Three girls and one little brother tagging along, on their way to the Valborg fire. Even though both of Ingrid’s friends are half a year younger, they’re half a head taller than her.

Ingrid had a blast: went off and hung out with friends, bought candy, watched the fire, queued for candy floss etc.
Adrian ate popcorn but found the fire scary and really just wanted to go home.
Eric and I were both tired and would actually also have preferred to stay at home.


Tired and aware of it, tired enough so that everything keeps going wrong so he is in tears – but refusing to admit the tiredness to anyone else and refusing to go to bed.


He explained to me that he had paint on his feet because they had done footprints at preschool.

Adrian is often without socks, even when wearing shoes. And he wears his shoes really loose so he can put them on and take them off without touching the velcro. I would think it is uncomfortable but he likes it this way.

We tried to fly a kite. It did not go too well.



Frustration through elation to frustration again.

We have some work to be done in the garden that requires a professional, with some professional machinery. I’ve been looking for contractors so that I can request bids from them. I searched at tradgardsanlaggarna.se, made a shortlist of about 8 contractors, and then looked at their web sites to confirm that they can do what we need.

Some companies have modern web sites. The tone ranges from corporate to personal, the design from boxy to modern, but they all look like they belong in the 21st century.

Other companies’ web sites inspire less confidence. One of the contractors had no web site at all and only a swipnet email address, which is sort of like a Swedish hotmail equivalent. One had a web site consisting of a single page which had been saved from Photoshop and contained their logo and an email address and nothing more.

I work with the web; I cannot help but be prejudiced against companies who in this day and age still have not understood its importance as a marketing channel. If the company’s web site is not professional, how professional are they going to be in other aspects? So there is a strong temptation to let the surface appearance affect my judgement of the company.

But I suspect that the web site is probably not at all a good predictor of a company’s ability to do a good job in the garden. I have no difficulty imagining a bunch of 50-year-old guys, in the business for 30+ years, who simply prioritise doing their job ahead of marketing the firm.

And in a way, maybe my logic should be the opposite. If a firm has a butt-ugly web site but they’re still in business after a decade or two, then obviously they’re doing something right.


We just had our vintage sewing machine serviced and a broken gear wheel replaced. Most of the machine now works better than ever, smoother and quieter. But winding the bobbin didn’t work so well. Eric investigates.



Adrian had a bad fall at preschool yesterday, hitting his head on asphalt in two places. Massive swelling on the side of his head and lots of skin scraped off, and a painful bump above one eyebrow. I washed the big wound and he had totally had enough after that, so I didn’t get to do anything about the dried blood on bump on his brow.

He didn’t allow me to photograph it yesterday but this morning he was feeling better about the whole thing.