The American Adventure - Vol 18

1 - 30 November 98

If you want to go straight to Vol 19, you may do so now!

...

The pace of activity started to build up in November as the Christmas crazy period started to draw near and we had some guests arrive. On the weather front, it seemed at the very beginning of the month that it would be getting colder and winter was on the way, but then it started warming up again and it seemed that it might still be a bit warmer than last year. Was it ever. This November was one of the warmest on record with many highest temperature records being broken. The unseasonably warm temperatures led some people to make reference to not only global warming but also to the scheduled disaster at the end of next year. Yep, warm weather in November (and December as well) is a sure sign that a computer led armageddon is on the way. Still it made for a very pleasant November with spring weather that was a joy to be out and about in.

As mentioned in the last chapter, Kajsa made a passing comment about the possibility that maybe, sometime in the future, Tim should consider thinking about buying some golf clubs. This was somehow misconstrued as: go ahead, buy a really expensive set of golf clubs for yourself from me for Christmas.

In his calm methodical way, Tim raced off to look at all the options. He asked around about the possibility of getting some made for him (custom made clubs are not that expensive here as there are quite a few people who make them as a hobby), he looked at what was available in the club-house during a SAGA game and then finally he checked out what you could get on the Internet. He stumbled across a site called SurplusAuction which has on-line auctions for, among other things, sports equipment. He saw that there was some very reasonably priced, good quality stuff available.

He decided to give it a try, putting the absolute minimum bids in on a set of irons, a driver, a lob wedge, a putter and a bag while thinking "Probably I'll get people bidding over me but what the heck, I'll make another bid the next time something comes up." Didn't work that way. Every bid he made came through so he got a full set of clubs plus a bag for about $US900 less than it would have cost from a store. What he saved was more than twice what he paid! Now that is shopping!

Unfortunately he did not get the clubs delivered in time to play with them during the last game of the year and has had to content himself with using the pitching wedges to hit balls down the backyard (after which he normally has to go next door to get back a couple of the less well aimed ones - he needs to get some practice golf balls. This is a good hint for those still searching for that perfect Christmas present for Tim.)

Talking of the last game, it was so cold - so very, very cold. It was probably the coldest day of the season so far and it made the game perfectly miserable. So miserable that there was the occasional blasphemous thought that it might be better to be at work rather than trying to find the stupid ball, which Tim was sure was somewhere under the stupid leaves and, boy, will he be happy when he gets some clubs that work properly!

At the end of the previous month Tim made a short visit to the Baptist Church Day Care Center (sic) that is at the rear of the Embassy. Julia was scheduled to return to Sweden and a Swedish girl who had been interested in coming over six months earlier was no longer able or willing to come (perhaps she had heard too much about us?) He did the walk around and it looked okay for a place in the middle of town and it certainly was close to Tim's work.

Tim had a bit of a concern about the religious programming but apparently they make concessions for a jewish child so we would have been able to work something out. Fortunately it didn't come to that. A girl who looks after the children of Petra's sister in Germany sent us a fax and said that she would be very interested in coming over to work for us until September 1999. We checked out her references and so forth, gave her a call and now have Meike - pronounced like "mica" - as our new au pair (arriving early December). It certainly takes a lot of stress off us as we would have to make major concessions to put Taltarni into a day care centre.

Other than the golf which has been covered sufficienty (oh it was cold), the first event of note was the first Friday night, when we went to see the Clarkes on their last night in the US. The last few people living in this area have stayed at the Embassy Suites in Tysons Corner for their last few days in town. The major benefit of these suites, other than that they are very close to our houses, is that they have a happy hour every night from 5 to 7pm and their happy hours are very happy.

If you are staying there your drinks are free. You can't get much happier than that.

Anyway, Kajsa and Tim went there for a couple of drinks and ended up going home in a taxi at half past one in the morning. After the bar cut off our supply of free alcohol, we went up to Garry and Sheryn's suite and ordered in Chinese. We drank champagne and red wine and by midnight were solving the problems of the world while totally reworking the justice system.

The next day was a big one for Kalle, he headed off to Swedish School while Tim, who had a day off from school, bought the snack for his soccer. At break time, Tim grabbed Kalle and raced off to get to his last game of soccer for the season.

