It’s parent/teacher conference day at school. Adrian is very seriously presenting his recent work to us.

Adrian, tired and possibly coming down with a cold, curled up under a blanket. On top of another blanket that’s peeking out from underneath the cushions.

We have so many comfy blankets in this house that I’ve lost count. When I go gathering them up at the end of the day, I often find more blankets on the sofas than there are kids – often they need one in each sofa.

The absolutely most beloved ones are these incomparably soft fleece blankets. Adrian got one as a gift and sleeps with it every day. Ingrid loved Adrian’s so much that she also got one that she now sleeps with every day. And then Adrian needed another that he can wrap himself in when he comes downstairs early on weekend mornings, half naked in the chilly house.

The cat doesn’t seem to mind scratchy fir branches at all and has made itself a nest in them. And keeps catching and eating little birds.

After several weekends of wanting to go for a walk but having to do other things, I actually got out today and walked section 5:3, from Hemfosa to Paradiset.

It was a beautiful day for walking – a few degrees below freezing, overcast but still relatively bright. The temperature has been below zero for a while so the ground was all firm rather than muddy. And the ground was covered with a fresh blanket of fluffy snow. I love walking on untouched snow, and that feeling of being alone in the forest.

There was a stretch in the middle where the trail went along roads, which I didn’t much enjoy, but most of it was pleasant walking through the usual fir-pine-bilberry-rock forests. This section of the trail is quite far from major roads and the commuter train lines, plus the snow muffled any remaining noises, so everything was wonderfully quiet.

The fresh snow and the lack footprints meant I could see a lot of paw prints instead. Fox, hare, squirrel, deer, and even moose I believe, plus tiny prints of unidentifiable tiny rodents.

All was great except lunch, which was very cold. My big mittens are warm and weatherproof but impossible to hold a spork with, so I had to switch to gloves, and even though I ate as fast as I possibly could, I felt like my fingers were going to turn into icicles and fall off. It took me a good while to get them warm again afterwards.

The last part of my walk went through the Paradiset nature reserve. I don’t know what it is about that place – it’s the usual pine forest over granite, but somehow it manages to look prettier than other similar forests. The moment I cross the boundary of the nature reserve, it’s like the pines become more elegant and the snow lies extra fluffy on their boughs. I noticed the same effect when section 3 crossed into the Tyresta national park.

The trail passes by Tornberget which is apparently the highest point in the greater Stockholm area. There’s a viewing tower with views of nearly endless flat pine forest in all directions. Uniform and not particularly interesting.

As usual the official distance is one thing and reality is different, what with having to actually get to and from the trail. The section starts where Sörmlandsleden crosses a public road, but it’s a kilometre from the train station to that spot. And the section ends in the middle of the forest, not even near a road of any kind, so there’s one kilometre to get to a road and then another to the nearest bus stop. In total the 15 km trail section became a 18 km walk. Starting at 9, finishing just before 15 – perfect use of daylight hours.

Every November, on a small, rocky island probably somewhere off the coast of Ireland, people race water horses. These are magnificent, fierce, bloodthirsty creatures, and participants in the races are fighting not only win but to survive – to not be dragged into the ocean, or get your arm bitten off by a competitor’s horse. Or by your own for that matter.

It’s about the water horses and the islanders’ love/hate relationship with them. It’s about barely making a living, and about sacrifices to get to do what you love. It’s also about roots vs opportunities. Thisby is a small island that doesn’t have much of a future to offer to young people. It’s rustic and traditional – which is great if roots and tradition and blood ties are your thing, but not so great if you want things in your life such as rock music and job opportunities.

I can’t really say what made this book so great. It’s intelligent, somehow. Beautiful and vivid; pared down, spartan, but poetic.

The drowning girl of the title is India Morgan Phelps, or Imp to her friends. She’s schizophrenic and no longer trusts her own mind or memories.

The book is described as “incisive, beautiful, and as perfectly crafted as a puzzle box” but I just found it rambling and boring. There is too much meta content about what Imp will write about, and how she should write about it, and how she is going about it the wrong way. I kept waiting for something of interest to actually happen, and getting distracted and bored reading it, so I gave up.

This sunflower seed loaf that Eric makes is the entire family’s favourite bread. When there is a fresh batch, straight from the oven, we all attack it like starving wolves as soon as it’s cool enough to eat.

A new kitchen deserves a new table. The old table is not in as bad a shape as the old oven (which is literally falling apart) but it’s wobbly and worn, and using it or looking at it definitely does not spark any joy in me.

Varnished veneer doesn’t age well. The next table will be solid oiled wood that we can simply sand down and re-apply oil to when all the kneading and baking takes its toll. And it will have thick, solid legs and a thick, solid top that the kids can climb on without having to worry about its stability.

The one thing that is just perfect about the current table is its size. We would feel cramped sitting around it if the table was smaller – and the kitchen would feel cramped if the table was bigger. We didn’t even buy this table for this kitchen but one in London, and it was pure luck that it fit so well here.

So naturally I went looking for a new one of roughly similar size, give a take a few centimetres – and found nothing. Our table is 90 cm wide, and every table I found online was either 75 or 80 – most small 4-seat tables were 80 by 120 cm. I guess people want nice, round measurements. But giving up 10 per cent of the width would make a noticeable difference… How come we found a 90 cm table and why aren’t there any more out there?

Once I measured the table’s length to 127 cm, I understood why. Our table was designed by someone who thought in inches. It measures a tidy 35 x 50 inches in its half-expanded state, and those are of course very nice and round numbers.

If we want a table of this perfect size, and there are none to be bought, I guess someone will have to build one. How hard can it be?

This day ten years ago I noted that people were starting to pay attention to global warming.

Ten years later we’ve gone from attention to climate anxiety. Tens of thousands of fruit bats dropped dead from a single heat wave, literally dropping from the trees by the dozens. Another heat wave going on right now is so bad that fruit is cooking on the trees.

And what are we doing? Still mining and burning coal. Still driving gasoline powered cars, and buying more of them. Still flying to Thailand to “treat yourself”. Still waiting for someone else to do something.