Ingrid has been complaining about headaches for some while. I’ve been putting it down to stress and noise at school, because she often says the class is loud and she is anxious about the grades she will be getting, and all the homework she needs to do.

Her anxiety and stress levels seem to have gone down, but the headaches are getting worse, not better, especially after reading or doing other small fiddly activities. It finally struck me that the headaches might be due to vision problems after all. She sees very well both near and far, so I’d discarded that possibility until now. But of course near- or farsightedness are not the only kind of vision problems one can have.

Today she had a thorough eye exam, and while her vision is really sharp, it turns out she has a squint. One of her eyes struggles to point in the right direction at close distances, so she is straining her eye muscles all the time while reading, drawing etc. No wonder she has a headache.

Now we’re waiting for an appointment with a specialist, but in the meantime she got reading glasses that will help the eyes relax.

Saffron bun.

We made paper stars.

It’s fun to make Christmas decorations but hard to find place for them. It feels like the house is full of various crafted stars and elves and snowmen and trees, and they just accumulate with the years. The kids make new ones almost every year and don’t ever want to get rid of any of theirs. At least these small paper ones don’t feel like a huge investment so we can throw them out (or rather, recycle them) when Christmas is over.

Spånga’s annual Christmas markets. Local small businesses, school classes and various clubs and organizations sell mostly Christmassy stuff, sweets and hand-crafted things. The scout group has several fun stalls, this year just like most years. The oldest scouts cook light meals over open flame – bacon omelettes and mini pizzas and such. The middle age groups sell toffees and sweets that Ingrid’s group made during last weekend’s “hike”. The younger ones have a lottery where you can win gingerbread houses that the scouts have decorated. Ingrid’s group manned a chocolate lottery wheel.

We had our office Christmas party today. A bus was supposed to take us all to the venue. This bus stopped right outside our office… we were rather disappointed when this turned out to be not our bus.

The party was pleasant enough. Decent julbord, and I was lucky with the (spontaneous) seating and ended up between interesting people. (I am no good at drawing people into a conversation when they don’t take any initiative themselves and respond to my questions with single sentences.)

Many days Adrian goes home on his own before I get to the school, so I don’t see this place so often any more.

More city lights. Hötorget (“haymarket”) and a cinema.

A loaf of bread and an iPad is all you need for contentment. Maybe some butter as well.

Shopping for some last-minute advent calendar fillers. Even though December has already started. All sparkly and shiny.