And Tartu doesn’t even have a lake, a public pool or any other kind of outdoor swimming. (That’s puzzled me for years now. A simple wading pool would make a huge difference.)

I have no information about whether an Internet connection will be available at the hotel, so I may be incommunicado for the duration of the trip.

– Dev 1: How did you become interested in Middle Eastern music?
– Helen: I guess I heard a good CD somewhere, and went on from there…
– Dev 2: A CD? That is so 2006.
– Dev 1: 2006? Were you still listening to CDs in 2006?

See what having a family does to you… our age difference is about 4 years but it sometimes feels like a whole generation. They can sit attached to their computers by a headphone cord all evening, while I am walking around the house all the time. And even when I’m not, I wouldn’t want to be cut off from Eric and Ingrid by a pair of headphones.

… I searched the web for maternity swimwear and found nothing I would want to wear. Which came as no surprise whatsoever, since I had difficulties finding normal non-maternity swimwear to suit my taste, and of course the maternity selection is much narrower.

… I made myself a kogel-mogel for the first time in years.

• Preparing for the planned refurbishment of our house. The discussions with the architect are more or less finished. Next steps: seek planning permission, find a builder, plan bathroom.
• Preparing for our upcoming vacation. This is our chance: Ingrid is (hopefully) old enough for a real vacation, and Baby 2 is not yet a hindrance. We’re going for a week in Beijing.
• Planning for this summer’s gardening activities. I’m thinking tomatoes, peas and herbs for the kitchen garden.

Well, now both the projects and next actions have been captured, and I have them all under control. The flip side is that I now know exactly how much stuff there is that I should be doing instead of spending time in front of the computer. The lists are shockingly long. My list of next actions, which I’ve previously mostly managed to fit onto Post-Its on one A4 page, now cover the best part of three pages.

The flip side of that, in turn, is that I feel challenged. There is nothing like a bit of pressure to get me moving. Time to get those lists down to size again!

Every winter a bunch of people get hurt (and occasionally killed) and vehicles get seriously damaged by falling snow and ice. As a pedestrian you can’t do much: since the chunks of snow and ice will be sliding off the roof, they won’t fall along the wall but may well land several metres away from the building.

Luckily there are laws that oblige the owners of buildings to make sure snow and ice which could fall down are removed as soon as possible. In the meantime, if there is risk of stuff falling down, they’re obliged to put up warning signs and, if necessary, rope off the sidewalk.

Today, all day today, there were workmen clearing snow from the roof of the building where I work. (The workmen were still at it when I went home in the afternoon.) As I got there in the morning, about 20 metres of sidewalk was closed off and chunks of ice and snow were flying down. There’s a spotter on the ground who makes sure that people don’t wander into the cordoned-off area, and shouts to the folks on the roof when to stop and start. On taller buildings I’ve heard them use whistles.

Some time in the morning they shifted to the other, courtyard side of the building: the one right behind my back. The amounts of snow and ice coming down there was unbelievable. Every now and again everyone on that side of the office would jump, as some icy lump hit our window, or some particularly large chunk hit the roof of the courtyard hard enough to make the floor tremble and our monitors shake. The largest ones I saw were about the size of a human torso. Luckily those were mostly snow rather than ice – I don’t think the tin roof would have survived it.

If you’re interested, Svenska Dagbladet has photos of the roof-cleaning process.

The public transport company of Stockholm was advertising a reduced train schedule on their home page, plus a total cancellation of service on the above-ground sections of the metro (subway) lines, and advising people to stay at home if possible. Luckily it is very easy for me to work from home, so I followed their advice. (The prospect of standing outdoors, waiting for a train for who knows how long, in –25°C was not the least bit appealing.) My colleague Oscar, who lives in a relatively central part of Stockholm, finally got to the office just past 11, after about 2 hours of travel time.

During the day the temperature went up to around –13°C, so going out in the afternoon was not so bad at all. And there wasn’t much wind, which helped matters a lot.

Indoors, pretty steady at 17°C. An extra fleece on top of the other one, and I heated my orange juice this morning. (Sounds weird, perhaps, but tastes really nice.)

I don’t mind the snow – I’m probably going to remember this winter fondly for the next twenty years. I don’t even mind shoveling and sweeping it. I do mind it all coming down at the same time so the streets are impassable and the trains are all late.

