This morning I took Adrian to my workplace, both to get used to the idea of going back to work on Monday, and to show my colleagues what I’ve been doing all this time. Apart from me it’s an all-male team, and all of the guys but one are around 30 and childless. They live very different lives from mine and I don’t think they can relate at all to what it is like to have a baby. It will be interesting to see them become parents (which I think they all will do, sooner or later).

After preschool we took the train to town to buy shoes for Ingrid. It’s a bit crowded on the train in late afternoon, with people heading home from work, but I wanted to get this done before I go back to work. Wait until too late in the season, and you may find that the shoes you want are not available in the right size any more.

Ingrid tried on a pair of sandals with some sort of glittery flowers and liked them. Walked around and confirmed that they were comfortable. Then the shop assistant brought out another pair, with violet hearts that blink as you walk, and as soon as Ingrid had seen those, she said the other ones were not at all comfortable, they hurt her feet! Oh she could absolutely not wear them any more. So we bought sandals with blinky hearts. Whoever invented blinky shoes must surely be a multimillionaire now.

Two more wasps in the kitchen. They must be living in the wall somewhere.

A busy day: it feels like these remaining days are my last chance to get things done at home.

Some more painting of the play house while Adrian slept. Playgroup. Supermarket. Went to the hardware store to see if I could borrow their fan deck of NCS colours. (Unfortunately he answer was no, because they’ve lost too many of those expensive decks, despite taking down folks’ names and numbers.) Weeded and dug through the top layer of soil in two of our planting boxes with strawberries.

Adrian has, in the last few days, started to demand solid food. Previously I’d just put him in his highchair and give him some food when I wanted to eat, so he could get used to the concept, have some fun, and we’d keep each other company. But now he has been fussy and I’ve gone through my checklist (sleep? boredom? breast? nappy?) and then offered him food, and seen him wolf it down. His and my meal schedules are thus no longer in sync, so I’ve spent more time than usual preparing food and cleaning up him and the kitchen afterwards.

I’d planned to take Ingrid shoe shopping after preschool but she was not at all amenable to that. Too hot (it was another hot and sunny day) or too tired or hungry or thirsty, or all of that – in any case she was in a very precarious mood all the way home. Then we put a picnic blanket under the cherry tree, I made us both some smoothies with frozen raspberries and blueberries, bananas, and apple juice, and we relaxed together. She felt much better after that.

I noticed wasps on the kitchen windows on at least five separate occasions, and never in any other part of the house, or near the door. Now I’m wondering if they have a nest somewhere inside the walls there – there are gaps around and beneath the newly installed windows, and they could be coming out of those. If that’s the case we will have to plug those holes quickly.

(Actually I missed one wasps’ nest in my list yesterday – we also found an old, abandoned one above the ceiling of the old veranda. I guess wasps really like our house.)

As I was painting Ingrid’s play house, I found the beginnings of a wasps’ nest inside. They’re fast builders: yesterday I saw one of them was flying around there, but no sign of a nest yet. Early this afternoon she had built slightly more than half of the first sphere. Now at ten o’clock when Eric took it down, that sphere was almost closed and she had started on the second layer. It was a beautiful, delicate construction. I wish I didn’t have to destroy it, but kids and wasps in a semi-enclosed room make a really bad combination.

We have had wasps in the garden both last summer and the one before. First they had a nest under the ridge of our roof (outside) and afterwards we kept finding dozens of dead wasps in the bedroom on the other side (which wasn’t in use at the time). The second time they nested inside one of the railway sleepers that make up a low wall around our garden. With a bit of luck perhaps the queen will give up after this failure and go somewhere else.

This is my last week of maternity leave – from next Monday I will be working and Eric will be at home taking care of the kids. That first week I will only be working half-time, and then ramp it up when we see that this works out OK.

