It bothers me that I had to take the train to town on Friday because I didn’t trust my cycling ability. So today I cycled to the recycling centre in Bromma just to see how it felt. (And to recycle two pairs of outgrown, broken children’s shoes.)

Cycling didn’t cause my back any problems at all, which was a relief.

I still haven’t gotten used to the weather being so warm. It’s February, which should be deepest winter, but outside it’s around 10°C.

Wise from past experience, I wore the thinnest three layers I own. Which was a very good thing, because of course I got hot and had to start shedding layers after a while.

Also I remembered both to take my sunglasses and to pump my tires before leaving, both of which I have forgotten in the past, so I really enjoyed my trip.

I started work on the cardigan again, and then I tried it on, and now I’m ripping it all up again.

I don’t get it. I made a gauge swatch, and measured and counted it carefully. And when I had knitted about 10–15 cm of the cardigan itself, the measurements still matched up nicely. But after 20cm the cardigan felt a bit tighter when I held it around me. And at 30 cm it was clearly way too tight. I’m going to be making the next attempt with almost 20% more stitches.

I am beginning to suspect that knitted fabric behaves differently when there is more of it in all directions. More stitches are pulling at each other, so it doesn’t relax as much. If that is true, then a smallish swatch – even though I follow the advice I’ve found and make mine at least 15 cm across – is never going to give a true view of gauge for the final thing.

I had the same problem with the previous cardigan. The difference was not quite as drastic, but overall the cardigan still came out smaller than it should have done based on the swatch.

The trouble is, it takes so much time to figure this out! If I get the sizing wrong for a pair of socks, I can remake them in less than a week. With a cardigan, it takes months. And for socks I can reuse my numbers for the next pair. But I don’t plan to knit a pile of identical cardigans, so I will need to redo the work every time I want to make another one. I wonder how many cardigans I have to knit before I finally master this and can produce them with predictable sizing on the first attempt.

The mohair yarn is starting to look the worse for wear. It’s getting uneven. If I have to rip this up one more time, I may have to throw out the used mohair yarn and buy more to replace it. The alpaca yarn (in the photo) is smoother and bears the repeated knitting and unravelling better.

I needed to go to the tretton37 office today. Last time was in September I think?

My back has occasionally been acting up still, so I didn’t dare to commit to cycling all that way, especially since cycling involves (1) bending at the waist and (2) pushing with my legs, both of which have been a bit problematic recently. So, train and tube it is.

I left home early to avoid the worst of the morning rush. I wouldn’t quite describe the train as crowded, but definitely not empty either. And those who were there didn’t seem to be thinking much about social distancing or any such thing. Less than half the passengers were wearing masks. And people were squeezing past others (and me) in the narrow aisles without any second thoughts, and likewise on the escalators.

I guess if you have to be on public transport every day because you cannot work from home then after a while maybe you simply stop worrying, because you run out of worry.

This was my first time in a crowded indoor space in months, so it was also my first time wearing a face mask for real. It didn’t feel like I had expected.

I had expected the bands around my ears to be uncomfortable. I usually hate such things. I only ever buy sunglasses with straight arms to avoid pressure behind my ears. But I didn’t even notice these.

I constantly noticed the mask itself, though. It comes up high enough under my eyes that I see it all the time. And especially when I tried to look down. When I wanted to read, I had to hold my magazine up high to see it properly past the edge of the mask. And when I tried to use my wallet to pay, and when I touched my key fob to the door pad, and so on.

If I had to do this daily, I’d probably try to find a different make that didn’t come quite as high up on the sides. But now it’s not worth the bother.

It got steamy inside the mask when I took the stairs fast.

The office was mostly empty. A handful of people were there but the overall impression was of abandonment.

I left in the early afternoon to avoid the rush hour again and finished my work at home. The whole commute felt like so much wasted time. 40 minutes there, 40 back, all chopped up into little pieces so I can’t even do much with the time.

The snowdrops in central Spånga have been out for a while already, by the looks of it. I haven’t thought of looking for them until now.

It is lovely to see them, but spring in February is still wrong.

It didn’t take long after the snow thawed until the first spring flowers showed themselves.

I like winter aconite. The bright yellow is so cheery – and they’re the first sign of spring.

(Not our garden. We don’t have winter aconite. We’ll have to hold out until the crocuses appear.)

The only times I leave the house these days are for walks, and for grocery shopping. Even the trips to the supermarket are tinged by guilty feelings.

Both supermarkets here in Spånga try to guide shoppers towards less busy times. I still mostly end up shopping during the red periods but even then Coop is never what I would describe as crowded. I rarely pass close to other people, because the shop is laid out like a circle: enter at one end, loop all the way around, pay and exit next to the entrance. In ICA I often have to step aside into an aisle or otherwise walk uncomfortably close to people, because their layout is more tangled.

It is mandatory for shops to limit the number of people inside based on the available floor space. I think it’s one person per 10 sq m. ICA takes this half-seriously at best. There’s a sign that only 40 people are allowed inside, but there is no way to know how many are there, so I’m not sure what the point is. Coop on the other hand has a nifty system: they use the number of baskets to control the number of people. Every shopper has to take a basket, and when the baskets run out, you know the limit has been reached.

I’m picking up the cardigan again, after a break to knit two pairs of socks. I want more socks but I also want a cardigan. The socks are small, easy wins and I’d been putting off this larger project.

Working on it again is a pleasure. I’d forgotten just how soft the yarn was. If I could choose, I might never wear a cardigan in anything other than alpaca or mohair again.

I notice the same with other activities I enjoy. If enough time passes, I forget just how much I normally enjoy them. I wonder if there is a term for this. Sort of the inverse of the Pollyanna principle.

The snow is melting at an impressive pace in the warm rain, and apparently the weeds beneath it are already ready to go.

+4°C feels much warmer in February than it did in November. I go out dressed as I was back then, and before long I’m unzipping my coat and peeling off my gloves.

Eric and Ingrid are playing a racing game. They both play a lot of fast-reaction games like FPSs, so they’re quite evenly matched.

I think this was it for this winter. +4°C and everything is thawing and dripping.