Here’s the fence along the front of our garden, as of about two weeks ago. Whenever a snow plough clears the street, most of the snow just gets pushed to the sides, which is what you see along most of the fence. The streets around here are relatively narrow to begin with, but wide enough for normal-sized cars to pass when meeting. Now there’s just enough space for one car. Whenever we (with stroller) meet a car, we make our way to the nearest driveway. Otherwise we’d have to climb up on that bank of snow, or risk watching the car get stuck in the bank on their side.

If we did nothing, we’d have a similar snow bank in front of our stairs and our mailbox. To make the stairs passable, and to make it possible to deliver our mail, we shovel that snow to either side, every time the street is ploughed. That’s what has lead to the sizeable pile of snow in the foreground. It now comes up to roughly chest height for me, so now I’m having to choose between lifting snow to that height, or walking a few yards with every shovelful. Just after shovelling the pile looks rather dirty because of the sand mixed into the snow, but since we have been getting at least a light dusting of snow at least once a week, it’s soon nice and white again.

Wherever possible, snow gets ploughed onto open spaces adjacent to roads: greens, squares, etc. On inner city roads, where there is really no space to leave the snow, the city sends lorries to transport it away, when there is at least a few days’t break in the snowfall and they have time. But now Stockholm is running out of places to put that snow. Snow from central Stockholm is tipped in the city’s waterways. Snow is considered waste, so tipping it in the water requires a dispensation from the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, which the city has, but it’s now coming up against the volume limits for that dispensation. (600,000 cubic meters allowed, 450,000 cubic meters already utilized.) The city has been tipping snow in larger open spaces in the suburbs, but that’s of course not popular with those who live there – lots of noise from the heavy trafficy, ugly piles of dirty snow, worries about what will happen when it all melts, environmental concerns etc.

The project: two monogrammed kitchen towels. The “canvas”: Klässbols linen towels Herr Ask.

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All our plates and bowls are green Höganäs earthenware. We use the same for both everyday meals and for special occasions, since we think they are really beautiful in their simplicity. We got them as a wedding gift, and hope to use them for many years.

Most unfortunately Höganäs decided a while ago to discontinue the green colour. With the help of Tradera (ebay’s Swedish arm) we’ve nevertheless managed to complement our stash with more small plates (since we seem to use a lot of those) and more large plates (since we’ve managed to break a few).

Since last spring I’ve been trying to buy some more pasta bowls, too – they’re great not just for pasta but also for porridge, cereal, and soup. One of the bookmarks on my Daily list is a search for “Höganäs verona*”. There’s a steady stream of stuff for sale. Mugs, especially, loads and loads of mugs: but various serving bowls and plates come up pretty often, too. But the one thing that never seems to turn up is the bowls. Seriously, not a single one since April 2009.

So I wonder: is it because no one else liked them (so they didn’t buy them and now they have none to sell) or because everyone else liked them (so they’re now unwilling to part with them)?

Here’s a poster I spotted the other day. (Sorry for the glare; I couldn’t get into better position because that would have entailed standing right in front of the exit from a busy escalator.) It reads roughly Tulips bring a feeling of spring – buy a bouquet today. And then in smaller type, Campaign financed with the support of the European Union and the International Flower Bulb Center.

Questions arise, and jostle for attention in my head.

First, what kind of spring feelings can they possibly be talking about, when it is barely the middle of January and the ground is covered with a thick blanket of snow?

Second, what is the EU doing, spending money on advertising for flowers?!

Third, wait a moment, is that the same poster they had last year? Yep, identical. Same photo, same layout, same photo, same financing information. Well, at least the EU doesn’t waste money on frivolously making up new posters every year.

20°C below freezing (–4 F). The coldest day yet since we got back to Sweden.

Last winter it never got below –14° or so, but that was enough to demonstrate the weak insulation in this house. For this winter we’ve put in place a new electric heater in the bathroom, and bought a large extra heater that we can put up when it’s particularly cold. In practice it’s been up and running whenever the temperature outside gets close to –10°.

