This thursday was the first day I went outside for almost a week. I've been totally knocked out by this cold, but now I'm feeling almost like normal again (well, what is normal, really?).
So, on thursday I took my camera, put on a vintage lens that David bought on a fleamarket a while ago, and walked out in spring ready to capture the day.
I took photos the entire day so you get to tag along.

Outside the door! Fresh air! New socks! READY!

Spring really took it's time this year, but during my week inside it finally arrived -complete with bursting buds and tiny leaves.

This was my destination for the morning. An italian café close to where I live.

They sell italian icecream that looks AMAZING but I was there for breakfast this time.

My date Ida. Since she's a freelance journalist and gets to plan her schedule herself and I work evenings and weekends we have started a tradition of meeting up for breakfast regularly. Our previous favorite breakfast place turned out to have really bad staff regulations so now we are on the lookout for a new favourite place in the neighbourhood. It's hard because there are not too many cafe's to choose from and the ones there are don't qualify for all our high demands.
It needs to be cozy enough to sit there for a couple of hours.
They must have a toilet (because we want to sit there for hours).
They need to serve breakfast.
We haven't yet found our new place.

She is a cutie pie.

After our breakfast date we said goodbye for today and I had some errands to do in the shops.

Little old ladies with red berets were enjoying the spring.

Dandelions! Sure sign of spring.

At Olskrokstorget (the town square I live close to) the flowers were newly planted.

Went to the fruit shop. Fruit is my biggest addiction after tea. I just love to walk around in fruit stores, look at the different kinds of fruit they have for the day, pick the most beautiful, exotic, tasty, lovely smelling ones and leave the store with far too much fruit for one person.
I just can't restrain myself when it comes to fruit. Guess there are worse kinds of addictions though...

Look how pretty! Fresh herbs and oranges. Sounds like a name of a restaurant, doesn't it?

Compulsory elevator pic.

Camera hand.
Love this.

I like to ring the door bell when I know David is home because I love to see his face in the doorway when he opens for me. I mean, look at him! The sweetest.

We got mail.
Important mail.
The application for our marriage!
We are good to go, apparently not related in any way and not already married with somebody else. Good.

I celebrated by choosing my bridal couple teacup.

I needed some help from David with the computer program. Took pictures of his nice hands.

And silly self portraits where the camera lens looks like it is a mouth. A very surprised mouth.

And still life of jewelry in my window sill waiting to be photographed for my shop.

And the ever pretty seed pods from South Africa.

Worked for hours.

Many receipts to look through.

When I was finished it was high time for food!
David made pizza.

I took care of the dishes.

Garnished and ready for the oven.
It was so tasty!

While we waited for the pizza to be ready I entertained myself with taking photos of things around the kithen. Like basil.

And an avocado sputnik.
See the decanter? Remember?

The evening was very still (I was so tired after my first adventurous day since before the stupid cold). Probably it involved listening to music, reading blogs, watching Buffy the vampire slayer and almost falling asleep on the couch.

Last thursday I spent a few hours in the park Trädgårdsföreningen with my sister and niece who was in Gothenburg over the week.
I love Trädgårsdföreningen, I know I go on and on about it, and this was my first visit there for this year. It was sunny and lovely and it was good I brought my camera with me. I'll show you.

My standard Trädgårdsföreningen picture. First one with snow I think. Last year spring came a lot earlier. See this post from march 24. It was so warm for the season and now it's the other way around.

After some fika we went to Palmhuset (Palm house) to enjoy some nice weather. I love greenhouses!
They had made the garden even prettier with crocheted fantasy fruits and flowers hanging from the trees. Beautiful!

The statue was covered in frogs. I love this statue, it's so sweet.

In the water house the pond is covered with green.

Sunshine through leaves must be one of the best things in the world.

My niece Hilda wanted to dive into the pond. She was hanging like this for quite some time.

It was not very popular when we decided it was enough with the water room...

Reflections on the pond. Water, roof, glass, plants. Lovely shapes.

Tiny leaves huddling together.

It was a jungle!