Kids soccer has to be experienced to be believed. There are parents who are spending hundreds of dollars a season to ensure that their kid has a professional coach and then sacking the coach when the team doesn't win all the time. Do these parents have a life?

There has been mention here before of the star players in Kalle's team, one of whom is called Joe. Joe has just turned six and is amazing. He has great skill for his age and the poor kid never gets a rest because the coach keeps him on for the whole game, only resting the mere mortal players. During the game, Tim stood on the sideline (actually the same position he holds when he is playing), watching the game and overheard a conversation that went along the lines of "I'm surprised that Joe sticks with soccer. He's not that good at it." It was Joe's mother speaking. Tim spoke to the other woman later and she was equally surprised at Joe's mother. Either Joe is absolutely phenomenal at other sports or his mother is an extremely hard marker.

As it was the last game, the kids all met later at a nearby park to have pizza. Kajsa had kicked out all the Swedes from the house and made it to the field to see the kids shake hands. Oh well. After the pizza there was a very moving trophy presentation ceremony in which coah Eric handed out a few select trophies to the kids who had excelled on the field (alright, we're lying here, there was one trophy for each child). They did mention, however (and not for the first time) that Kalle is their star dribbler. They have never seen a kid his age dribble so well (warning - you may be experiencing the side effects of parental pride).

Oh, and by the way, did we mention that Kalle kicked a goal?

That afternoon we drove up to Bill and Glenna Hemschrodt's place near Hagerstown. We ate dinner with them, stayed the night and then headed off the next morning to Dutch Country and the quaint old town of Incest (known to most as Intercourse). We had a very pleasant day, just driving around the region, looking at the Amish farms and all the horse drawn carriages.

We stopped in a couple of stores and looked at what was on offer. In one of them they had a special "crying" doll. It seems to be a bit of a thing with the Amish and their dolls. These particular dolls are wearing proper toddler clothes and are posed as if they are leaning against something and crying. Taltarni was really scared by them, most likely because at first she thought that they were real and then when she looked at them she saw that they had no faces. This is another Amish thing. "Thou shalt not make graven images" is taken very seriously. You are not allowed to take photos of the Amish and their dolls have no faces.

We got to see our first covered bridge during the day. Not that exciting really. It is a bridge with a roof on it. The best thing about it is the noise that is made when the hoses go through it. The last thing we looked at before we had to leave to get back home was the Train Hotel and Museum. For the two boys (Bill and Glenna's daughter Tammy and her son came too), this was the most exciting part of the day made even more exciting by our excellent timing. Just as we got there a real live steam train was coming along the tracks just near the hotel. The hotel in itself was pretty amazing and is a place that we will try to stay at some time. Each of the rooms is a railway carriage made up into a long, thin hotel room. The restaurant is, you guessed it, a dining car.

We spent a fair while at the Toy Train Museum which had thousands of toy trains including about 15 or so that had been set up and were running. By the time we left we had seen enough toy trains to last us a lifetime. The next time we visit we will have to go to the real train museum which is just around the corner!

Tim went away the next week for a working trip to Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Minnesota. He was visiting a few companies, namely Sippican, Raytheon and United Defense (sic). He did, however, have a couple of ulterior motives. The first was to ensure that he visited as many states as possible (add Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine and Wisconsin to the list as well) and the second was to make a stop in Salem.

Salem is well worth a visit is one is in Boston. It is particularly interesting to Tim because he is related to one of the women who were hanged as a witch (note that none were burned but Tim is reliably informed that one was pressed to death - didn't that happen in the movie Rosemary's Baby?). Anyway, there is a little area which is a memorial who died in the hysteria in 1692 and Tim visited it. The memorial consists of a stone wall into which are set slab seats which have the names and dates and manner of death of all the victims engraved into them. As far as he knows, this is the only famous relative Tim has (there is the bush-ranger, Harry Wildes, but not many of your everyday people on the street have heard of him).