Now at –20° all the heaters are turned on, and yet we cannot get the indoors temperature to above +16° (and +14° in the bathroom), which is just a little bit too chilly for comfort but actually not too bad, except when undressing. As long as it doesn’t get much colder outside, and as long as we don’t have a blackout.

We ventured outside yesterday when it was only –16° outside. Luckily there was almost no wind, so with proper clothing it didn’t feel too cold, except for the nose and cheeks.

I remember the poor Brits describing the weather as “bloody freezing” when it was +7° or so in London. Wish I could transport them here for a day and show them what real freezing feels like!

Seen on town today, #1: the first sellers of semlor. For years they’ve started as soon as Christmas was past (just after Epiphany). This is the first time I’ve seen them advertised before the new year. What is the world coming to? I guess being first gets you at least a handful of extra customers…

Seen on town today, #2: “Mayonnaise without additives! New!” I feel simultaneously cheered and disgusted. On the one hand I am glad that real food is making a comeback. On the other hand, isn’t it pathetic that something as basic as this is worth advertising?

The snow came last weekend. It stayed, which was a pleasant surprise. Then we had more on Thursday, and a little bit more again yesterday, so by now we have lots and lots of it. It’s the best kind of snow, too: cold and powdery, which gathers into beautiful drifts and gets pounded into a solid flooring, rather than turning into slush.

(Another reason to be happy about living in a suburb: in the city it’s all become brown sand-blended mush already, with all the disadvantages and none of the advantages of snow.)

Out here it is splendid, gorgeous, glorious. The moment I step outside the door in the morning, the snow lifts my spirits. The world around me is light and beautiful again. There hasn’t been much wind since the middle of last week, so the bushes and trees are all heavy with snow – lovely shapes and great contrasts. The snow lights up the clouds, even the dark and overcast sky above looks soft and shimmering. With the Christmas lights everywhere, it really does look like a wonderland.

And there’s no end in sight for all this rushing around, until after Christmas. I’m leaving work early tomorrow again because of the St. Lucia celebration at Ingrid’s nursery, and leaving work early on Friday to celebrate Christmas with Eric’s family, which means more lost work hours to be made up some time. And not a single Christmas gift bought yet. It’s almost enough to make me wish that Christmas didn’t exist.

Therefore I am spending my time on keeping afloat and not on blogging.

Now I can understand the reason and rationale for the first two. Thieves and beggars could well want to prohibit outsiders from crowding onto their turf, divvy up the city, and impose other rules. But I really have trouble understanding how an Assassins’ Guild could possibly exist.

Quite apart from such mundane concerns as “wouldn’t it be rather dangerous for someone to be a registered assassin?”, there is the issue of volume and sustainability. Let’s think about the numbers.

How many members does a guild need to have in order to be called a guild and not just a bunch of guys? A few dozen at least, I’d think. Let’s say 30.

How often would an assassin need to kill someone in order to keep his skills sharp? Once a week seems like a reasonable minimum. That’s 52 kills per assassin and year, and 1560 kills for the entire guild.

How many people in a city? Most fantasy takes place in a late medieval or renaissance-equivalent era. The top 10 cities in this world in the year 1500 ranged from 150,000 inhabitants to 670,000 inhabitants (About.com). Let’s assume, generously, that the cities in the books are really grand ones, say 300,000 souls.

Assuming a life expectancy of 30 years (Wikipedia) and a stable population, there would be 10,000 births and 10,000 deaths every year. Of those 10,000 deaths, about 3,000 would be children in their first 5 years of life. That leaves 7,000 deaths of other causes.

1560 assassinations out of 7,000 deaths would mean that one death out of every 4 or 5 is an assassination. Or to put it another way, deaths from all other causes would need to be 20% fewer than in our average medieval city, or else the city will be emptied pretty quickly.

If we reduce the assassins’ activity level to one kill per month, that’s 360 kills per year or rougly 5% out of all non-infant deaths, which is rather more reasonable. But it means that, on the one hand, the guys wouldn’t get much practice, which means they would not be as skilled, so they would get lower pay, and they would need to have day jobs. And once you’re spending 90% of your time working as a messenger, thief, horse trainer, or whatever, and only killing someone once a month, can you really call yourself an assassin still?

PS: For more medieval demographic calculations, try Medieval Demographics Made Easy.