My August

August went by in two seconds. Lovely month with two trips to Sweden. One longer in the beginning and a shorter weekend one in the end. The first trip was really special because David's family came - his parents, sister, sister's partner and son. We also had amazing weather the whole week. Over 30 degrees every day which is unheard of for that long in summer time. But the best thing of all is that we were all gathered in Stockholm - my family and D's family - for our wedding. Me and D got married in the City Hall in Stockholm on August 2nd. That date is a decade after we first met in Dublin.

After the wedding we all went to Häringe slott which is an old manor house turned hotel. We had the wedding reception there with our families - we were ten people in total. We then stayed at the hotel for 2 nights enjoying the pool, sea, floating sauna, canoes and tennis courts around there. We had an amazing time together.

My new babies are both called Jimmy... Jimmy Choo

Meet my new friend Jimmy

When I heard about the collaboration between my favourite high street store H&M (Swedish, of course!!) I was thrilled, but at the same time I thought - "oh no! I'm definitely not going to be the only one thrilled about that!!". Thought the queues on Oxford Street here in London would be massive and having to fight with eager teenagers about the cool stuff wasn't anything I felt tempted to do. As any collection with H&M and a famous designer, I assumed it would be gone in notime so I accepted the fact that I wouldn't get my hands on any of the items even before the collection was launched...

But there is a BUT - I went home to Sweden over the weekend and to my big surprise, there was a lot left in the stores from the collection one week after the launch and it wasn't even crowded! They must have been stocking up in the home town of H&M. I was amazed. I quickly laid my eyes on a pair of shoes that I fell in love with - sure, they were more expensive than the regular H&M collection, but much cheaper than the regular Jimmy Choo collection!! My wonderful parents were there and of course, and my mom wanted to spoil me a little and she bought the shoes and a little coin purse for me - also from JimmyChoo by H&M(!!!). That made my day, week and months to come. How can a pair of shoes bring so much joy into a person's life?!! Thanks Mom for the shoes and thanks Dad for being a moral shopping support!

Party in STHLM

Dancing, yeah!!
Me and D

The foxy ladies

Me and the birthday boy

Last night we had a splendid reason to celebrate and party. A good friend of ours - my best friend Maria's husband, V - celebrated his 30th birthday. The party started at their place with some music, snacks and very good company. I met new people and also friends I hadn't seen in a very long time. It was great. After that, most of us wanted to go out and dance a bit after having warmed up a bit in M & V's apartment. We went to the Lemon bar where they played old Swedish pop music hits from the 80's. I was almost feeling sorry for D, because if you haven't grown up with that kind of music you would, most likely, think it stinks. But D was happy with the music and also danced his butt off together with the rest of us. I was impressed.

It almost felt like "back in the days" when I lived in Stockholm as a student going out and dancing like crazy not caring how you look when you dance - just giving it all. We had a blast although, I realise that I'm not as energetic now as back then because I'm veeeery tired today!!

Swoosh to Sweden and swoosh back to London!

I made last minute plans to go to Sweden because D had decided long ago to go to Palma. Some quality Sweden time was definitely in order.

We started off checking out the yearly jewellery fair in Infra City. It was me, my parents, brother, P, and his girlfriend, J. I think it was interesting and I also bought a cool necklace.

After that and a nice lunch, I hit downtown Stockholm with my brother and Josefin. (By the way, my brother thinks I'm a complete dork for blogging, but on the other hand he's always a bit late to follow trends so I will probably see him setting up his own blog in about 3 years...;-)). We went to a fancy dress shop to find P something cool to wear for the "Moulin Rouge" themed party he was invited to. Me and J suggested a variety of cool accessories (fish hat, Joker hat, big moustache, hot dog hat, glittery mask etc) for him to wear, but in the end he settled for a high hat, a shiny red old fashioned shirt with frills and a moustache.

In the evening I went with my parents to a cool restaurant called "Smak" (=taste/flavour). The theme is to taste different small gourmet dishes with one main spice per dish. It was really delicious and a fun theme for a restaurant. My favourite dish was the sashimi tuna with watermelon and pistaccios in soy sauce - the main spice was of course wasabi. Yum!

A perfect winter day in Stockholm. A little bit of everything.

PS. Will post some pictures tonight!

Home in London again

Christmas Eve in Haninge with my parents and brother
The view from my parents' house

New Years Eve in Palma

David and his two beautiful sisters Aina and Lara

With friends in the restaurant Ca'l dimoni - The Devil's house (in Majorcan Catalan)

We arrived in London safe and sound. Quite a pain free trip back. I'm so happy I was able to spend my Christmas holidays in two very special places - Stockholm and Mallorca. I got what I needed: some time to relax and spend quality time with family and friends. Check out some of the pictures!

Shopping in Stockholm

Tomorrow I'm leaving Stockholm for the Spanish island of Mallorca, so I said good bye to Stockholm in the best way: Shopping pieces of it and taking them with me!! Today was a perfect day to be out. The weather was great - a bit chilly but very sunny. My shopping companions of the day were my parents.

The best pieces of clothing I found in a second hand shop in Östermalm (a posh part of Stockholm): A pair of Acne Jeans that barely had been used (pictured) and an Armani suit!!!

The suit was so cool because it was probably from the late 80s!! I'm talking shoulder pads - even though they were pretty small. It's like a blast from the past! Just check out the business suits Melanie Griffiths wore in the 80's classic "Working Girl" and you will get a rough idea of mine, although mine is a bit more toned down..... The jacket is a bit longer than "regular" jackets and is perfect with my new jeans!! The best part was the price! It was very good value for money! My parents gave me the suit as a present. Thanks Mom and Dad!!!