Adrian’s weekly homework consists of reading a chapter in a book out loud, writing answers to questions about the chapter, and finally drawing something related to the chapter.

He doesn’t mind the reading, is not at all happy about the writing, but really enjoys the drawing. His drawing for this week’s theme of “blue lights and sirens” started out as just that police car in the middle of the left page. He could have left it at that and be done with the homework, but he just couldn’t stop. The car got all sorts of futuristic features – jet propulsion, a heat-seeking camera, lasers, some other kind of waves that I’ve forgotten – and then a city underneath it. The city then got a monster, a headquarters for the local superheroes, an aggressive vine, and purple waves of internet. Then another, larger monster outside the city, accompanied by further disasters in the form of a volcano, a meteor shower, and Thanos’ Infinity Gauntlet. Luckily the city then got a force field shield to protect it. Then the larger monster got nail polish and rainbow colours. And had Adrian not run out of space on the page, he would have continued. (He was going to expand to the next page but then you couldn’t see the whole scene at the same time any more and that wasn’t as much fun.)

I remember being at school, at roughly his age. A couple of boys sat at the desk behind me. And I remember them drawing equally advanced scenarios in their exercise books at school, and describing it all to each other, just like Adrian did to me: guys with cool weapons fighting large monsters. Although they only had blue ballpoint pens so their scenes were not as colourful.

Today was a beautiful day with sunlight and bright blue skies, so I wanted out. Eric is away on a business trip but Ingrid and Adrian came with me when I said I was going.

We drove to Hellasgården and walked along some of the trails there. The morning was chilly but by lunchtime I was sweating underneath all my layers.

Plenty of other people had had the same idea: as time passed, the paths got more and more crowded. I added some detours to our planned path to get away from the main routes, because it was getting to the point where I felt like I was on a city street, with people and prams and dogs everywhere. I’m glad we went out early(ish) and I’m glad I didn’t listen to the kids’ mild grumbling when I suggested the detours.

I was extra pleased to note an ad in this morning’s newspaper for a promising organ concert, given my disappointment on Thursday. BachiStan is a project/grouping/something that will play all of Bach’s works for organ during 2020, with concerts taking place every other weekend, starting today. Were I retired and free, perhaps I would try to attend all of them. I’ll be happy even if this is the only one I hear, but I really hope that it won’t be.

On the programme: a prelude, two duets, and a number of chorals.

I enjoyed every moment of this concert. It was so much more to my taste than Thursday’s. Firstly, it was Bach and not Reger. Despite its name, baroque music is restrained and disciplined and almost “easy listening” compared to Reger. Secondly, it was played on relatively modest-sized church organs instead of what I’m beginning to think of as the grandiose monstrosity at Konserthuset.

The German Church has two organs, and both were used today. I arrived relatively late but since I was alone I found a great seat right in the middle. If I sat facing forward, the Juno organ was straight behind me. If I turned to the right, the Düben organ was straight in front of me. So I got perfect sound from both.

There was a speech, not quite a sermon, towards the end of the concert, about why we are here. Why are we listening to this music? Why did Bach write this music? In this telling, it all goes back to Luther and his belief that music brings us closer to God.

And I realized in a flash of insight – I can’t believe I haven’t realized this before! – that my most perfect music listening experiences are those that turn into meditations. The times when I am subsumed by the music and all other senses and thoughts disappear. I am aware of each note as happens, it is almost as if it was happening within me. This takes music of a very different kind than what’s usually labelled as “meditation music” – relaxing, unassuming and bland music that sort of just tinkles along in the background. Meditating to music, not meditating while listening to music.

This second photo is of the collections chest at the German Church. I went looking for it after the concert, because I thought this experience deserved at least the price of a concert ticket. Stuffing my banknote down this ancient opening was a bonus experience.

Ingrid has been suffering from a bad cold for at least a week already. Nose totally blocked, ears blocked, tired, no appetite… The only thing she has found that she wants to eat is home made “ice cream” – frozen yogurt, frozen juice and frozen smoothie. We have a set of molds for making ice pops so Ingrid has been making them for herself, on demand. This one is from a smoothie I made yesterday, with bananas, kiwis and apple juice.

I was going to take a photo of how miserable she was feeling, but the photography session and the effort to pretend that the camera wasn’t there actually cheered her up.