I’ve got quite mixed feelings about going back to work. On the one hand, I do look forward to using my brain for something again, and I am getting a bit tired of spending all my days taking care of a (frankly) ungrateful baby. On the other hand, I feel like I did the hard part and now I hand over just as the weather gets nice, and Adrian has learned to nap well, and no longer needs to nurse every hour. But on the third hand, I do get the best of both worlds, too, since I’ll be coming home shortly after lunch (and late afternoon even when I’m back to my usual 80% workload) which still leaves time for enjoying both the kids and sunshine in the garden.

There is something very cool about seeing the shadow of an airplane pass right over me. It happened to me three or four times last week, as I was on my way to preschool to pick up Ingrid. (There is a minor airport on this side of Stockholm, not very far from here.) Just the right combination of my schedule, flight schedule, wind direction and angle of the sun, I guess: all coincidence but still cool.

Friends P and G with their daughter H visited us in the morning. We looked at how the remodelling has progressed, and browsed wallpaper books together. It is striking to see H and Adrian side by side – born within 2 days of each other, about the same general size and shape, but so different in behaviour. H can just sit in someone’s arms and look at the world, quietly twirling her hands. Adrian sits for 30 seconds, then starts twisting or jumping up and down, or stands up, or complains.

Then we went to IKEA to buy six tall cupboards for the office. We’ll be using their tall kitchen cabinets, but will buy doors from an independent supplier. Anton needs the cupboards’ measurements so that he can install the flooring in that room – the interiors are finally getting to the point where the actual final layer will be put in place!

We straightened up the outdoor drying rack that I put up the other day – it needed some wooden wedges between the pipe in the ground and the vertical pole. We decided on measurements for the wooden deck. We selected wallpapers.

A busy day. Phew.

The wallpapers – living room, dining room, office cabinet doors, stairwell:

The colours are not quite right since I took the photos just now in the evening light, but you get the general idea. For official pictures, you can go to the producer’s web site and use their Wallpaper Finder. It’s a crappy flash application or something so I cannot give direct links, but the collection is called Gammalsvenska and the article numbers are 087-16, 062-05, 087-17 and 044-17.

“Ljust och fräscht” or “light and airy” (literally “light and fresh”) is an eternally recurring theme in ’00s Swedish interior decorating. White is by far the most common colour for walls, and even floors and all furniture. Minimalism is all the rage.

Fredrik Lindström and Henrik Schyffert are two Swedish comedians and media personalities. This book is a print version of a show of theirs, about what is behind the current trend, and was accompanied by a matching comedy show. It’s about chasing perfection, about rootlessness and anxious attempts to not be bourgeois. About making your home reflect your personality, to be unique and individual – but not too unique.

I like to believe that I am immune to the trendiest trends. I am baffled and slightly repulsed by wall letters and wise quotes to paste on your walls, and “distressed” furniture that you paint and then sandpaper to make it look old and worn. I will not have white-on-white rooms, and I want carpets and curtains.

But I, too, want my home to be light and airy. A scary thought: in the seventies everyone wanted their homes colourfully cosy, with pine panelling and orange wallpaper. And now I would not let a ’70s wallpaper into my house. Will our open plan kitchen feel as dated as ’70s basement dens do today?

An interesting book that hits some nails squarely on the head.

Inte sedan funkisen slog igenom på Stockholmsutställningen 1930 har svenskarna haft så enhetlig inredningssmak. Det kan aldrig bli för ljust och fräscht. En bostad kan marknadsföras med en beskrivning som “extremt ljus”, och det är bara positivt. Det kan aldrig bli för ljust! Är det inte tillräckligt ljust så river man ut hela skiten och öppnar upp lite. Det här är så gott som alla överens om.

Translation:

Not since functionalism had its breakthrough at the Stockholm expo in 1930 have Swedes had such uniform taste in interior decorating. There is no such thing as too light and airy. A home can be marketed with a description of “extremely light” and that is only positive. There is no such thing as too light! If it isn’t light enough you just rip out the whole shebang and open it up a bit. Almost everybody agrees on this.

