I woke up this morning to the melodious sound of the builders drilling in the apartment above us. At 6.45a.m.??? Yes, I am feeling somewhat cantankerous and petulant (not to mention other words you might find listed here). But that is not only because of the interrupted sleep. It seems that despite the fact that I last picked up a tennis racquet in 1970 or there abouts, I have developed tennis elbow. It is incredibly painful and I feel quite handicapped as anything I do with my left hand (and yes, I am left-handed) causes it to throb and ache.

I have been trying to convince Lars-Göran that I cannot possibly do any work of any kind for the next six weeks and that need to simply lie on the couch being waited on hand and foot. However, he's been living with me too long, so he wised up to that attempted scam pretty quickly. So it's painkillers, rest and deep heat for me instead. I thought it was worth a try anyway. The pain does restrict my ability to use the computer and I am trying to type this with one hand. Do you notice the difference?

Today’s ill-humour also may or may not have stemmed from last night’s disastrous attempt to wax my own legs, but that’s another story altogether - and one that no one wants to hear. I usually shave, but I've been less than conscientious about the old legs lately, what with living on the boat and the subzero temperatures (allowing one to conveniently hide inside leggings), so I decided that there was definitely enough foilage in the jungle for waxing. If I look closely enough, I can see little giraffe heads peering above the canopy.

So while Lars-Göran went out to his board meeting last night, I thought I'd have a go. Let’s just say it involved pain, blood curdling screaming, stepping on a wax strip and giving up half way in order to weep in the bath while I roughly ran a BIC Lady Shaver over the remaining patches of old growth forest. Let us never speak of this again.

It's not all doom and gloom, though. Even if the weather is dismal, wet and grey, there is a welcome splash of colour around town as everything is decked out for Christmas. There is a contest running in centrum at the moment asking us to vote for the shop that has the best Christmas window display. There is a huge variety in the way they are decorated and I enjoy peeping in and seeing what everyone has done. They range from the very minimalist plain silver shop fronts right up to the flashing lights and tinsel overload windows that cause Lars-Göran to shudder. The one that instantly appealed to me was at the Eurosko shoe shop:



I can't think of why I thought this one was the best...

I guess we'll find out later in the week which shop was voted the best. I'm always interested in seeing what it is that appeals to people.

On Tuesday night, my dear husband was scanning one of his favourite Swedish buying and selling sites (Blocket) and he noticed some people selling tickets to this Sunday's concert by Andrea Bocelli in Stockholm. We had discussed going to see this earlier in the month, but decided we didn't want to shell out so much money to see him at Globen Arena. Globen is a rather startling looking space age structure dominating the southern approach to the city. I see it from my train window as we cross over Åstabron and pass it each time we drive into town along väg 73.



It's a bit of a soulless place as many of this "entertainment centres" are and I tend to associate it with things like ice hockey matches or the Monster Trucks etc. rather than as a venue for a Bocelli concert. If I was going to pay 1,000kr for a ticket, I'd like to be sitting in the beautiful and elegant concert house or opera house instead. But I do understand that tours like this are about "bums on seats", so these mega-venues are often the chosen locale.

Anyway, a woman on the west coast was selling off her A-section tickets for under half price. We checked it all out, she gave us the booking number and yesterday I popped into Ticnet in central station and picked up two tickets in row 13 for 960kr. These will be an early Christmas present for us, so on Sunday we will drop Lambi off with one of the kids and spend the evening enjoying the warm, expressive voice of Andrea Bocelli.

And with snow forecast for the weekend as well, life is looking pretty good.