Adrian, again, stuffy-nosed and clingy during the night. We managed to take a nap together later in the morning, despite the noise.

The builders demolished most of the interior in the new half of the house. It feels like a ballroom in there now. The new room is going to be wonderfully spacious.

The water to the new bathroom froze again. That’s the third incident this winter. The builders spent a fair amount of time walking around with thermometers, but even after all that they looked puzzled and could not say where or why the pipes froze. We will have to put in some sort of heating in the boiler room (which was where they found the coldest spot today) but nobody knows whether that will actually fix the issue since we don’t know what the issue is.

Adrian, again, stuffy-nosed and clingy during the night, but didn’t wake as much as yesterday.

It was cold outside and indoors, so Ingrid and I amused ourselves by placing our small digital thermometers in various places in the house. The coldest spot that I found inside the house was on the hallway floor, underneath the stairs: 6°C. Socks and slippers and fleece jumpers for me. The kids are not bothered at all; Ingrid was in her nightie all morning and apparently did not feel the cold at all, except for her feet (so she put on her Crocs).

Ingrid and I painted a set of board game markers (some of her games have lousy cardboard markers), made a quick trip to the supermarket and had a pretend picknick. I don’t know where the rest of the day disappeared.

Mieville has written some totally awesome books (Perdido Street Station, Iron Council), some decent ones (Un Lun Dun) and some not so great ones (Looking for Jake And Other Stories).

Kraken, unfortunately, belongs somewhere towards the bottom of the second group. It isn’t bad, but it’s nowhere near great, either.

A giant squid mysteriously disappears from a museum. Mysteriously, because it disappears together with its equally giant exhibition tank, larger than any door or window or other opening in the room. This disappearance somehow seems to precipitate the end of the world, according to the prophets of various cults, who are in unusual agreement with each other. Billy Harrow, the curator in charge of the squid exhibit, gets tangled up in various efforts to affect this outcome (either to prevent or to hasten it on its way).

This is not the London of the Tube, Buckingham Palace, Piccadilly Circus etc. This is a London where weird magic is normal; where the action takes place in abandoned factories, rooftops, church basements and dirty alleyways. As one reviewer at SF Site puts it, “it’s Neverwhere on a bad acid trip”.

There is a lot of energy, ambition and imagination in this book. It would be hard to top the sheer weirdness of Mieville. There are strange cults, weird magic, seriously disturbing villains, including one bad guy who is a tattoo on someone else’s back. Also, somewhat unexpectedly, this book is really funny, though it’s as dark as his other books.

But frankly, after a while, I found the book tedious. For a very long time, Billy and/or his friends are threatened/chased/attacked by various people; they then come up with an idea about who might be behind all this, locate this person, and conclude that no, that wasn’t it, s/he is just seizing an opportunity caused by someone else; loop back to the beginning again. And unfortunately the ending was a damp squib, as I’ve already come to expect of Mieville’s books.

There were too many pages to say not very much. I found myself skimming parts of it. Had it not been written by Mieville, I might have given up halfway through. And when everything and everybody is weird (including, it turns out, poor Billy Harrow himself – he’s not just a bystander caught up in the mess) then after a while I become numb to the weirdness and let it wash over me. Weirdness number 86 no longer feels particularly exciting.

I guess Kraken would be easier to enjoy if you just approached it as a demented geeky/magicky comedy and ignored the weakish storytelling. Because the dialogue is funny, the weirdness is endless, and the level of grotesque detail incredible.

Amazon UK, Amazon US, Adlibris.

Temperatures this morning:

• Outdoors: –16°C
• Kitchen: 16°C
• Bathroom: 12.5°C
• Kitchen floor: 10°C

Adrian had a lousy night, kept waking and crying. Stuffy nose so he could barely suck, either on dummy or boob. Both of us really tired in the morning. We skipped our Estonian playgroup (which I normally make every effort to attend) because I was just too tired to undertake such an outing. Instead we removed the last of our stuff from the new half of the house, and moved into the new bathroom. The house feels pretty cramped, but doable.

More shovelling. Now the whole width of the stairs is clear, and we can access both the wheelie bins and the mailbox.

Beatiful weather outside, with brilliant sunshine, a bright sky and fresh white snow everywhere. Two nice long walks with Adrian.

The builders will probably start tearing down the interior in the new part of the house next week. This evening Ingrid and I seized the opportunity and painted on the walls.

Lots and lots of snow. It’s winter again, overnight.

My plan for today was to meet up with some other mums like last Friday, but I cancelled that when I saw the state of the roads (20 cm of snow) and the public transport system (trains delayed by up to 60 minutes). So we had a boring day at home.

Shoveled snow in the afternoon for 30 minutes. The deepest drifts reached above the tops of my boots. In half an hour I barely cleared a path through the garden and half the width of the stairs down to the street. Just as I got there a snow plough passed by and deposited a wall of snow, half a metre high, right in front of me. More shovelling followed.

Now: somewhat tired back muscles after shovelling and lots of babywearing (since the stroller wasn’t really an option today).

Had a chat with staff at Ingrid’s preschool for how to continue. I don’t think it’s a good idea for her to be at home all the time, and taking a new decision every day is going to become stressful for both of us. Conclusion: she will go to preschool on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays; Monday and Thursday are stay-at-home days.

After several weeks of mild weather, winter has returned with a vengeance. Snow storm today, with lots of fine snow and stinging, gusty wind. The weather forecasts are promising up to 20 cm of fresh snow – it’s like being back in the beginning of December again, except with a thick layer of ice underneath it all. Looks lovely right now, with fresh snow covering everything.

The plumbers installed a water tap in the new laundry room yesterday, and today they moved the washing machine and the tumble dryer. I inaugurated the laundry room by washing a load of baby clothes.

Disassembled the bouncy chair since Adrian will immediately start doing situps when I put him there.

Received a Hippy Chick hip seat in the mail, as well as two pink nightgowns in size 100 for Ingrid. All bought 2nd hand from Tradera, and immediately put to use.

Some fresh bookmarks from delicious.com:

• Military communications: Liquid radio | The Economist – America's navy is developing an antenna made of seawater.
• In Sweden, a Small Rebellion Against Traditional Names – NYTimes.com – Unhappy with their boring, too-common -son names, Swedes pick new ones. Some go the other way: one couple wanted to change their name to Mohammedsson.

Took Ingrid to preschool so I could go to playgroup with Adrian. He loved it, again. He loves watching all the other babies. It’s pretty much the only time he’s willing, even more than willing, to spend time on the floor, on his tummy.

Actually he also spends time on his tummy in his bed, when he’s wide awake early in the morning morning, just after 5, because he’s pooped again. He keeps doing it, and it annoys the heck out of me. I try to doze while waiting for him to get sleepy again, and when he starts making frustrated noises I either pop in the dummy, or turn him over, from front to back or vice versa.

After playgroup I took a long walk with him in the stroller, together with two other mums from the playgroup. We looked at nice houses in Flysta: many old houses like here in Solhem, but more “fun” and varied with verandas, small towers, etc.

Then to preschool because Ingrid had insisted that I should pick her up early. Of course she’d now changed her mind and did not want to go home at all. I went home, and back again at 3 o’clock. This time I insisted she come home. Nevertheless she doesn’t want to go tomorrow – but does want to be there on Friday when they usually do fun stuff like face-painting, or have a disco, or watch a movie.

She wanted to play with friend J in the afternoon but J was at the playground. J, her sister L and their babysitter N stopped by on their way home instead, and the girls played together for a while.