As usual, the trip to Estonia wouldn’t feel complete without a visit to the adventure park at Otepää.

Thanks to Ingrid, I have some photos of me climbing as well.

The last trail is challenging for all of us. Now that Adrian is as tall as the rest of us, we’re on an equal footing.

That trail ends with the so-called Tarzan leap – hold on to a thick rope and leap off a platform to swing across a twenty-metre gap to a net on the other side. After a few attempts it no longer feels scary – as long as I don’t stop to think about it.

Of course we’re all harnessed and clipped into things so there’s no real risk.

The trails all end with zipline rides, which is like the cherry on top.

Finally the two long zipline rides across the valley and back cap off the entire day.

The Hansapäevad festival has shrunken and simplified into a Hansalaat market. Gone is most of the medieval feel and all the cultural activities; we’re left with just a market. Which is still fun but not the same thing.

We had vaguely planned for a picnic but then the kids ended up just eating market food instead. Bubble waffles. If I’d had more energy, I’d maybe have tried to argue for a picnic but I didn’t. Perhaps that was a good thing, because we got hit by several surprise rain showers later in the day.

After browsing the market we went to Toomemägi and climbed the cathedral ruins there.

Dogs and kids with bad knees stayed down below.

My friends are all dog owners now, and the dogs are on the large and energetic side. The easiest way for us all to meet up is to go out for a walk with the dogs.

I ran ahead a bit to get some distance for the photo. I suspect Ingrid lined them all up in the meantime.

I’m off to Estonia with the kids, to visit family and friends.

We’ve always used Tallink ferries to get there (apart from the early days when I flew) but this time we’re trying a different approach. Tallink never reinstated the second ferry (after cutting down from daily trips to every other day during the covid pandemic) and now their schedule doesn’t suit us. I went looking for alternatives. Flight + rent a car? Expensive. Different ferry line? Better schedule, better prices, better times, but less convenient harbours. Worth a try.

DFDS leaves from Kapellskär which is further away from us than central Stockholm. On the Estonian side they go to Paldiski instead of Tallinn, which is further from Tartu but on larger roads. Tallink ferries are basically floating hotels and act accordingly: there are lavish tax-free shops, onboard entertainment, plenty of restaurants, and they try to keep you there as long as possible to squeeze the most money out of you. DFDS on the other hand just focuses on getting you there: leaves several hours later, and gets there several hours earlier. Which suits us really well. The ferry experience was fun for the kids when they were young, but now we’re all just waiting for time to pass and wishing we could get there sooner.

I enjoyed watching the crew play Tetris with all the large lorries.

The new planting is doing well! Almost everything is thriving.

The Tiarella is flowering. The deer ate some of the flowers at first but then mostly left them alone.

The Physocarpus is gaining some colour. It’s probably not going to be as strongly bronze-coloured as it would be in the sun, but it’s hard to find colourful bushes that like shade! Even if it just has an orange tint to some of its leaves, it’s going to be nice.

One thing that isn’t happy is the martagon lilies. Something has eaten holes all over the leaves. It remains to be seen if they survive.

Adrian is making a double batch of his favourite chocolate chip cookies as gifts to our friends in Estonia.

As usual, I’m getting started without fully knowing where I want to end up.

Detailed plans are not for me. I can’t do weekly meal plans; I don’t have daily plans for our vacation trips; I don’t have a design for the garden; I don’t draw up plans for software I write. I have a direction, and ideas about what I might like, and more detailed ideas about the first few steps, and the rest will come later when I know more. Trying to make a detailed plan usually just ends up paralysing me with anxiety.

I semi-randomly assigned colours/fabrics to the shapes I had drawn, with no more thought than making sure that I didn’t get two of the same colour next to each other. Outlined them, and started embroidering on the first one with lattice stitch.

After four days of tedious, boring, fiddly mending, I need a project that is fun and creative and enjoyable.

Funnily enough this one I’ve also been thinking about and sort of procrastinating about for a long time, but for completely the opposite reason than the damn cardigan facing, but for the completely opposite reason.

This is an old skirt in some sort of crafts-woven wool mix fabric that I bought at Spitalfields Market ages ago, from a small-scale maker. I still like it but at the same time I feel it’s getting a bit boring. Needs more bling, more pizzazz. So I’ve been thinking about decorating it somehow.

But how? Applique? Lace? Embroidery? Too much wide-open choice, too many options, so I’ve done nothing.

At one point I bought a small bit of glorious patterned silk fabric that I thought I might use for some kind of applique, but it never felt quite right, so the project has been languishing at the back of my brain.

Inspiration is never going to simply appear so I just have to get started. I’m thinking of organic shapes in a vaguely flower-like design, centred around the right side seam. (Sloppy photos today, sorry – I was focusing more on the design than on documenting it properly.)

Going all in on the patterned silk would be too much of a good thing, I think, so I bought wool in matching colours to combine it with. The silk gets to set both the colour scheme and the overall tone – blingy! – but some of the “petals” will be in wool. In a way it will make it visually noisier but also less overwhelming I hope.

Finally I am done with the cardigan and it’s wearable again.

I was expecting two days of work but even working until my eyes got tired and difficult to focus, it took me 4 days to finish it. Never again.

The stiff tape makes all the horizontal edges flare just a little bit. Not too much around the neckline, luckily, and around the hips I think it might actually look good in a way.

The rounded corners were super hard. I figured out after the first one that clips worked better than pins, but it was still difficult to get the curves to curve. I didn’t quite succeed, and they all look a bit uneven. I don’t think it will be noticeable from a distance, though. I’m not going to redo it all in any case.

And of course Nysse had to lie down on it when I was done. He doesn’t even always lay long enough on my projects to go to sleep – sometimes only a few minutes. I don’t know if he just wants to try them out and see how comfy they are, or if he’s marking them as his territory or something.

Nysse is out all night and half the day, hunting rats. Ingrid spotted him with a big rat in his mouth a few weeks ago, and my brother saw him take another one while he was cat-sitting and we were away on Santorini.

When he comes home, he eats, and then conks out on the carpet or a sofa somewhere. When it’s this hot, a sleeping cat looks a bit like a limp rag.