Staples, paint brushes and wooded trails

Thanks to a great alignment in 'red days' we ended up with a really long long-weekend the last few days! It came at a pretty good time as we recently had a little exploration of the Swedish medical system and were both feeling a bit wiped ...

11 days post emergency appendectomy

Alas, this meant we had to forgo the MTBing and kayaking trip on the Höga Kusten (the high coast) with our friends Per and Frida, but it turned out a loooong weekend in Gävle really hit the spot.

We checked out the new X-Men film, had some nice dinners with friends, enjoyed the amazing summer weather and Richard even humoured my desires for a small home reno project! I have been dying to brighten our entrance/hallway since we moved in ...

So Wednesday I picked up a big bucket of paint and some wallpaper (it's all the rage in Sweden) and went to town ...

I got the paint finished on Saturday and Richard was up for helping so we did the wallpaper together today. I think we were both pleasantly surprised at how smoothly and relatively un-messily it came together. And it is MUCH nicer and brighter to come into our apartment now.

Of course there was still time for some outdoor adventures. Richard managed a little run yesterday - about 2.5 km - and felt great afterwards! At  least the appendix ordeal meant his ankle had some good healing time!

I also managed some biking this weekend - both on and off road! The weekend before Richard's appendix checked out he and I had found some sweet biking trails!

MTB trails ... even labelled ones! SO excited.

What a relief to have finally found trails again! And since then I have been out with local riders in two other locations that we can easily access by bike ... although smultronik has proven quite effective for transporting both of our bikes with lots of room to spare!

In any case, I think we are going to be able to re-claim our 'mountain biker' status again soon ... we will got a bit nervous there last year, but turns out we just needed to follow the right people into the woods ... and the 4 new wheels don't hurt either. Now we just need to get rid of a few staples in someone's gut so he doesn't tear his spandex :)