts then assembled right before bedtime... Our third visitors were our friends Liz and Will visiting from Switzerland. Before they came I finally was able to roll out our fabulous green carpet that will set the tone in the guest room.

Talking about green, this is what our front garden looked like last week. A few crocuses and an apple tree gone wild...

Nordic animals

Last Thursday, Inga and I met up with Liz in Stockholm to visit Skansen, the oldest outdoor museum in the world. There they have lots of interesting things to explore, e.g. different Nordic animals. We saw bears, wolves, wild boars, moose, different kinds of seals and some beautiful reindeer - and learned that reindeer are the only deer where both males and females have antlers.

Room to live in

After eight days in our new house, I'm in love. There's a lot to do to make this our dream home, but it really feels good with all the space and the fact that we are allowed to do almost whatever we want to here (compared to the rental apartments where we have lived before). We started out with the living room floor. It badly needed to be polished and varnished so before placing our furniture there we hired someone to do the job since we realized we would probably never do it ourselves. So now we have a terrific floor to go with our terrible walls (the wallpaper was once white but is now both dirty and at some places torn - it's our next project!). While the work was done on the floor, we kept all our living room furniture in the guest room together with a bunch of moving boxes. Kind of crowded I have to say. Now we have furnished the living room and in a couple of days we are allowed to roll out the carpets as well (the varnish needs a few days more to harden completely). More pictures are coming later on...

Springtime - twice

This picture was taken in Lund two weeks ago. Now we are relocated to Knivsta and once more go through the first phases of spring. When we arrived here about a week ago there was still a big pile of snow in our yard. It's completely gone now. Instead, green leaves are showing on our small lawn...