Now that it’s spring and the weather outdoor is inviting and pleasant, Adrian wants to cycle. He’s outgrown his bicycle, though, and cycling on a too-small bike is not very comfortable.

We took the train to town last week to see if we could find something at Cykelåtervinningen, a second hand bicycle shop, but our timing was not the best. They only had bikes at the extreme ends of the quality scale left in his size (24 inches) – no-gear bikes with rusty scratches, and mountain bikes with more gears than I have toes and fingers – so we came home empty-handed. (Nothing wrong with many gears, but Adrian wants a back-pedal brake, and you won’t find that on a mountain bike. And they tend to be expensive.)

Yesterday we found a bike on Blocket that both looked good and seemed suitable. We met the seller the same evening and came home with a shiny new bike, barely used.

Today, of course, he wanted to cycle. Unfortunately Ingrid is completely bikeless right now, because her bike got stolen last summer. (She actually got two bikes stolen within less than a week, because she left them outside at night… so we didn’t want to buy her a new one. If she wants one, she can earn money for it herself.) But she’s now tall enough that her next bike might be a full-sized one.

We ended up with a whole chain of bike switches. Adrian took his new bike, but everyone else got something they don’t normally ride. Ingrid rode mine; I took Eric’s; Eric took his recumbent bike.

After adjusting the seat to the lowest possible height, Eric’s bike was about the right size for me. But I was really surprised about how “off” the whole geometry felt. The seat was too far to the front and the pedals too far back, and the seat angle felt wrong. Pretty uncomfortable, on the whole.

We cycled to Vällingby, just to have a destination of some kind. Once there we bought ice cream, after which we would “just browse” the bookshop for a moment but bought three beautiful jigsaw puzzles, two books and one GeoBender puzzle. And then had a lovely cycle ride back through the spring sunshine.

I had two African violets, both gifts from Ingrid. Apparently they like what they’re getting in my window, because they’ve grown. Both had branched, and the branches were leaning way out over the edges of the pots.

When I sorted them all out, it turned out that the two had turned into five and a half. The half was so puny-looking that I threw it out, but the other five all got new soil, so hopefully they will keep growing.

Today promised beautiful weather, warm and sunny, so I took the day off and went walking.

I have quite flexible working arrangements and this has always been possible, but I’ve almost never taken advantage of it. Somehow taking a day off feels like a smaller step when I’ve already been working from home anyway, with my afternoon walking and cycling breaks.

After a longish break from walking the Sörmlandsleden, I did another section today. I’ve done all the easy-to-reach low-numbered sections. The ones ahead of me now cannot easily be reached with public transport, and some cannot even be reached by car. The best way to walk them would probably be multi-day hikes. But I only have one day, so I just simply walked section 12 twice. There and back again.

Section 12 starts near Järna, in an old iron mining district. For the first kilometer or two, the woods are pockmarked with small water-filled mining pits, most just a few metres across. There were several informational plaques here and there as well. I skimmed a few; the oldest one I noticed was dated 1985. That was a really durable, well-made sign, with the text and images etched into metal. No flimsy plastic signs here.

The rest of the section is pretty standard Sörmland pine forest with blueberry undergrowth. There were several lakes here and there offering resting places with nice views.

Much of it was quiet, as pine forest tends to be, except for the soughing of the wind, although I heard blue tits and finches in a few places.

Section 12 is 8.5 km according to the official notes. Adding another kilometre to walk from the parking spot I found to the beginning of section 12, and then doubling it all, brought the total to 20 km. A good distance for one day, especially when the walking is as hilly and rocky as this was.

Easter break. No difference for me or Eric but Ingrid is at home, and she treated herself to a pancake and anime breakfast in the sofa.

Learning from my earlier failures to get out, today when the weather was sunny in the middle of the day I put all work aside and went out cycling. I cycled to Maltesholm/Råcksta where I hoped I might get some sun and see some spring flowers. There can never be too many photos of spring flowers.

Fast cycling and macro photography don’t combine very well. I had to take a walk before I could get my pulse and adrenaline levels down far enough to get into a calm, harmonious state of mind that let me enjoy the photography.

