Eating waffles at the bottom of Mattesdalen in Branäs.

Branäs is a smallish ski resort that we honestly mostly chose because all the other places were fully booked by the time we decided that, yes, we do dare go on a ski trip this year. But it seemed to suit us well: relatively close to Stockholm, with pet-friendly accommodation available, and with plenty of relatively gentle slopes.

(Yes, we brought Nysse with us. He didn’t enjoy the long drive much, but we’re also pretty sure that he wouldn’t have enjoyed being alone for five days either, with some stranger stopping by only to feed and water him and empty the litter box. Now that we’re here, he’s all happy again.)

Mostly Branäs is as expected. Plenty of blue slopes. Small-scale, with lots of button lifts and just two chairlifts.

The restaurants have been truly disappointing, though. They all use app-based ordering, which is practical I guess, but whenever I use these things I feel like I’m doing the staff’s work for them. And our lunches today were just barely on the right side of edible. The pizzas were thick and doughy and barely had any sauce. The “creamy mushroom pasta” I ordered barely had enough sauce to almost coat all of the overcooked pasta, and contained a total of 2 smallish mushrooms (each chopped into quarters). Even school cafeteria lunches are better than that.

We took a waffle break in the afternoon to rest our legs and top up our blood sugar. Here as well the overall impression was cheap and impersonal. Order in the app, get your cardboard plate with a waffle from an overworked staff member, eat it in a room with the blandest possible interior, clean it up yourself.

(Only Ingrid and Adrian are in the picture because Eric took a bad fall and had to cut his snowboarding short for the day.)

We’re in Branäs for a few days of skiing. Arrived in the afternoon, unloaded the car, got our equipment and tried out the slopes closest to us. Branäs has a lot of slopes with artificial lighting which stay open until 19:00, which we like!

We bought a new kitchen table. Here it is, set for an inaugural dinner, with a bonus (malus) cat photobombing it.

The old one Eric and I bought at Habitat in London just after moving there, so that would have been in 2001. Getting twenty years of use from a table isn’t bad.

But it really was on its last legs now. The veneer strips on the edges were falling off, the varnish on the top was completely worn through in places. Most importantly, it was wobbly and squeaky as hell because all the joins were loose, no matter how much we tightened the screws. We’ve had way too many incidents with drinks sloshing over from glasses when someone accidentally pushes against the table. And using it for kneading dough or energetic whisking or even cutting crusty bread has been quite frustrating.

We chose the new table with those learnings fresh in mind. No veneer, and no varnished finish. Solid oak throughout, with an oiled finish that we can just sand down again and reapply oil to when needed. And the thickest, most solid construction we could find! I hope this one will last us more than two decades.

I had a mammography appointment today at Capio St. Göran’s Hospital.

Getting there was a bit of a hassle. The letter I got about my appointment had big bold text about a new location, so I was expecting some confusion. Unfortunately I didn’t think to bring the letter with me. When I arrived I saw plenty of signage on the hospital grounds, all leading me to the mammography department, so it all seemed simple enough. But when I got there, at the far end of the grounds, it turned out that there were now two mammography departments, only one of which had any signs at all. The one I had arrived at just told me to go all the way back to the entrance. You’d think they’d at least have signs for, like, “Mammography A” and “Mammography B” instead of just completely ignoring one of them, but no.

The appointment itself was very quick and efficient, if uncomfortable. There is nothing pleasant about getting your boobs squeezed hard between two unyielding plates of plastic.

St. Göran’s hospital looks old on the outside, but inside it’s all wide, gleaming corridors. I still have strong memories of the facilities at the Royal London Hospital – badly lit, cramped and dingy. I always felt a bit uneasy there.

Life is gray and muddy and miserable, and Russia has started an actual war. It’s horrible to even think that this can happen – in 2022, in the middle of Europe, people are being woken by air raid sirens. And while there may be condemnations and economic sanctions, there will be no real military help to Ukraine, and Putin’s bullying will get him what he wants. Again. I’m glad that Estonia managed to join NATO before Russia became strong enough again to block other countries’ ambitions to do the same.

Is this what the beginning of WW2 felt like? Horrifying, but at a distance, and with a side of helplessness?

Now I’m off to comfort myself with pancakes for dinner.

Office day today. View from the roof terrace outside the Urb-it Stockholm office.

The weather has been unpleasant, and what it’s left behind on the ground even more so – a crust of ice, and on top of that a thick layer of wet snow that is already melting a bit.

Nysse hasn’t been out much in the past few days. He really doesn’t like walking through wet snow. When he walks, he shakes off each paw he lifts, with a mien of disgust.

He needs to get out, though. I can see him getting restless. So, like the five-star cat servant that I am, I took him and went out with him and made tracks for him. It worked like a treat – he walked in my footsteps, taking big steps to avoid the snow in between. Once he’d followed the tracks for a few metres, he realized that the outdoors was really quite interesting after all and went off on his own. (Off to eat crumbs underneath the neighbours’ bird feeder.)

A storm passed through today. Lots of wind, lots of snow/rain/sleet. Several times I thought that I should go take a photo. But there was always something to hold me back. “I just need to finish this thing for work first.” “After lunch.” “There’s a lull in the snowfall, this is boring.” “Now the light is fading.” And suddenly it’s evening and I have no photo. I don’t understand why I do this to myself.

My brother came to visit, for his birthday. We baked a lemon poppyseed cake and played Small World. It was a tight race for the top – Eric won, one point ahead of me and two points ahead of Adrian.

Nearly undisturbed snow early in the morning – or at least early for a Saturday – before cars and feet.