While in Minneapolis, Tim did something amazing. He went to a shopping mall of his own volition. No nagging, no dragging. Not only did he go to the mall, but he went to the biggest mall in the country, The Mall Of America. The place was huge, absolutely, amazingly, ridiculously huge. So huge, it has a ferris wheel and a roller-coaster and a bunch of other adventure park thingies in there (no Blast Volcano ride though). After a while of walking around thinking, "Wow, this place is huge!", the inherent 'shopping-ness' of the place got to him and he had to leave. He spent the rest of the afternoon at the Swedish-American Institute learning about how the Swedes invaded Minnesota en-masse when they ran out of potatoes sometime last century.

While Tim was off gallivanting, a new friend of Kajsa's, Anna Carin, came over to visit on Kajsa's day off. She brought with her Kalle and Taltarni's new Swedish friends, Johan och Jesper. Anna Carin and Staffan have come over with Staffan's work at a Swedish telecomunications company (Telia). They are fully Swedish (unlike many Swedes here who are married to some form of foreigner) and it is good that Kalle and Taltarni have Swedish speaking children to play with and help maintain their language skills when Julia leaves.

On the Thursday Kajsa was overcome by shopping fever. Twice a year, Kohls holds an Associate Shopping Day. On these days, those who work at Kohls get an additional 15% discount over and above their everyday 10-15% discount. Kajsa had been planning her attack for weeks and went in long and hard. We are now fully stocked up with stuff and should be able to survive on what we have until the next ASD in spring.

Kajsa managed to get voted in as Associate of the Week during the week. (The voting process is not a management thing but rather a jury like peer thing. She was voted as the best performing associate by all the other associates. It should be noted that, despite the name, this is not a weekly thing. There are only eight weeks in the year that they have it so it is quite an honour.) She also got voted in as Wife of the Week (for the 232nd week in a row). She somehow seems to be more impressed with the Associate of the Week award. It may be because she was able to park in the special Associate of the Week carspot during the whole week. Tim may have to make up a sign for the garage.

Tim got back from his trip very late at night and headed off to Swedish School with Kalle first thing in the morning. Now Kalle is a loving and devoted son. He really misses Kajsa when she goes to work each day and he eventually notices when Tim is away for a week (sometimes as early as by Wednesday). You would think that as Tim had been away for a whole week, Kalle would like to spend the afternoon after Swedish School with his pappa. Nope, he wanted to head off with his new friend Johan. Oh well. Taltarni is usually glad to see Tim when she works out who that strange man in the house is. (Actually, Kalle being away did give Tim some time to finish off the last chapter of the American Adventure while Kajsa was at work and Taltarni had a nap.)

Contractor lunches can be a boon and they can be a bane. They are rarely at a time that is convenient and they aren't free, you eat lunch, you have to listen to the pitch and, unlike mass briefings, you can't sit up the back and nod off. Some lunches are more interesting than others (usually due to the person giving the pitch rather than the product). One interesting contractor lunch happened during the next week.

When Tim got in on Monday, Mark Remmers said, "Hold Tuesday free for a briefing, some guy wants to take us out to lunch." Actually, that was not the first thing he said. First he said "New clubs?" A rhetorical question really, as Tim's office was strewn with shreds of cardboard from the unpacking of the golf clubs frenzy. Tim was sitting on the floor, gazing lovingly into the shiny newness of the clubheads. No nicks, no grass stains, no gravel marks from having to hit from the rough, no hairline scratches from that temper tantrum when that tree got in the way.

Anyway, back to the lunch ... some lunch. This guy dragged us down to a restaurant which is controlled if not exactly owned by the wife and mother of a nest of Marines called Max's. We were plied with red wine and then particularly potent coffee (with both scotch and Baileys Irish Cream) and then he showed us around the Army Navy Club, of which he is a member and where he insisted that we have one last drink. Fortunately, by the time he got us back to the office, the day was over because we would have had to write the afternoon off.

The merry afternoon convinced Tim that he should attend the SAGA presentation night that was happening that evening. Each year the Service Attaché's Golf Association has a function at the end of the golfing year to recap on the events and award various prizes. There is also a little bit of drinking involved, as one would expect in an association dominated by Australians and Kiwis (the function was at the New Zealand Embassy).