Tiny person climbing the stairs, little hands taking support from a brick wall.

View from above.

I found a hidden message.

Hilda found another pond.

Enthusiastic.

Don't usually like to edit my photos like this but that red jacket just screamed to me to try. What do you think?
I kind of like it but I think I still like the full colours better.

On the tram, on our way back. She is one cute little person.

Look how she's posing! Haha!

Today I'm off from work. I've got lots to do with my own business so I'd better get to it now.
Hope you have a lovely first day of the week. Mondays aren't so bad when you've been working the weekend.

On sunday David and I drove forty minutes from San José and ended up in a little beach town called Capitola. We were going to meet up with Jillian, a friend of mine who I've met through Etsy. She lives close by and she had told us the day before that she knew a nice breakfast place we needed to visit.

This was the place. Zelda's!

I had coffee. Of sorts.
Also ate some lovely breakfast food but was way too hungry to have the time to photograph it.

The beach view through the window and through the big mirror covering one wall.

After we ate we went for a stroll down the beach.

Surfers were laying low in the glistening water. Not many waves to be seen.

Turned around and walked back towards the town.

I call this one "Little girl with blue bucket and seagull".

I really really REALLY want one of these colourful houses. Any one of them will do. But especially the aqua blue one. Or the peach colured. Or the bright yellow. Or any of them really.

Bay and bridge behind a bridge.
I told Jillian that we don't really have wooden bridges like this in Sweden but since we grow up with american movies we've seen lots of them on films. Kind of weird that we know so much about american culture without ever having experienced it first hand that when we're finally here it's like "Yeah, I know about that restaurant" and "Yes, I've seen this place before. On film."

So pretty! I could definitely see myself living here. Yep.

Cute house!
Another thing that's really different from Sweden is the size of the streets. Even in a small town like Capitola the streets are so much wider than they are in Sweden. To us it sort of looks like a miniature town with tiny toy houses along the large streets. Like the entire place is just a pretty movie set.
Americans should come and see the teeny tiny streets in some villages in Österlen, Skåne. Their big cars wouldn't even be able to squeeze in.

Like sand castles for humans!

We walked under the wooden bridge. Such a cool structure.

Isn't Blue Gum Avenue the best name for a street!?!

We found an antique shop!

It was a lovely shop with millions of things everywhere. The lady who owned the place talked non stop about old customers from all over the world, about the history of different items and the reasons people have for collecting things. She was really nice and she let me take photographs in there because I asked nicely before. Usually she doesn't allow it.

Then we had to walk back to the car and say goodbye to Jillian. It was a really great day and it's so sad that Capitola is such a long way from Sweden because I would have loved to have breakfast with Jillian at Zelda's every sunday.

Last sunday I went to Malmö to spend a few days there with some friends. We have a tradition of watching the Oscars together every year. Everybody guesses who's going to win what and then we are up the entire night eating cookies, drinking coffee and sees who guessed the best. It was 6.30 in the morning when it was over and we could go to sleep.

This was more or less all that happened on monday.

Jonas and Aili and Rambo.

Tjock-Tove wanted to hang out too.
Aaaah, perfect family photo.

On monday evening I met up with my friend Tofu (Yeah, yeah her name is Tove but not on my blog, here her name is Tofu). We went to a pub called Tröls and had beer and hamburgers. I love the lamps in the ceiling and the whole atmosphere there.
Tofu and I went to the same school once and lived in the same house one of the two years there.
After some talking we realised it's already over ten years ago! Oh, no! We're all grown up now!

Hello Tofu!

No, that's not entirely right...

Tadaa!

THIS is Tofu!

On tuesday it was time for me to take the train back to Gothenburg again but before that I had a date with Sambon (Yeah, yeah, her name is Lisa, bla bla bla...) We went to Hollandia and had a shrimp sandwich and talked a lot about drama drama drama, writing, love and everything in between.

At one time me and Sambon lived together. That was in England when the millenium was all fresh and new and we cleaned the rooms at a hotel from the 1400's and had a shower in our room that didn't work but smelled of old cheese instead.
But that's another story.