The cardigan is now at roughly the same point where I ripped it up last time. Time to try it on again soon.

I’m making good progress on it, and on the socks I’m also working on, with all the online meetings we have. Knitting is the perfect filler activity for meetings where I am mostly a passive participant.

But meetings are only good for a certain kind of knitting: the kind that I can do with half my attention. No measuring or fitting, no casting on new things, no tricky counting. I try to make sure to have at least one of my projects in a meeting-ready state by each morning. I wouldn’t want to end up in an hour-long meeting with no knitting just because I’m stuck behind the start of a heel or something like that.

This work-from-home thing is really spoiling me.

The libraries in Stockholm have been in covid mode for the past year. Some are closed, some just discourage visitors. And no late fees have been charged.

I’ve had an overdue children’s book at home all this year. The library in Spånga has been closed and I just haven’t bothered finding an alternative one to return it to.

I got an email telling me the grace period ends on March 31st, so I got off my backside and cycled to Vällingby to return the darn thing. It was a relief to finally get rid of it.

Vällingby felt mostly deserted.

After last week’s lack of energy, I’m glad to be back to feeling normal again.

Today was warm enough to open the window during my workout, but unfortunately wet. I’m looking forward to moving my workouts outdoors. But spring is deceptive – it always takes much longer than I expect.

When dinner is done, the dinner bell is rung. It has a wonderfully deep sound that carries well through the house. But it doesn’t do well through closed doors. Neither does my voice.

I used to go upstairs to knock on Ingrid’s door to call her to dinner, but that got tiring quite quickly. Especially when the answer I got was in the vein of “I’ll be down soon, I just have to win this battle”. Not only did I do the work of cooking dinner – I then had to chase down people to come and eat it.

The obvious, practical solution to this was a pair of remote-operated doorbells. The buttons are downstairs in the kitchen, next to the singing bowl. The bells themselves are upstairs in Ingrid’s and Adrian’s rooms. They each chose their own ringtones. One sounds like a bunch of birds tweeting; the other is a more traditional melody. Sort of like 19th-century servants’ bells, but the other way round.

Mostly the bells mean “dinner is ready”, but not always. Today Ingrid rang Adrian’s bell when she wanted him to bring down the iPad (that normally “lives” downstairs but is often “forgotten” upstairs) and had sore leg muscles from gym class. Snarky comments were exchanged, both about “forgetting” the iPad, and about using the bell instead of walking.

It’s a lovely spring day so Adrian and I went out walking. Of the whole family, he is the most willing to join me when I want to go out – especially when the walking involves geocaching, or grilling sausages. Today we picked off three easy caches in the nearby Grimsta nature reserve, with Adrian in charge of the GPS unit.

Adrian found a few rocks to climb, and plenty of sticks. He just never tires of sticks. There is so much that they can be used for! Pick them, carry them, peel them, whack the ground with them…

I found the season’s first blue anemones.

Once upon a time, several years ago, I stumbled upon a recipe for cheesy broccoli muffins. Since then it’s become a fixture in my recipe collection. The best part about it is how versatile it is. The cheesy “foundation” can be combined with just about anything. When I got tired of the broccoli and feta cheese flavour, I replaced them with grated apples and carrots and curry powder. When I didn’t have enough carrots at home, I made them with apples and curry and sweetcorn. When I wanted a Christmas-themed variation, I used feta cheese and frozen lingonberries. I’ve been thinking of making them with butternut squash, or perhaps with spinach, or why not both.

Daffodil shoots are appearing in places where I wasn’t expecting them. I guess I must have bought a pot of daffodils last spring and then just plopped down the bulbs in some random place when they were finished. Wouldn’t be the first time.

If one looks really carefully, there are other things starting to flower, not just crocuses.

I’m fed up with my vague symptoms and almost-unwellness, so I ordered a covid test. It involved poking a tickly stick at the back of my throat, and up my nose, which was distinctly unpleasant. Now the results are in a tightly closed tube, wrapped in a sealed bag, wrapped in another sealed bag.

I’ve been participating in a crowdsourced study of covid-19 since last summer. Or maybe longer, I can’t remember. Every day (when I don’t forget it) I report whether I have any symptoms that might be related to covid-19. The list started out quite brief but has grown with time. Now there are four pages of checkboxes: from fevers and chills and aches, through rashes and purple lesions on toes, on to tiredness and lack of appetite – and so on and on. I’ve never been observing minor symptoms of disease in myself as closely and curiously as I am now.

I’m checking more and more boxes on that list, but none of them severely. And not the really specific ones like loss of taste or smell. The same with Ingrid, who is still not really well either but not really sick either. I’m focusing more on the sneezing and tickly throat side of things, while she has more aches here and there.

What I notice most now is the tiredness and lack of energy. I tried working but felt after an hour that I really had no energy for anything that required concentration or active effort. I spent the rest of the day lying (not even sitting) and reading in the sofa, and then moved to doing the same in the bed because it was flatter and had a better pillow.

I got up for lunch and dinner, and while my body had no problem doing it, my brain was constantly telling me how much I wanted to lean the weight of my head on my elbow, and how heavy the cutlery was, and what an effort it was to move the food to my mouth. Couldn’t someone invent some kind of thing to do the work for me. Ingrid agreed.

I am not well and I am not sick. Slightly scratchy throat, slightly blocked nose, slightly chilled. And above all, tired.

I went out for a walk at lunchtime, hoping it would give me some energy. Instead I found myself thinking “are we there yet” and “can I go home soon”.

Tried to photograph hazel blossoms in the park but it was windy and they would not stay still long enough.