End of May / Start of June

Written a very long time ago but apparently didnt get uploaded... 

Wed 25^th May was a day of tiredness. And then dancing was rubbish! Or not entirely rubbish. But I was massively tired and the night was just lacking in top notch dances. Had a couple of good ones, danced much better with one of the guys I usually dance with than I had pre blues workshop. But the first 3 guys I danced with were just terrible. One that didn’t bother listening to the music, one that has no rhythm at all and the close Finnish guy who was being ridiculous. He spent most of the time trying to get me into close embrace and then some, and I spent most of it pushing him away really hard. I was so annoyed by the end of it cos there was no need to be in close embrace and it wasn’t like I wasn’t being really obvious in my discomfort! 
On the plus side tho, there was a band. And we did get a shim sham tho since it was Frankie’s birthday. And some ppl gave a speech about it but that wasn’t great for me since I didn’t understand anything being said. 
Did manage to get the last dance as a guy came and asked me. He pointed out it was the last one, which may be part of the reason I danced with him, since his white shirt was towards see thru and dripping – he had clearly danced lots – and that’s not really a fun time when your left arm connection is onto sweat. But it was probably better than not dancing the last song.
Then I wasn’t sure whether to go to the pub or not. David pointed out that my eyes were empty, and they aren’t usually at the end of the night. Which was cos I was missing the lindy high. Usually at the end of the night I’m all buzzy and excited. And thus the pub is a good plan. But instead of listening to my tired head and going home I went to the pub. Partly due to feeling bad for making people wait while I extolled the virtues of Leeds and its swing exchange (I did try Helena!!) So I went to the pub where I sat and chatted to a guy I didn’t no for a while, but mostly they were talking Swedish, so I didn’t stay too long.

Thu evening we decided to watch the second half of godfather 2. Which turns out to be really quite a good film. I found both halves pretty interesting, unlike the others who preferred the old stuff.

Fri night the boys at work decided they were all gonna have a sauna (in the work sauna) and then have a bbq. They were supposed to start at 4 which would have meant they would be finishing up about the right time for end of work for the rest of us. only the sauna broke. So they had to call in an engineer! So I went home. Cos I didn’t no how long they were gonna be so had left the boys instructions to let me know when they were done cos I was up for the bbqing. I headed back to the bbq and managed not to get any food despite the boys being somewhat silly and burning everything that wasn’t being eaten including spare buns (in the packaging) and at one point the entire bottle of lighter fluid, which luckily didn’t explode the way we expected it to. I got berated for about 20 mins about my having not gone into the sauna by one of the Swedish boys. He said if it had been the other way round he would have loved a sauna with 12 girls, even tho they apparently don’t look when in the sauna. He couldn’t understand why I would think it was weird at all, even tho I pointed out that it was a colleagues, and they speak a different language so we don’t know what they’re saying half the time! So then we all stood around the fire before heading inside to the warmth and more drinking. There was wine from the wine lottery, and someone felt bad that they had missed a birthday so we were celebrating that too. Hugo had gone to pick up a friend from town and came back disappointed that the bbq was out so he, friend and I went to macdonalds since I decided food was a good plan. So having exhausted the alcohol in the office (or given up on it I’m not sure) we headed out. The first place that we tried to go to said that one of the guys was too drunk, and then the second place was closing so we went to the Viking bar restaurant place where we managed to sit down for a while and drink one beer before they were closing. Then we lost a whole load of our Swedes but headed to a club called rocks, where they insisted on stamping the club name half way up our arms, which I thought was weird, but where we danced for quite some time after losing our two remaining Swedes.

Sat I was heading up to meet the boys on Gamla Stan so I grabbed a bike from the waterfront and had to run with it across the marathon. Its pretty hard to do but there was sufficient gap, and I wasn’t the first one to do it so I didn’t feel too bad. There was some chaos in the bike lane tho as ppl were standing in it to watch. I made it up to meet the boys for coffee tho before we wander off and around. not sure where all the time disappeared to but we headed back to the boys house where I almost fell asleep. Hugo was very kindly in charge of food while James was being the entertainment with his series of jokes based around a set of business propositions. The idea was that you had a proposition and the other one asked how it was going, for example the skiing business was going downhill (!!). So then our post food entertainment was to watch the football. I was glad that Paul and Eleanor had come back for that since apparently I cant watch football without making stupid noises and it felt less stupid since she did it too. Then I got to cycle home on Andy Leishman’s bike which is currently living with the boys. It confused me since its not at all like the city bikes, I was missing the back pedal break, I had to stop to work out how to change gear, and I managed to get my jeans caught in the cogs at one point too, but apart from that a successful cycle home.