Towards the end of the night all of the prizes for good players had been handed out, plus all the non-golfing partners had won a prize of some sort (Kajsa didn't as she was working this night). The last announcement was made, that being that all the members of SAGA (note that Tim is one) were to be thanked for their involvement throughout the year and they should look at the ticket they were given when they walked in. On a table over there (the one with a sheet on that everyone had had they eye on during the evening) was a whole heap of presents, all numbered. To show our appreciation, you will find a gift that has a ticket which corresponds with the ticket in your hand and which has been donated by one of our many kind sponsors, thank you and good night.

You beauty, Tim thought. Finally something that he could win (other than the golf balls for playing the worst game in the history of the Association). He went to table and walked slowly down it looking for his number. Hm, must have missed it.

He walked back up the table, looking more carefully. Hm, interesting.

He walked back down the table, this time a little more frantically, picking up things to make sure that they weren't double numbered. Not a sausage.

There was another person doing the same, Dave Wakeling's wife Leanne. Tim commented that this was bloody typical. He couldn't even win a prize when they were giving them away. Finally, Leanne managed to find the ticket that matched Dave's. One minor detail. It was attached to an empty paper bag.

This was the last straw, Tim started getting really upset, loudly proclaiming that he wanted his empty paper bag. Eventually the out-going President came and calmed us both down with a promise that he would sort something out. Tim ended up with a fine umbrella (which is now secured to the side of his brand new bag, sitting in the garage waiting for spring).

Later in the week, Tim and Mark went to Dahgren to watch a gun firing. Very impressive. The gun goes bang. The round leaps out followed by huge ball of flame. (This is not the correct sequence when viewed from a distance of course. At a distance, you see and then you hear and then you feel the gun firing.) The round flies for a while and then splashes in the water. We'll have to get ourselves one!

Kalle was a very proud student on a field trip to River Bend National Park during the week because Kajsa and Taltarni came along for it. The field trip was a sort of preparation for Thanksgiving with the children learning all about the Indians who used to live in the region. They learned about how the Indians lived, how they made bows and arrows, how they made ropes and other useful stuff. Oh and just a useful piece of information that we might not have passed on, the forest around here looks absolutely nothing like the forest in "Pocahontas". We did see a hummingbird once though.

Towards the end of the month, Kajsa's work got more and more intense leading up to Black Friday. While the Friday after Thanksgiving is, according to the paper, no longer the biggest day of the year for sales (although the replacement was not specified), it is still a day to be dreaded by sales staff. There is a lot of preparation to be done and the actual day is a nightmare. So, Kajsa has been keeping herself very busy, even on the week days that she is free when she usually visits or is visited by one of the girlies (Petra, Cecilia or Anna Carin).

On the days when Kajsa is not working, visiting or being visited, she manages to keep herself busy in other ways. Going off on field trips, for example. Baking as another. Not that she has become the average '50s housewife, just that the holiday season is coming up. Swedish tradition mandates that you do a lot of baking at this time and Kajsa was just complying with her cultural imperatives. In other words there was lots of baking, lots of mess and one very grumpy Kajsa that Tim and the kids tried to keep clear of.

One day when she probably wished she went visiting rather than keeping herself busy in other ways was the following Monday. We were expecting the arrival of Fran and Steve Beaumont and their son Ethan the next day and so she thought it necessary to continue on the frenzy of cleaning from the weekend (this process is designed to ensure that the arriving guest immediately feels guilty about making a mess). The frenzy of cleaning on this particular day involved the cars.

As the weather was beautiful, Kajsa was reversing the cars out of the garage onto the drive and cleaning them there. There was one little problem. We two cars, Rusty the station- (or estate-) wagon and Baldrick the little Black Bomb, which is a sedan (the first that Tim has owned). Now there is something odd about Rusty from a historical perspective but quite common from the US perspective. Rusty is an automatic (the first that Tim and Kajsa have owned). You sort of get used to an automatic when you drive one too often and sometimes you get surprised by it if you have driven a manual too often. The reverse of course is true.

