23-year-old architect student and pianist/singer/songwriter Anna von Hausswolff is a very nice new acquaintance. A wonderful voice, dramatic and thoughtprovoking music and intelligent lyrics. Reviewers have written very nice things about this young woman and I would say she deserves it all. Her debut album, Singing from the grave, is a treat.

I've checked out Anders Lundberg's work at Personlig almanacka now and then for a while now and I've always felt like creating my "own" calendar, but somehow I haven't got around to do it until now. What is different this time is that I am now able to upload my own image as a background, which enables me to make it even more personal.

The one in beige with straws in the middle is my own creation. I'm quite happy with it and look forward to receiving it. Now I will be able to keep tab of everything.

When we were in Germany a few days ago, we decided to buy a few more bottles of what has become our own "house wine," the Argentinian Piropo from Argento Wine Company. The word piropo means "an amorous compliment or flirtatious remark made by a man to a woman as she passes on the street" according to the text on the bottle. The wine itself is said to share and inspire the fantasy and confidence of a piropo.

So far we've only tested the Malbec version — and it's certainly very nicely rounded and almost chocolaty — and we've also bought the white Chardonnay and intend to taste that too — very soon.

T.'s grandmother was kind enough to lend us the first six episodes of the Danish TV-series Matador, which is set in a small Danish town in the years between 1929 and 1947. Amazing actors, believable sceneries, interesting characters, and thought-provoking stories with the two families Skjern and Varnæs at the centre, have made Matador the most popular TV-series ever in Denmark and it has been shown in Sweden on several occasions as well, although I've never seen it before myself. I realize I should have. I really enjoy watching it — we've seen all six episodes in only two days — and I very much look forward to watching the remaining eighteen episodes as well.

Images from Filmzonen.

The summer holiday is over and it's time to start waking up early again. The problem is that we really need a new clock radio since our old one barely shows what time it is anymore and gives of scratchy sounds at best.

When searching for a new one I became rather sad to see all the boring or outright ugly ones out there and it took quite some time to find a handful that looked a bit nicer. These can be found in the following places: Kjell, iphonebutiken, Gifts with style, Sony, Teknikmagasinet, and Ljudmakarn. The question remains, however, why do clock radios have to be so ugly?

The blisters I received while walking the streets of Paris made certain people suggest a new pair of sandals. A bit too late, but nonetheless, today I bought a new pair of Ecco shoes and the difference is huge, actually. I do wish I had had them a bit earlier.

Next time. We'd better get back to Paris again soon.

We just got back from a wonderful few days in Paris (in which we had no Internet access at all). Instead we walked around to a point when my feet had far too many blisters, but we managed to see quite a lot indeed. T.'s parents and his sister and brother-in-law were in Paris for the first time and they had put together a long list of places and sights they would like to see and we managed to visit most of them. Apart from going to places such as the Eiffel tower, the Champs Élysées, the Tuileries, le Grande Arche, the Notre Dame, and the Montmartre and several other places within the borders of Paris, we also went to the Versailles and Claude Monet's house in Giverny by the river Seine.

Feeling very welcome in our rented house in the beautiful village Bougival to the west of Paris, and receiving a lot of help with my father-in-law's electric wheelchair both on the train and the RER, we realized that the Paris area is filled with so many kind, wonderful and helpful people. Merci, merci beaucoup à tous! We left Paris immensely touched as well as grateful. We very much look forward to returning some time soon.

I've been working a lot since we got back from our last vacation and today I managed to finish the task I've been working on since June. It feels great and the timing is pretty good as well. On Monday, we'll be leaving for Paris!

Last weekend we took some time off, however, and drove to an island about an hour's drive away. The weather was really nice and even the sheep seemed happy. We managed to find a number of old, really interesting Viking graves as well. It was an amazing day. Let's hope we'll have a really good time in Paris too.