Easter break

Survived another Easter, mostly intact. As with most of our holidays, it's nice to get back to work for a rest. Always fun, but always something to do. Friday we spent at the stables. Saturday we went to IKEA. Sunday was back at the stables. Sunday night was dinner with my mother in law. Monday I managed to avoid the stables but spent a few hours scratching my head over our IKEA purchases. It might not have been exciting, but it was all go.

Easter is about the only major holiday which sort of lines up with Southern Hemisphere holidays in terms of activities. In New Zealand it signals the ending of summer, so it's the last big chance for people to head off camping etc. In Sweden it's the unofficial kick-off of the summer season, and everyone is either out walking or off to their cabins. Either way, people are often away from home. The other main holiday times, Christmas and Mid Summer see opposite activities in the two hemispheres. So Easter feels kind of normal.

We had a major breakthrough at IKEA on Saturday. After what seems like forever, we have finally purchased enough stuff to actually start building our kitchen. There's still a couple of doors to decide on, but we are going to wait until all the cabinets are in place before making a final call on those. But now we have bought a new floor, all our cabinets, new wallpaper, new lighting, and a new benchtop. The kitchen benchtop has taken the longest to decide on. We had it narrowed down to two different types and in the end we pretty much tossed a coin. How bad can it be ? Being Easter, and also being "Pay Week", we were a bit hesitant to drive up to IKEA. We both hate the crowds there. However, we managed to time it pretty well, arriving about 90 minutes before closing time, by which time most people had already headed home. At a guess I would say that the IKEA car park holds around 500 cars. When we came out of the store, our car was one of about 10 cars left. If you take our indecisiveness out of the equation, it was actually quite a nice trip.

The weather has certainly picked up of late. Fingers crossed that it stays that way for the next few weeks. Having plus degrees during the day has gotten rid of most of the snow from the roads and footpaths. Unfortunately it is still dropping to below freezing at night which means that any melted snow that hasn't quite disappeared makes for a bit of a skating rink ealy the next morning. If it could just warm up a couple of degrees at night then everything would be sweet.

Daylight saving time also kicked in on Sunday. Unfortunately for us, it didn't kick in until after lunchtime at our house. Which meant that, instead of having a nice cruisy day, we were suddenly in panic statiosn to get everything finished before heading over to my mother in law for dinner. Still, at least we remembered before arriving an hour late. It was already pretty light in the mornings, but it will be nice to have the daylight extended a little more in the evenings. It always amazes me how quickly the daylight changes here. Only a couple of months back it was still dark at 9am, now it's daylight from 5am. The changes are far more dramatic then they were in NZ and probably why the seasonal changes have a greater significance for people here.