Swedish wedding done and dusted

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Flickr: DSCF0287It's been busy and I apologise to all the attractive and intelligent readers of this blog for my tardiness in posting ... to the rest, welcome to a c-o-m-p-u-t-e-r, don't hurt yourself.

Rob and Linda's wedding was fabulous and pictures are being loaded (such that we took, we were very lacklustre with the camera in Sweden ... probably because Adam was present and he takes a picture every 30 seconds even when he's asleep).

The ceremony on a wee outcropping in the lake was gorgeous, simple, captivating and engaging ... loved it. The photo sessions went on too long and we all had to wait for them ... as is traditional and to be expected and endured. The celebration venue was cracking and the dinner was Swedish with speeches, awesome food, songs and held together beautifully by the best Toastmasters in the world (me and Cecilia) wearing traditional headgear.

Rob's new family are brilliant people as are all his new friends. They all evacuated they houses to put up the onslaught of wedding guests from Wales, England and New Zealand.

We stayed at The Grand, Saltsjobaden ... highly recommended - stunning and quite beautiful.

The "hat distribution service" I am running around the world continued and after losing the first on a bus in Edingburgh I have now passed on another NZ cap to the Swedes. I am bringing back a Welsh and Stockholm caps to be lost in Singapore and Christchurch respectively.

Other news from Sweden. The general populace is stunning in all the ways possible. The women are generally bronzed goddesses and the men are ... the same without the 'esses'. I have to say after the 3rd day I was becoming immune to the beauty and had almost stopped staring and was able to halt my, "Look at her!" exclamations to Liz. Liz sumed it up actually - "there are as many average looking people here are as there are beautiful people back home".

The city of Stockholm was cool. Liz totally loved it but it didn't quite get me that much - Paris is more beautiful and Berlin more amazing. However we are both keen to return in the height of winter (4 hours daylight) when the sea freezes over and the lakes are turned into highways ...

Jack finally got over his dicky tummy and has been a treasure since. At one point he whispered to me that he wanted Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer song (he'd just bought his own cuddly one ... yes, we saw Reindeer at Skansen) and, as Toastmaster, I had the power to make this happen ... everyone sang!

Meg wowed everyone and is growing up so fast. She waves, blows kisses and has started her journey to crawling (within a week I reckon).

And that's it really - as I say, photo's will be uploaded over the next few days and more once Adam send them on together with the set from Rob.
(all the Stag Do photo's are up - you have to be a 'friend and/or family' to see the "naughty" ones)

Next for us. Work out when the mates from NZ (Mindi and Emma) will be joining us and therefore when we'll be away (Plymouth probably). Work around that a visit to London (anyone got a place for 3.5 people to crash for a few days?) and then see where else we want to visit. We have a family 30th to go to, some mates in Malvern, Leicester and Bicester to catch up with and a few other members of the clan to enjoy.

I am hopefully gonna get to see the All Black v Australia game this SATURDAY morning (6:30am! damn those mid-afternoon Auckland starts)

Once again, sorry for the erratic and infrequent postings - life is both busy and irregular which don't allow for timely updates. Also the darned PC is in my parents room so the late night bloggings I used to do are, to say the least, a pain.

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