Today we've been on the lookout for the bacopas and we actually found them quite easily at a garden centre nearby. We bought three of them, have planted them in the pots on the balcony and it really looks the way we envisioned it. Perfect!

Otherwise it has been a pretty good day, but I feel rather tired and a bit sad without any real reason. Perhaps it's just time for a nice hot bath.

Today T. and I began transforming the boring winter balcony into a greener and more Spring-like version of itself. Most of the job will be done in late May, when we receive all the new herbs from T.'s sister, but we really wanted to do a few things now to brighten things up. We planted these white Saxifragas first in the hope that they will like it here on our balcony and then we planted some lettuce seeds as well.

Last year we had planted six bacopas that grew tremendously and were in bloom all summer. It would be great if we were able to find three of those again.

It has been a beautiful day here with only occasional clouds, although it has been snowing in other parts of the country. It has been a bit more cloudy in other regards, however. My dad went into hospital with chest pains a few days ago and today a coronarangiography was performed on him in which they found four stenoses in the coronary arteries, of which the doctors have removed two today.

Apparently it was really bad, almost to the point when they had to send him to a larger hospital for specialist care, since it was so difficult to remove them. It's a bit weird too, because my father has had a sore shoulder for a while now and the doctors haven't been able to find the reason for it, but during the procedure today the pain in his shoulder became acute and it seems as if it is indeed the stenoses that have caused the pain. Yet another coronarangiography will be performed on him at some point next week when the doctors intend to remove the last two stenoses, but after that I really hope he will be able to return home in a far better condition.

We finally decided on what car we want and what features we want it to have. The photo above is fairly accurate with only a few alterations. It's a Skoda Superb diesel sedan with 170 HP, cream leather inside and lots of space for the children as well as ourselves. We will have it in about two months' time, around Midsummer, and I think it will suit us perfectly.

Image from linker.

I was supposed to travel for work this afternoon, but late yesterday I received an e-mail cancelling the meeting and the reason was of course the huge ash plume from the erupting Eyjafjallajökull. Personally I wouldn't have had any problems reaching my destination since I was to go by train — a 7-hour journey — but some of the other participants would have had more problems with cancelled flights.

It's a bit strange to see how vulnerable our society is and how much we have learned to take for granted in terms of travelling. Who knows... some of these things we might have to try to find alternatives for.

Images from The Daily Mail.

We have been baking a lot lately. I made a blueberry pie yesterday which turned out excellent, and a potato, leek and cheese pie which we will have for dinner today together with some pork fillet. I'm sure it will taste nice as well.

We also decided to start looking for a baking stone on which to bake homemade pizzas and bread, but while googling for it we came across a suggestion to use a large floor tile instead since this apparently would work just as well. We decided to try it out, went straight to Jem & Fix, found and bought a granite floor tile and went home to clean it thoroughly and make some naan bread in the oven. We were definitely pleasantly surprised as we saw the absolutely perfect result. It indeed seems to work just as well as a proper baking stone and on top of it all it is much less expensive. Subsequently we're now on the lookout for a wooden bannock spade and this one from Lyckas med mat just might work. We'll see...

A necessary evil for some, I'm sure, but it wasn't that bad for me today. A simple electronic signature and I was done. It has been a great day in other ways as well. I managed to get a work project up and running and the weather has been great. We have also Spring-cleaned our balcony and we are really looking forward to spending more time there soon.

These photos is a collage of several photos I have taken in the last week or so. The budding tree to the right is our own apple tree which seems to like its place on our balcony. Most of the other images were taken in the garden of T.'s mother and father and I have to say that being able to take photos of new flowers makes me very happy. Spring... at last!

Following a recipe given to me by T.'s sister I baked a wonderful cake yesterday. The children as well as T. and myself have all been eating happily. T. was especially happy when he found out that the cake worked really well together with the raspberry sorbet he had made. Thank you so much for the recipe, S.!

UPDATE:
Ingredients: 125 g melted butter, 400 g sugar, 400 g flour, 4 teaspoons cinnamon, 2 teaspoons sodium bicarbonate, 1/2 litre milk. Whisk the melted butter and sugar and add milk. Then add the rest of the ingredients. Pour the batter into a pan (size 23x33 cm) and bake in the oven (200°C) for about 30 min. Let it cool slightly. Then whisk 50 g of melted butter, 250 g powdered sugar, 2 teaspoons vanilla powder, 1 tablespoon cacao powder together with 4 tablespoons of hot coffee. Pour it on top of the cake and let it set. Done!

We are discussing buying a new car and this 2010 Skoda Superb is at the top of our list at the moment. The colour is called black magic, but otherwise I don't think there is much voodoo-like things going on in this case. We have test-driven it twice, really liked what we've seen and it just seems to be a really nice, extremely roomy car, which seems to be perfect for our family.

No decisions have been made yet. We'll see.

The entire family is back home again after the Easter break and it feels quite nice.

Easter was amazing, though. Good food, good company and lots of interesting things to talk about. And travelling. Yesterday we were in Germany, yesterday evening and this morning in Denmark, and right now we're in Sweden. Well, well... that's the way it is at times.

Since we're travelling so much, we're also discussing buying a new car, but we haven't made our minds up yet. I'm sure I will blog about it a bit more later on.