Ingrid picked snowdrops.

I’ve barely left the house for the last week due to feeling unwell. Went out yesterday for 15 minutes to empty the plastic recycling, and came home with a headache. Today was better. I’m still coughing occasionally (especially talking triggers it all the time) but as long as I keep my mouth shut, I feel better. I even went out walking with Adrian for over an hour.

I’ve been watching the icy streets with curiosity to see when they melt. The icy street had a wide clear streak already, so I’ve missed the breakthrough moment there. In the park, though, the ice fields still covered the entire path a week ago, but now there is a fresh new almost ice-free channel in the middle.

It doesn’t look very appealing, and it is in fact harder to get past than the actual ice was, but it makes everything feels like spring.

Today was sunny and hot. It feels like spring is here. Nysse was off exploring for hours, then came back and went out again. He seemed to really enjoy the warmth. I tried to catch him basking in the sun, but the moment he saw me, he always came over to see what I was doing. So I only got semi-blurry photos of him prowling closer to explore the camera.

It looks like I’ve gone and gotten covid-19. That’s what I get for going to the theatre and sitting cheek to jowl with a bunch of strangers, I guess.

I’m still tired, and I now also have a runny nose and an annoying ticklish, dry cough.

What really annoys me about this is the timing. I’ve managed to avoid it for two years, and now I get it just before I’m about to finally go on my long-awaited ski tour. Which I’ve missed for two seasons in a row, and been looking forward to since November.

I’ve got less than a week to get well.

I’ve gotten better since Monday and I’m back at work (thank goodness for WFH) but I’m still not really well. Tired and sluggish. Standing up feels like an effort. I’m spending a lot of my non-working time curled up in my favourite corner of the sofa with my favourite cushion and my favourite blanket.

At five o’clock in the afternoon there is still bright sunshine in places. So much better than the winter’s darkness. The short days of winter do not agree with me.

I am approaching a point (or maybe I’ve even already reached it) where it doesn’t make much sense to knit more socks. I have lots of wonderful, woolly socks now. Not quite in all imaginable colours yet, but close. I can’t remember when I last wore a pair of plain, black, store-bought cotton socks. I also can’t see myself doing so in a foreseeable future. But I don’t want to stop. I can make room for more knitted socks in my sock drawer if I pack away the cotton ones to the basement.

I can also keep the drawer from filling up by knitting socks for others. Adrian is always happy about more socks, and I found these beautiful, crazy yarns that almost seem made for him. Zauberball Crazy – colour gradient yarns in brilliant hues with no repeating pattern. Four socks from one ball, and nothing repeats.

I wonder how they even make these yarns. Are they actually random, or are they carefully designed to appear random? How do they wind the balls so tidily, with the colours so clearly separated? Has this company invented not only a unique way to dye yarns, but also a matching machine to wind them?

Sick enough to not take any photos, but not properly sick. Just really tired, and my brain was so foggy that I didn’t even try to knit.

Eric has been coughing and sneezing since the weekend, and Adrian also came home from school with a runny nose.

She’s off. No longer the one who always gets a lift from others.

Ingrid bought a moped before Christmas, with all her savings and some support from us as an early Christmas gift. It’s been standing in our garage, doing nothing, for months. She already had her license as well, so she’s been anxious to take it out for many weeks but the weather hasn’t allowed it. Now that the streets are finally mostly ice-free, it’s a go.

Today she and Eric replaced the moped’s broken footplate. This project involved detaching literally all fairings and assorted other bits (which she listed for me but I already forgot) to access the footplate, and then putting them back again. It took hours. But now the moped is all ready!

(Ingrid’s closest group of friends are nearly all boys, and all very interested in cars and mopeds. Ingrid knows way more about sports cars than I did at her age.)