Sun me and jess cycled into town for more coffee with the boys before heading to the Archipelago fair. The four of us then went for a cycle round some of Djurgärden. That was a lot of fun. Felt like a really childish type thing to do, to be out cycling with friends, but in a really fun way. It just seemed like one of those things that people don’t do anymore, the kind of thing you do at like 10 but not since we’re in a foreign country and had no (responsible) adults with us. So we headed down one side and then me and jess turned back since I had to get to dancing and she wanted to go home. So I cycled to the tube to find that the place I meant to leave the bike was full, so had to keep cycling to find another bike stand. Luckily the next one I headed to had one space so I could sneak in there and jump strait on to the tube to uni. Met Adam and his girlfriend so they could show me the way across to where the Dancing was in a large wooden gazebo. It beautiful. Its this large wooden gazebo in the sunshine in a park next to a lake. Really makes you feel like you’re on holiday. And I managed to dance with a guy who was massively enthusiastic about my spinning particularly and thus span me ridiculously fast. A girl came to talk to me after and garbled excitedly in Swedish before I could tell her I’m English, but apparently she was saying that she really liked the way I span fast and then finished up by sticking my knee up in a kinda random way. I told her it was just cos I had too much momentum and it was the easiest way to stop it, but its cool when people think accidental styling looks good. On the way home I mostly remembered the way back to the tube station. I still had energy at that point and thought about getting off early so I could cycle the rest of the way home but having sat on the tube for more than a few minutes the tiredness kicked in and I almost fell asleep before getting home.

On Monday we decided to be as Swedish as possible. The boys did better by going for a swim in the Baltic but I joined them for the sauna part of the evening. They came to pick me up but I wanted a city bike so Paul offered to go get one so me and James went to find him but took a different route and managed to lose him completely. Which made me laugh. But did mean that while me n James took our bikes to the nearest rack to work, Paul left his in the work garage which meant I had a bike to cycle home on. Unfortunately I was in charge of providing music which didn’t work so well. We discovered that Hugo cant work an ipod – he couldn’t even switch it on, and that I have no music suitable for saunas. But we sat around there for a while anyways. The boys kept making it hotter, which is not always a good thing. But I did come out feeling a lot more relaxed. And then I had a nice cycle home before bed.

Tue was a change of plans night. The initial plan had involved watching Godfather 3 but then I had left work on time since I was starving, and the others all ended up going to the boys house to watch tennis so I mostly lay on the couch.

Wed was again a dancing night. Felt a little weird since everyone (ie Jess and the boys) were at ours to watch Godfather 3 without me when I was heading out for dancing, Met Adam on the way in and also spotted Chris Härm early on. He’s the guy who taught the last class I was at in London just before moving here. So I managed to grab a dance with him as well. He’s a lot of fun to dance with, tho I didn’t feel on top form. Had another couple of dances where I just underperformed for no reason, but did get an ace blues dance in there. Managed to make eye contact with someone who wasn’t dancing at the time, which is kinda bad blues etiquette but oppositely repeated that when he was blues dancing and I wasn’t so I didn’t feel so bad. Danced with a bunch of the usual suspects. And spent a while chatting too. Then at the end I stood and waited for Adam before he pointed out he wasn’t up for a pub trip but that was ok since I was fairly tired and going to bed less late is a good plan, so I got a hug by the tube station and headed on home.

Thu was very much a do nothing kinda day. I had thought about getting up and being useful and doing stuff. But decided after laying on my bed till mid afternoon I should write it off and write a to do list for Friday instead! So that’s what I did! I did notice that the weather was lovely, but I had no idea what to do with the afternoon, and really I didn’t fancy doing anything so I dyed my hair. On the grounds that that had been on my to do list for the weekend!
I did text the boys to see if they were up to anything exciting or planning anything for the evening, but they Paul was writing his book (still!!!) and Hugo was apparently out buying a tent. I did end up going to the boys house in the evening tho to borrow their bike cards for the imminent arrival of ‘my people’! And then curled up in the armchair for a small while, while apparently giving amusing comments on the tennis. I think fashion is important in sport, and that Paul should spend less time looking at tan lines! I also finished the biscuits we’d started the previous week since they’d been sitting on the side since then (and had not gone soft!). But the really amusing thing was that I then walked home and watched the sun set. Or not even really set. Walking down my street at quarter to midnight, the sky was a fairly dark blue, but in the gaps between buildings you could still see the orange as well as a pale blue between the two. Very weird. I do think the sun is going to teach me to not sleep for the next few months or so.

Today (Friday) was my productivity day. I went to the System (which is basically an off-licence) where I stood around wondering if I’d actually ever really bought anything from an off licence before and felt very out of place. Then I carried my winnings there home before going out again, this time to the ever more exciting grocery store. Success all round. Or at least I’m pretty sure I found most of my shopping list. Then I came home, I cooked up a whole load of food waiting to be cooked. And then I read a book. I did look out the window and wonder about taking my book elsewhere but decided it made more sense to just sit on my windowsill since that was fully in the sun, and meant I had running water and snacks at the ready. And then finally because I once more had more time than I was sure what to do with I went for a cycle. The route of which I put in my cycle blog entry. And hopefully will manage to post 2 blog entries! We’ll see… - nope total fail on that.