Just as I was heading back towards my bike, I spotted this year’s first butterfly. There is an Estonian tradition that says that the colour of the first butterfly you see will tell you what your summer will be like. Yellow for a golden, bountiful summer; colourful for a colourful one of course; and white for either a dull or a sorrowful one.

This is obviously a Swedish butterfly and isn’t familiar with the Estonian tradition. But it’s known as the mourning cloak in English and has similar names in both Estonian and Swedish.

The very first daffodils in the garden are flowering, along with the last and largest of the crocuses.

Those are both large and bright and catch the eye amidst all the dead grass. But the flowering currants are prettier than either of them. The leaf buds have opened, and from each one a dark pink, downy cluster of flower buds emerges, alongside a barely-open new leaf, also edged in pink.

I’m guessing we might get a stricter quarantine soon, and I’ve tried to think about what that might mean for us. Boredom, of course, and cabin fever. We’re well equipped, with Netflix and Kindle and PlayStations and board games. But just in case, one of the things we did today was to buy the Nintendo Switch that Adrian has been saving up for, and letting him spread out the rest of the cost over the next six months. Just in case.

And we went quarantine shopping. If we get a quarantine, we might end up with the same kind of shopping routines that they have in the UK: strict limits of how many people are allowed to be in a supermarket at the same time, and hour-long queues outside. If this happens, it will probably be at its worst at the very beginning, so we stocked up with enough basic groceries to last us a week. No canned ravioli or meat soup or other panic food; just normal basics like pasta, rice, canned tomatoes and beans, and frozen vegetables, that we’ll eat anyway, with or without quarantine.

I made a list and Ingrid and Adrian immediately volunteered to take care of it, and seemed to have fun doing it. Meanwhile, Eric and I did the normal shopping for this weekend.

What we saw in Bromma confirms Google’s statistics. The parking lot wasn’t as packed as it would be on a normal Sunday, but it was more full than empty. Not much staying at home going on here.

All other large countries in Europe are going into lockdown, yet in Sweden life is pretty much continuing as usual. The official recommendation is to work from home, avoid going anywhere to the extent possible, and avoid larger gatherings, but people don’t seem to be taking this very seriously. Fewer people are using mass transit. But gyms, restaurants and shopping malls remain open, and people are still going there. A 30% reduction in visitors is not much.

The effect is that people in Sweden are dying. Yesterday (or was it the day before) 50 people died in Sweden of coronavirus, which is as many as have died in Norway in total. Norway has a smaller population, true, but even counting deaths per million inhabitants, Sweden stands out. We’re not at the level of the worst hit countries yet, but we’re not doing great, either.

We’re about to do much worse quite soon. We’re following in the footsteps of all those dark red countries on the map. Our curves are pointing up at the same angle as theirs, just with a bit of a delay.

There may be perfectly good reasons for this voluntary, recommendation-based, “we should all do our duty” approach. I’m not going to join the army of armchair epidemiologists who all know better than the experts what we should be doing. But I am guessing that the country is going to switch over to a mandatory, prohibition-based proper quarantine very soon.

Sources: Our World in Data Coronavirus Statistics and Research, Google COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports.

I had a chocolate cookie for today’s online Friday fika, ending our third week of remote working.

I’m sort of getting used to it, settling into this new reality, and finding solutions to make it a sustainable way of working. Our team retrospective today was also all about adapting to working 100% remotely and compensating for not being in the same room.

How do you check if your teammate is available for a quick chat, or deep in the middle of a tricky problem and doesn’t want to be disturbed? In the office you say their name, and if they’re busy, they can reply and tell you to go away, without breaking that thread of concentration. Remotely, you ping them on Slack, and then sit and wonder if they didn’t reply because they just forgot to check Slack or because they’re really busy.

I’m not getting out very much now that I am working at home, even though there is no actual quarantine keeping me indoors. There’s always some reason I don’t do it, and by the time I get around to it, it’s too late.

Today, for example. I looked out through the window around lunchtime and noted the beautiful weather. Considered going out for a walk, but decided that I could do that later, and just worked out for a while instead, ate lunch and went back to work.

By the time I was done working, the weather was also done being nice, and around dinnertime there was a full-blown storm. Strong, gusty wind and heavy rain, and later on thick snow flying almost horizontally.

I only went out for a very brief moment, in a short lull between the rain showers, to right our bird feeder stand which had blown down.