Adrian is a slow and distractible eater. Ingrid used to be the same, but is the opposite nowadays. I think she’s been forced to learn to eat fast at school. I remember in grade 0 she used to get stomach aches because they had so little time to eat lunch. She’d start out slow and then finish at a frantic pace. Now it’s a more even, consistently fast pace.

I believe in family meals taken together, so I encourage her to stay at the table until everyone has finished. She gets rather bored while waiting.

Eric recently put up our new bird feeder, and now it’s like having a live show outside the window. The sun isn’t quite up when we come down in the morning, but it’s sort of light, so the birds are awake and hungry, and they have their breakfast at the same time as we do. (Everyone except me, that is – I’m never hungry immediately after getting up and ideally have breakfast about two hours after waking.)

The old feeder was a little hut on a stick, with openings on all four sides. It was nice enough and provided good viewing opportunities, but it attracted big, sloppy eaters like magpies and thrushes. They spread so much of the birdseed on the ground that one spring some of it sprouted. Which was weird but not problematic. The problems started when the spilled food attracted rats.

Last year we didn’t put up the feeder hut because we really did not want any more rats. But now we have this beautiful new contraption that is better than the old one in all ways. Except the old one was hand painted by myself and Ingrid and this one doesn’t have that personal touch. But on the other hand it has hooks for several feeders (mostly spill-proof) so we can serve different kinds of food. It has a bowl for water. It has branch-like appendages that the birds can use for landing and for just hanging around and checking out the place. And I have to admit it looks better than the old one.

Either my feet have grown, or my boots have shrunk. Or possibly they have always been too small.

But I don’t think it’s the latter, because I don’t remember them hurting quite as badly as they did on Sunday. I’ve felt a bit of pressure on my toes going downhill, but on this last walk they were uncomfortable almost all the time.

In any case, my old boots definitely do not fit any more and I went to buy new ones.

I came home with a pair of size 40 boots! Of course boots need to have more extra space than normal shoes, but still, I’ve never bought any footwear with the size beginning with a 4.

The Internet tells me that feet don’t really grow after puberty, but they can flatten as ligaments stretch and loosen. That was kind of interesting. The Internet also offers advice on how to stop your feet from flattening, which seems to consist entirely of things I would never let anywhere near my feet (arch support! shoes with stiffer soles!) so I’m going to ignore that part.

No, not the electronic ones. Plain old Pokemon cards. Adrian got some for his birthday and immediately fell in love with them, and now bought more on Tradera. Luckily he doesn’t care about which ones are rare or powerful or collectible – 150 cheap second-hand cards with ordinary Pokemons was quite enough to make him happy.

He’s repeating the beginner course again this term (have I said that?). Mainly because he never learned to glide last term, but in general, he wasn’t really comfortable enough in water to move on to the next course.

The second time around, he’s much more confident. There is no more hesitation, no more “I don’t want to go to swim school today”. Now he’s among the first ones to get into the water almost every Sunday. And today for the first time ever he put his whole head under water!

Having done two weekend walks in the company of others and come home semi-satisfied from both, I decided to go out on my own this time.

I’ve been thinking for a while of starting to walk Sörmlandsleden, or at least its more accessible sections: the entire path stretches 1000 km throughout the county of Sörmland and is perhaps not entirely doable without overnight stays and dedicated transport. So today I got started with stages 1 and 2.

My start happened to coincide with the start of Sörmland Ultra Marathon, a 50 km run mostly along the Sörmlandsleden. But those 200 runners quickly disappeared from view and most of the time I was walking on my own, which was just the way I liked it.

The views were nice and varied but nothing spectacular. A bunch of little lakes overlooked by rocky bluffs, pine forests with blueberry bushes, some fir and birch and oak, a few meadows.

After 14 km of walking I briefly considered doing section 3 as well, but I would have reached the end after dark and after the last bus back to civilization, so I had to give up that idea. Instead I walked a few extra kilometres to Tyresö castle, hoping to get a hot meal at the café there. The extra walk there was nice, castle was pretty standard, but the salmon quiche served at the café was the stingiest one I’ve ever had.

For I can’t remember how many days now, every time I arrive at school to pick up Adrian, he’s been building with Plus-plus pieces.

His constructions are always colourful and symmetrical. Mostly often he builds vehicles of ambivalent character, boat/aircraft/car/spaceship type things which transform and morph and have detachable parts. And cannons and laser beams. Most of their vehicleness is in his fantasy, and quite fluid – he can tell me exactly what is what, and then a minute later that part is already something else.

Once or twice I stayed and waited for him to be done (and took photos) but he never seemed to get any closer to a “done” state so then we left anyway. He could probably go on forever if he didn’t get hungry.

I get the prettiest morning light and autumn colours on my way to work at this time of the year.

We took photos together. I pressed the shutter button; Adrian chose the poses. I think he was aiming for a subtly balanced combination of silly plus tough.