When you get in an automatic and start it, you don't need to do anything other than turn the key. This is completely different to being in a manual. In a manual, you have to depress the clutch before you turn the key. Now before we go on to the almost obvious conclusion to this tale, it may help to give a bit of a run down of what is in the garage.

Most importantly, there is Rusty and Baldrick. Baldrick is Kajsa's little black car (her definition) and it sits closest to the door into the house. Rusty is the workhorse and he sits on the outer. Just out from the door into the laundry is the deep freezer and then there is this flimsy chipboard cupboard. Arrayed around the periphery of the garage is a multitude of shelves and things hanging off the wall. Coming all the way around back to the door and looking in the other direction sits Tim's pride and joy (his set of golf clubs which is next to the only things left of Wolfgang, that is his tyres). There are bikes, ride on tractors, roller-blades, a mower and a few things in plastic scattered all over the place.

Most of the things in the garage we own. The one thing that we don't own is the flimsy chipboard cupboard. Back to the car ...

If you jump in a manual and turn the key without depressing the clutch, the car will try to lurch forward. If you have done the right thing (in preparation for doing a stupid thing) and engaged the hand-brake, the attempt to lurch forward will be largely unsuccessful. If you haven't prepared, the car will indeed lurch forward and smash into whatever is in front of the car. Like a flimsy chipboard cupboard, for instance.

Fortunately, the Baldrick did not lurch forward enough to reach the cupboard. Unfortunately, Kajsa had left the door of the cupboard open so the lurch was sufficient for Baldrick to reach it and snap the door hinges out of their sockets (a very strange wood working arrangement). Absolutely no damage to Baldrick.

Tim was greeted that night by a very remorseful Kajsa who greeted him with a "I've done a very silly thing." She then went through a very involved explanation of what she was doing, about how she was putting one car out and then putting the other car out. Tim had this horrible sinking feeling. He was starting to be convinced that Kajsa had done the worst thing you can do if you own two cars - drive one car into the other car. This may have been a deliberate ploy because when they had gone out and stood in the garage for a while, surveying the damage, Tim was glad that there wasn't more damage.

After a while of standing looking at the door and reminiscing about how terrible his woodwork skills are, Tim idly wondered whether they could pull off blaming the landlord for the door falling off. You know, along the lines of "We were just standing there and the door of your flimsy chipboard cupboard fell off and hit the car. Scared the life out of us, but we were just happy that it didn't fall on one of the children."

Kajsa concluded that she is substantially overendowed in the honesty department so Tim had to resort to trying to fix the problem his self. During the next few days, while Fran and Steve were here, our guests were confronted every day by the cupboard door lying on the garage floor with tins of paint on it as Tim used ever increasing quantities of woodglue to try to get the hinges to stay in position. Eventually he basically smothered so much glue on the door and the hinges that the whole thing turned into a solid block. After a couple of days of paint tin enhanced drying, the door was good as new. Another sterling effort from Fixit Man.

The day after Kajsa's little embarassment was the day of Kalle's Thanksgiving dinner at school (actually it was lunch but these terms are variable). Parents were requested to provide something and invited to attend. They weren't actually invited to eat with the kids, just to go along to see them dressed up as either Indians or Pilgrims (only Mrs Olms, Kalle's teacher, got to dress as a turkey).

Basically, the story of Thanksgiving is that the Pilgrims were suffering from a couple of bad years and did not have enough to eat. At least not enough of what they knew they could eat. The Indians helped out by showing the Pilgrims that you could eat corn, yams and turkey. This allowed the Pilgrims to recover and get well enough to repay the Indians by slaughtering them in the thousands and stealing their land from them. Imagine Arnold Swartzenegger pushing away from the table, "Thanks. ..... I'll be back." Strange customs they have over here.

After we were thrown out, "Will all the salivating parents please leave now", Kajsa went off to work (notice a trend here) and Tim went to pick up Fran, Steve and Ethan from the airport. He took them on a little tour of the surrounding area and cooked them dinner after which the boys sat up to watch The Lost World while Fran collapsed into bed.