No major life changes, really. Pretty much just keeping going in the same direction as before.

Travels:

• Skiing in Kläppen (day 1, day 2, day 3, day 5, day 6, day 7)
• Ski tour in Norway (day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5, day 6)
• Hiking on Mallorca in a heat wave (day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5, day 6)
• Estonia
• Hiking in Vålådalen (day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4)
• London (day 1, day 2, day 3)

Work:

• Knowabunga in Prague
• Held a talk (and then held it again twice more)

Other memorable events:

• Redid the kitchen (highlights: dreams, demolition, more demolition, cabinets, done)
• Our first scout camp as a family
• Hamilton, the musical (post 1, post 2)

I’m usually tired and stressed during autumns, and this one was worse than most. A lot of stress at work, no time to recharge. December was no better. Towards the end of the two-week holiday over Christmas and New Year, for a while I felt like a normal human being. Now after two weeks at work I’m starting to slip back.

The third in a series of five lunchtime organ concerts at Konserthuset.

Today’s concert was fully dedicated to Max Reger. When Ulf Norberg, the resident organist at Konserthuset, introduced the concert, he said Reger was his favourite composer. Well, de gustibus non est disputandum, but I personally found Reger nearly unlistenable. I enjoyed no part, no aspect of this concert.

There was just so much stuff in this music. It was bombastic, blaring, overdone. All registers booming, then near silence. It was like an ad for the organ at Konserthuset, one of Europe’s largest apparently – look at what it can be made to do! But I could discern no melody or rhythm in this. It was just unstructured sound to my ears.

I wish there had been a way to discreetly leave the concert hall without disturbing anyone, but there wasn’t, so I had to sit there until the end.

Shakshouka is my favourite comfort food. I only learned about this dish a few years ago, from Linas matkasse meal kits. We don’t subscribe to those meal kits any more, but I’ve saved a bunch of the best recipes, and this one is the best. Juicy and flavourful and sweet, and with creamy eggs. I can’t believe I lived for forty years without knowing about shakshouka!

There are plenty of variations on shakshouka. This one, which for me will forever be the quintessential, original one, has plenty of bell peppers in the sauce. It’s almost a pepper sauce with tomatoes more than a tomato sauce. It also has onions and garlic of course, and cumin, paprika and saffron, plus something chili-ish.

Chopping onions makes you cry, right?

Except for me, most days, it doesn’t. I chop onions for dinner most days without even thinking about it. And then today all of a sudden I got an onion that really made me tear up.

Are the onions I get from the supermarket these days some new, weaker variety? Have they been in storage so long that they’ve lost their strength?

The same goes for grapefruit. Grapefruits used to be so tart and astringent that my mouth would pucker. Recently (as in, for several years now) the grapefruits I’ve bought and eaten have been almost bland, so I’ve lost interest in them.

When we replaced our dryer some years ago, we bought one with touch controls, not knowing any better. That darn thing has taught me to never, ever buy touch controls again. I don’t know whether it’s my fingers that are “bad” or my technique, but it doesn’t really matter. The fact is that I almost never succeed in getting those buttons to register my presses on first try. I try again, harder, softer, further down, slower, and after a few attempts the damn thing finally starts.

Today, though, my first touch worked! I was so not expecting it, so it was a real pleasure.

The Nordic Museum has an exhibition titled “Arctis – while the ice is melting”. It’s a mixture of climate science and facts about the Arctic regions and its people.

The climate part, which is what visitors meet first, was designed to be shocking and worrying, but I’m quite aware of all the shocking and worrying facts and statistics already, thank you very much, so I only skimmed it.

The interesting parts were the ones about the people and cultures. I especially enjoyed seeing all the hand-crafted clothes and tools. I like beautiful things made with care and attention. I also really liked the way the items were organized: mostly by type and function, rather than by origin, so sealskin trousers from the Russian far north stood next to similar clothes from Greenland, for example.

A new thing I learned about: glacial archaeology. Archaeologists are now prowling the edges of receding ice patches, finding things that have been hidden and protected by the ice for hundreds of years. When the ice thaws, the objects quickly deteriorate, so scientists try to find them as soon as possible.

The photo is from an ice-themed photo/light installation on the ceiling of the great hall of the museum.