Peace visit: Day 1 - Arrival

Ok, so still catching up with all that has happened in last month, here is a veeeeeeeery brief summary of the Peace's visit seeing as it is waaaaaaaay past my bedtime and my eyes are sleepy!

But as ever it was magical fun to be reunited with 4 out of 5 Peace's. The Miss Peace senior was not present, having to stay at home instead and observe children (in a purely NON peculiar way!)

So arrived they did on Saturday morning at 9 AM (i would say that i was at the airport to meet them as they came through customs but that would be a lie due to the previous nights antics and a few drinkies in the Sparta kitchin, o the joys!)

But i did meet them in the end, and much to my disgust and horror, a certain Lawrence Peace seems to have grown (again MUCH to my disgust!) and also showed me his new provsional drivers liscence, althoguh i refused to look at it as he is simply NOT old enough to drive!! He pounced on me at the airport - hence the floor picture! But who knew that little brothers and pouncing could be so endearing!

so they arrived in the land of snow and giants, only there wasnt' any snow (in fact the weather being extreeeeemely nice) and no giants either. There was however, a lot of outdoor adventures (and food experiences!) eating in general and lots of chucklesome moments, most of them coming fomr mummy Peace - who will be veeeeeeery happy to know now that there are in fact cows in Sweden, i've actually SEEN some!! The weather must clearly be cow weather now! And after showing them my room and lunch in the SUN we went to the lovely Hotell Oskar to put the sleepy Peace's to bed for a little afternoon nap (fair enough seeing as they were up at 3 AM!)

Please take note of the ammount of 'outdoor lunches' t come...!

Lovely to be reunited with the family. End of day 1

Peace visit: Day 3 - bike trip to Lomma

Today was hiring bike day (which i would just like to add i managed to do IN SWEDISH!! jaha!!) Min svenska ar jattebra!! hmm...well!
After having a few minor detours and a lot of getting used to the fact that the bikes here not only use the peddle backwards method to stop NOT the usual hand braking method, but also are cycled on the other side of the road! the inital start was a little exciting for everyone i think! But Olof had a lovely outing with his new hired'friends' and once at the beach the crazy Peace's (aka mummy peace and a Lawrence) went PADDLING!! Please note, once again the lunch out side AND the cold faces of Dad and I while the other two went apddling!

Another glorious day though, i also found another future house of mine in the shap of a simply AWESOME tree house!! Seriously goooood!!!
End of day 3

Peace visit: Day 2 - The Lund Health Walk!

An enjoyable day spent stolling along the 'Health Walk' here in Lund (seriously these Swedes are very health concious -how nice of them to set up a walk!)

The day began with a lovely breakfast in cafe Ebbas next door (yes i was treated to a breakfast - yum! o how i love family holidays, the food is always so good!) And O today me and Prucilla were reunited again after 4 months apart! It was a very happy and joyous reuniion, if only i knew what lay ahead for my dearest, most reliable pashmina! :'(

So again to be brief, the sun shone, we walked, saw some random Swedes sat in the middle of a field - still not certaina what they were actually doing, but the sun was shining so maybe they were simply sat there to soak it all up - who knows! chatted, mummy Peace proved again that she is in a fact a fashion icon with her daring use of a winter, reversable balaclava to shield the sun from her eyes and of course we ate OUTSIDE again! After lunch we had to played some games in order to warm up after a lunch eaten in the SHADE of a huge tree, whcih was a litttttle bit chilllllly!! And then began the journey once more - still with Prucilla at this point, at some point near the park - when we were a wee bit lost, stopped and asking for help i realised that, yes - Prucilla was NO LONGER with me! :'( We checked and retraced some steps (mummy Peace even went as far as walking back the next morning but alas all no no avail) And i'm afraid to say my friends that that is, sorry was, the end of one of the most beautiful of relationships i have ever had. I can only hope that some caring Swede, who liked the colour red, picked her up nad gave a her a good home! She was a good friend to me, keeping me warm on all those Northern, Southern, all over the show, winter days! O she sahll be sadly missed, but i must move on or a i shall drown in a flood of memories!

Post health walk we got back to Lund and had a curry! Yum! :D

End of day two.

Peace visit: Day 4/5 - Trip to Kalmar/Oland

Day four was mostly a travelling day, driving from Lund to Kalmar, which is on the East coast and about 4/5 hours away. We hired our lovely, little VW Golf and set off, again Daddy Peace having to get used to the funny way round cars here and the nonsense of driving on the right - which by the way only changed from the left around 1965ish - isn't that loco!

After being amazed at the complete lack of traffic on EVERY road (why o why can't the M25 be like these roads, going to London, or anywhere South, would be heaven!!) And somehow, even thourgh we were on a 'travelling' day we still somewho managed to have lunch OUTSIDE again in the FREEEEEEZING cold!! (this was most definitively a Mummy Peace idea!) Lawrence even tried to put on his thermals OVER his clothes it was that cold!!

But once back in the waaaaaarm car, Kalmar finally loomed in the not so far distance. Used my Swedish again to ask a poor random man where Hotell Svanen was ( i really really don't think he had any clue poor thing!) Arrived, unpacked and went in search of food, and O MY was it COLD that night!!! It was FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZING!!!!! especially after all the nice weather we'd had in Lund, we were asking ourselves why we left! Found Chinese tonight - yum! and Lawrence tried duck for the first time, such a fun interactive dinner, what with the pancakes, the cucumber and all!
Scuttled home, all wrpapped up for the cold. End of Day 4

Day 5
Splendid fun on a Paradisgatan stroll on the island of Oland. Interestingly Oland was an island so full of Windmills in the 1700 that it actually had more windmills than Holland! There only survive 400 now, and we saw an impressive...76 on our two days there!

Seriously got lost today on the walking front, and ended up walking through what appeared to be someones garden, but they have the 'free walkers right' here which means that everyone has the right to all the land - really a wonderful idea and only possible here in Sweden where everything is so safe and not in need of fences or barbed wire!! But we finally found the 'sleeping' vaderkvarn (windmill) and thus where we were on the 'interesting map they gave us that consisted of a MOST random hand drawn route and certain 'signposted' landmarks. It really was unique! But the weather was beautiful so eerything seemed perfect!
again lunch outside (sensing a theme yet?!) Had a mini tour round the south of the island, and back over the fabulous hump bridge that connects the island to the main land.

And of day 5