The Beaumont clan accompanied us to Thanksgiving on Thursday. We had been invited to the Hemschrodt extended family do at Tammy's house and our guests were their guests. It was really nice to spend Thanksgiving in a family atmosphere and it seems that that is really what the celebration of Thanksgiving is really all about now, notwithstanding the sales and the football games. The meal was similar to an English Christmas dinner in that turkey was the centrepiece and there was lots and lots of it. By the time we left at six we were stuffed full!

The next day we planed to go to National Air and Space Museum in the morning (Kajsa was working in the afternoon, it being Black Friday). As there was a lot of dithering going on, Tim decided that there was enough time to try to get the door to the flimsy chipboard cupboard back up. Unfortunately, it was little awkward to get it up by himself so he had to do something very unusual. He asked Steve for some help. Even with the two of them is was a bit of effort but, after a while the door was back up and it looked brand spanking new. Tim related the story of how Kajsa had driven the car into the door and Steve thought that it was very amusing.

Eventually everyone was ready to go. As Kajsa had to get back to go to work, we took both cars, with the Wevel-Pyatts in Rusty and the Beaumonts in Baldrick. You would think that this would have been a very easy decision to make. You know, one family in one car and the other in the other. This was not to be the case. As Kajsa always says: If something is worth doing, it is worth doing in the most complicated was possible. So ... there was about a quarter of an hour of negotiation in which Steve and Kajsa tried to work out who would be in which car, whether Kajsa should drive Baldrick or whether Steve should. Finally, through some arcane series of posturing, the issue was resolved. Steve would drive Baldrick.

The making of a firm(ish) decision did not bring a conclusion to the Beaumonts' dithering, so Tim drove Rusty out onto the street to wait for them. As this was all of two minutes after having made a decision, Kajsa was still heavily in rationalisation mode. Some husbands may recognise the symptoms. Oh, no, I made a decision and now I have to replay the whole thing again (and again) to see if it was the right decision. Oh, they haven't come out of the garage yet, perhaps I should have driven Baldrick, they don't know the area or the car (actually they had driven the car two days before with no problem). Tim's attitude is make the decision and see what happens. Learn from it if it doesn't work and make a different decision next time.

Anyway, after a short while, Fran got out of Baldrick and was walking towards the car. Kajsa, still wracked with guilt having forced Steve into complying with a bad decision, leapt out of the car and talked with her. Kajsa came back to Rusty popped her head in and said, "You'll never guess what they've done!"

While Tim was acting as a sounding board for Kajsa while she agonised vis á vis her decision, Steve had managed to jump into Baldrick, disengage the handbrake, throw the key in the ignition and turn it - all without depressing the clutch. Baldrick, having already had one go at the flimsy chipboard cupboard saw his chance to finish the job and took it. This time, as Tim and Steve had only just put the door on, the door was closed so Baldrick had to travel further. With Steve's unwitting assistance, Baldrick was able to leap forward much further, with more speed and force and make much more damage than before. This time he actually managed to break the door into two pieces in addition to shearing it off its hinges.

Tim came and had a quick look at what had happened. He was amazingly calm for someone who was looking at the shattered remains of something that he had lovingly fininshed mending a mere five minutes earlier. A couple of positive things were that the Beaumonts were fine and Baldrick looked entirely undamaged. Steve just looked very sheepish. Tim's only comment when he got back to the car was, "With the benefit of hindsight, I would have to concur with you, Kajsa. You did indeed make a bad decision." A short while later, we managed to get onto the road and Steve was safely following us into town. Very, very, very safely.

Hawaiian driving must be very different to Washington driving. In Washington, if there is a gap between cars which is only slightly smaller than a car length, this is seen as an invitation to have someone cut in. In Hawaii, if Steve's driving is anything to go by, if the driver in front can still see a car behind it without using binoculars, then the following car is tailgating. Tim muttered to himself about possibly having to stop and point out the difference between the brake and the accelerator as they pulled away from the tollbooth and numerous cars got inbetween our car and theirs. He must have been muttering aloud because a few minutes later Kalle piped up from the back, "Do you need to give Steve a driving lesson?" Well .....