About IKEA, and constantly buying the most current furniture:

Men varför uppfanns det här tänkandet just i Sverige och ingen annanstans? Varför kom ingen annan på “riv ut ditt gamla och daterade hem och satsa på något nytt och fräscht minst vart tionde år-principen”? Ja, kanske för att inget annat land i hela sin samhällsstruktur gjort sig av med det gamla på samma sätt som Sverige gjort. Det svenska samhället omvandlades “blixtsnabbt” från ett fattigt torpar- och utvandrarsamhälle till ett av världens rikaste, det gick på ett par generationer. Då blev det viktigt att hela tiden visa att man tillhörde det nya Sverige, inte minst genom att ha moderna möbler. […] Till slut hade man förnyat Sverige så många vändor att det inte längre fanns någon neutral, tidlös stil att inreda i (om någon nu skulle vara intresserad av att bara ha ett praktiskt och fungerande hem utan attityd). Sverige blev det första landet i världen där man inte längre kunde välja att inreda modernt och daterat, utan var tvungen att göra det.

Translation:

But why did this way of thinking develop in Sweden and nowhere else? Why didn’t anyone else come up with the “tear out your old, dated home and invest in something new and fresh at least once every ten years” principle? Well, perhaps it was because no other country has gotten rid of everything old in the structure of its society the way Sweden has. The Swedish society was transformed at “lightning speed” from a poor society of crofters and emigrants into one of the world’s richest, it happened in a few generations. It became important to show at all times that you belonged to the new Sweden, not least by having modern furniture. […] By the end Sweden had been renewed so many times that there was no neutral, timeless style of decorating any more (if anyone would be interested in just having a practical, functional home without attitude). Sweden became the first country in the world where you could no longer just choose to decorate in a modern and dated style, but you were forced to do so.

Adlibris

Typical wallpapers, by decade, from the 1920s to the 2000s

This morning visited Spånga Gymnasium, the high school just down the road, for Djurexpo, their twice-annual open house day. They have an animal care programme, apparently with a lot of practical work, since they have a proper little zoo on their grounds: everything from hens, rabbits and sheep to snakes, stingrays, and an albino peacock. Ingrid, as usual, had little patience for walking around and looking at stuff. (Much more fun to race a friend round an obstacle of tree stumps.)

Then on to Spånga marknad, the annual spring market down on Spånga Torg. We got some useful information from representatives of the municipal government about the upcoming renovation works for Spånga Torg; a hot dog and ice cream and bouncy castle for Ingrid, tomato plants and honey for me, candy for Eric, and crowds to look at for Adrian. A lovely day for it, all warm and sunny.

Looked through the wallpaper albums with Eric and found some really nice ones. More browsing and, hopefully, decisions tomorrow.

Today I borrowed two fat books of wallpaper samples from the local wallpaper shop, Tapetrummet. They weighed a ton. Luckily Anton the Builder happened to walk past just then, on his way back from lunch, and offered to carry them home for me. Hopefully by the end of the week we will have chosen some wallpapers.

This morning I was going to plant our overblown daffodils from the pot in the kitchen into the garden, to join the ones already growing there. When I sat down to dig the first hole I saw that I was surrounded by cherry seedlings. They were legion. I don’t want them to root themselves properly or we will never get rid of them – run them over with a lawnmower and they will just keep coming back, until there’s a hard, gnarly lump of a root with pointy stumps sticking up – painful to step on with bare feet. So I plucked them out with their roots. I counted three hundred and sixty-eight. Or perhaps three hundred and seventy, I suspect I lost count twice. But since they were so concentrated it was quick work, a second or two for each one, so it was no more than fifteen minutes’ work. (Otherwise I’d have given up far earlier.)

Then I planted the daffodils. I hope they will like their new home. This autumn I would like to plant some more crocuses there as well. We have some, but they make more of an impression in larger amounts.

The primroses growing on that side of the house are puny this year: small leaves, really short stalks, and small flowers. Too dry, perhaps? Nothing like last year’s display.

One hundred and thirty-six