EU Language

 

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where! more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as

replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vordskontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl.

Sunny

Today we saw the sun again. It is still pretty windy so it feels rather cold even in the sunshine. But you can't complain after the snow, rain and wind the last two days. There is a light in the tunnel.

It's snowing again

It is snowing in Dublin in March!!!!

I did not expect the weather to turn around this much.

Usually people here say that we have all kinds of weather in one day so the forcast is always correct as long as the weather-man/woman includes sun, showers, rain and stron wind.

But this winter must have been a total chock for people. Lots and lots of snow and it has stayed as it has been cold enough.

I must say the snow in January and February made me smile, but haven't we had enough of it now?

Påsk

Vi har fått en leverans med påskgodis till Sean och salt lakrits till mig och Alexandra från min mamma.
Jag ser nog mer fram emot påsk och jul sedan jag flyttade hit. Eftersom vi lever med en irländare i huset så har han ju sina traditioner och vi har våra. Man vill liksom framhålla det som är svenskt på ett annat sätt när man själv är utlänning. Kanske Sean's ankomst också har en stor del i att betona det svenska. Vi ska göra vårt bästa för att hitta någon buske som vi kan förvandla till påskris och dekorera. Vi har alla i familjen ledigt fredag - måndag så vi ska njuta av ledighet och helgfirande.

IKEA

I never thought that I could be so obsessed with IKEA. When I lived in Sweden I went to IKEA maybe once very three months and I lived ten minutes away from the shop.
Since they opened in Dublin in July 2009 I have been there at least once a month.
The difference in style and prices to what was offered in Dublin before IKEA is huge.
Every time I go there there is so many people, so it seems to be a big success even with the Irish.
After spending 6 hours in the shop on saturday I was wrecked, but I had to get up and receive the shipment of furniture, a Billy, on Suday and assemble the thing. I am so glad that I have done this all before and it was quite qick to put it togehter.
Anyway, the hole weekend ended up being about IKEA. I am a pittyful Swede. The weekend high is shopping in a Swedish store.

Vårstädning

Det är dags för vårstädning. Dags att vädra, tvätta och stoppa undan vinterkläderna. Underbart!!
Det betyder att jag använder mig av en del av min semester för denna aktivitet, men det är det värt att veta att jag inte behöver använda dessa kläder på några månader. Vi har egentligen inte några extrema väderväxlingar i Dublin men i år har det varit riktig vinter här så det har betytt att vi har varit tvingade att investera i vinterkläder. Tur att man är svensk, irländarna har inte en aning om hur man klär sig mot kyla. Inte har de en aning om hur man kör på vintervägar heller, men det är ett helt annat kapitel som skulle ta en timme att beskriva.
Hur som helst ska jag fortsätta med min vårstädning nu. Det var en skön ursäkt att ta en paus för att skriva detta inlägg. Ha det gott, mina vänner.

Rain and Shine

Typical day in Dublin. Two hours of rain followed by two hours of sun and so on all day. I spent most of my day reading the book "The Road", for the third time. I love this book, even though it is very dark I can still feel the light in there and the love between a father and son. It is beautiful even though it is so sad and pessimistic.

I am now "babysitting" Sean. Alexandra and Gary are visiting the school he will start in September. Unbeliveble that he will start school so soon. Time passes by so fast. I wish I could paus time now and then and savour the moment. Just to make sure I am not missing anything.

Spring is finally here

The sun was shining today and it is very warm outside. Is it really spring? I spent a few hours to clean up the back garden. I had a lot of help from my grandson Sean and some help from my daughter Alexandra. Sean worked away picking up old, dry branches and crawled in the flowerbeds picking up dry leafs and rubbish that had ended up there during the winter. We have to make everything ready for new plants that will be planted as soon as the weather permits it. There might still be a few cold nights ahead so we will wait for a week or two before planting anything.

Sean also played with water, sand and dirt. We had to spend half an hour to get the wet sand off of him before we could let him in to the house again.

Alexandra moves very slowly with her big baby-belly. Only three weeks to go now until we have another baby in the house. Boy or girl??? It will show, the baby's arrival is something we all look forward to.

Staffan Westerberg

Hi.
The first entry in my blog and the first day of my one week holiday from work.

It's raining, off course, what had I expected?

I'm learning to use the blog as I go, and I want to fix the layout. It could be better looking and as I mentioned I am working on it.

Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day but I watched the parade from the sofa, not in town. I tried that two years ago and it wasn't very exciting as it was impossible to see anything and the parade was one hour late. Much more exciting on the "telly". And you can get a fresh cup of coffee whenever you want.

Well, today I am going to work on the layout of this blog and hopefully it will look a lot better after I put my editing skills to the test.

Have a good day.