When we got into town, we parked at the Embassy. Kajsa and the kids went with the Beaumonts to the Museum while Tim went up to the office to print out some Christmas cards. We all met up shortly after midday at the Museum, had some hotdogs and we (the Wevel-Pyatts) headed home. When we got home we were able to take a closer look at the garage. First we noted that there was a big gap now between the wall and the floor. There is a false wall and our first suspicion was that this false wall had been bent in by the force of the cupboard being crushed by an unguided car.

A short while later the real story became obvious.

The back of the garage can be seen from the window above the kitchen sink. After lunch, Tim was rinsing some plates and he happened to look out this window. The whole wall of the garage was bowed outwards in a sort of muted flimsy chipboard cupboard shape and there was a small pile of cement which had fallen out from between the foundation breezeblocks which had been dislodged.

The garage wall consists of a wooden frame built on a foundation of a few layers of breezeblocks. There is a false wall on the inside (which now has a distinct cupboard shaped impression in it) and a outcover which consists of layers of plastic sheeting (which simulate weatherboards). Tim and Steve spent a productive hour that evening, bashing the breezeblocks and the wooden frame back into position and trying to bend the false wall back so that it could be nailed back onto the frame. Steve was incredibly optimistic and thought that there was a vague chance that the cupboard could be saved, there was even a short period of thinking about a "It just fell apart by itself!" scenario but the glue is a bit of a giveaway. So, we emptied the cupboard and decided that we would just have to get a replacement - one that is at least large enough to hide the big dent in the false wall.

While working on the wall, Tim came to the conclusion that Baldrick needs a minor modification to his name. Now rather than "Baldrick the Black Bomb", the black car (as Kalle calls it, Rusty - who is just called plain old "Rusty" - is the brown car) is known as "Baldrick the Battering Ram". Wanna go through a wall or destroy a cupboard, then Baldrick is the car for the job.

The last weekend wasn't that busy. It was very warm (so much so that shorts were brought out of storage) and very pleasant to be outside. Steve and Fran got to experience Swedish Preschool. We bought and put up Christmas lights. This was a great success with the kids who want to go outside every evening and look at them, Taltarni saying "Wow!" over and over. On Saturday we just did the bushes but on Sunday we got adventurous and did the tree in the front yard. This evolution called for Tim to climb the tree and Steve to climb the ladder and pass Tim the lights. Very scary stuff for old people like us. Tim can remember climbing trees when he was younger and although he has climbed much higher, never has it been as awkward and difficult as climbing this tree was. Perhaps it had something to do with being a bit older and less flexible. (And more sensible?) The oddest thing was that his legs hurt in strange places the next day!

Fran and Steve cooked up a lamb roast for dinner. Tim and Steve combined forces to make a simply delicious gravy. For those budding chefs out there, here is the recipe:

Slice some mushrooms.

Fry mushrooms in butter.

Take the oil from the roasted meat and heat it in a small saucepan.

Mix in a teaspoon of corn starch (or corn flour).

Bring to boil.

Notice that mixture is not thickening.

Put in another teaspoon of corn starch.

Notice that mixture is still not thickening.

Try another teaspoon full.

Still not thickening, how much of this bloody corn starch do you need to put in?

Decide that what you need is milk.

Pour in a little milk.

Aha, something is happening.

Remember that you need stock.

Race around putting some chicken stock into to hot water.

Pour a little stock into boiling fat and corn starch.

Notice that what should be gravy has now turned into a glutinous mass.

Try pouring in some red wine. Yep, it is now a purple glutinous mass.

Take glutinous mass from the heat.

Drink some of the red wine.

Seive out the mushrooms and keep a little of the glutinous mass, throw the rest away.

Drink a little more of the red wine. Ignore wives who are asking when the gravy will be ready.

Get more fat from roast, mix in with glutinous mass, recovered mushrooms, a little wine and the rest of the stock.

Heat until it reaches the required consistency (actually, it may be a good idea to hang onto the glutinous mass until you finish this step).

Pour into gravy bowl and serve.

Believe it or not, the gravy was excellent. Just make sure if you try to make it you follow the recipe closely. The lamb was good too, the first lamb roast we've had in a long time!

Tim flew to New Orleans on the last day of the month. For the sake of narrative continuity, what he did there is covered in the next chapter. Kajsa worked.