Today was so wet and windy that I couldn’t even put our jack-o-lantern outside. I even lit the candle and put the carved pumpkin over it indoors, but the moment I tried to take it to the porch, the wind blew the candle out. So here it is, looking down at things from a hall window.

I wasn’t expecting many trick-or-treaters at all. Partly because of the weather, but also because they’ve been fewer in recent years. Families going away for autumn break, perhaps. Still, Ingrid bought some candy just in case, enough for the ten or so kids I expected.

In the end, we got over twenty trick-or-treaters. I ran out of Halloween candy, and dug through our cupboards for any kind of sweets that kids might eat (except Adrian’s Aladdin pralines). There’s no point in offering them dark chocolate, or candied ginger… They got my Skotte hiking snacks, and our Valrhona white chocolate buttons, and some leftover dammsugare. The last ones walked away with very measly handouts. Had there been any more of them, I’d have been forced to give them biscuits or baking chocolate.

The bird feeder is up, and the birds arrived immediately. Magpies gobbled up all the peanuts in the other feeder within a couple of days, and the smaller birds are all happy about the sunflower seeds. Nuthatches, goldfinches, and blue tits, mostly, plus the occasional tree sparrow and greenfinch.

On the one hand, it goes really fast. I started a day ago, and I have definitely not spent all day knitting, but already I have half the yoke done. I’m starting to understand how people can knit a sweater in a week.

On the other hand, it gobbles up yarn like there’s no tomorrow. This is a full 50 g skein of yarn gone, in a day.

On the third hand, this yarn is about a third of the price of the hand-dyed merino wool I’ve used before.

In addition to my purchases yesterday, I also bought some yarn from a local yarn shop here in Spånga for a brown cardigan.

This yarn is thicker than anything I’ve used for a sweater before, and the label recommended 6 mm needles. The largest “normal” needles I had were 5 mm, so I knitted up a swatch with those first, but I did want to do another with the recommended needle size.

The only 6 mm needles I had were these old wooden ones, that I’ve only used for teaching Ingrid and Adrian to knit. They were like sticks in my hands, and I felt like I was play-acting knitting. I didn’t like the look of the result, either – it was floppy and thin – so luckily I’ll be using the more normal 5 mm needles for the cardigan itself.

The weather forecast for the weekend is bad, so I won’t be doing a long hike this weekend, either. I want to use my flex hours for something better than just shorter days, so I took today off to go to the Stockholm Sewing & Crafts Fair. It’s likely to be much more crowded during the weekend (although it was this empty for only the first half-hour or so).

A lot of the vendors I recognized from past visits, but some were new. I found a few more indie yarn dyers to follow on Instagram, admired a lot of sweaters that I would nevertheless not want to wear myself, signed up for a knitting club, bought fabric to sew two tops, and yarn for two sweaters. Yarn and fabric are hard to buy online – I want to feel them with my own hands before making a decision. I guess could order a lot and then send most back, but this works much better.

It was my turn to choose a stitch for us to explore together, and I picked the stem stitch. I chose it mostly because I wanted to share a trick that I learned in a workshop some years ago, of using a combination of whip stitch and stem stitch for attaching appliqué pieces, instead of blanket stitch, for both better tension control and a more distinct line. It turned out to be new for everyone else in the group.

I only use a few basic stitches, and the same handful of colours, and still every new embroidered blob looks different.

The hours I spend at the embroidery club are so focused on the stitches we’re exploring together that I make no progress on my other projects there. Since I started attaching the finished blobs to the skirt, the skirt is currently out of action. I need to get a move on and get the blobs done so that I can wear it again. It’s one of my 4 good winter skirts, so I need it!

The Nordic Museum had posted an invitation today, on their 150th birthday, to share memories of this day, in words and pictures, for the future. I’m posting here the photos I submitted to their collection as well.

The morning was gray and windy, just a few degrees above freezing, but there were glimpses of sun breaking through as I got to Spånga station.

Normally during rush hour the trains here are supposed to go eight times an hour, but the company currently running the commuter train service hasn’t managed to deliver that for quite a while. At least you can generally count on a train once every fifteen minutes. The train this morning was quite crowded but not too horribly crammed full.

I got off the train at Stockholm Central and walked from there to the tretton37 office in the Waterfront building. On the way I stopped by Coop at the lower floor of the station to buy lunch, because I was all out of leftovers at home.

I got a small green smoothie for breakfast 29 kr and a bouillabaisse for 79 kr, for a total of 108 kr.

Many supermarkets have replaced most of their manned checkouts with self-checkout stations. I like it when I only have one or two things to pay for and can get it done quickly, but their occasional random checks really annoy me when they happen.

The entrances to the Waterfront are all automated doors, just like the entrance and exit to the train stations and the supermarket.

The office was relatively empty today. Even though it was almost 9 o’clock when I got there, almost all desks were still empty and I could choose whichever seat I liked.

I didn’t even think of photographs or much else around me during the day as I was working. Then I stood up at five-ish and realized the sun was going down already, glinting off the skyscrapers next to Hötorget.

This street, Klarabergsgatan, used to see a lot more traffic. It has now mostly been closed off for everyone except public transport, and the pavements have been widened.

The folks in the office were gearing up for a Halloween-themed after-work event, with people dressed up as anything from kings to bananas, and a monthly company meeting. I was out of social energy and went home, and will watch a recording of the meeting some other day.

A blip of the SL Access card to take the train home. Costs me 39 kr for a one-way trip. After the most recent price hike, a monthly card costs 970 kr so it is generally not worth it if I only go to the office twice a week.

I got a seat on the train back to Spånga so I could crochet on the way. Much better than randomly scrolling social media. This piece of lace has been my travel project for literally years. I’ve gotten tired of waiting for it, so now I’m working on it more frequently during meetings and such so that I can get it done.

One of the station entrance doors has been broken for the last few days, and for some reason the staff has elected to leave it in the closed position, rather than having it always open. All the people getting off the train clump up in front of the entrance.

On Spånga Torg, the second-hand ladies’ wear shop has filled their windows with warm coats. The florist’s show windows are an odd mixture of Halloween, and pink for breast cancer awareness month.

The first to do when I got home was to feed Nysse.

Then to feed the rest of the family. They would not like pellets from a tin. I made a meal from a Linas Matkasse meal kit – a vegetarian bibimbap.

Reduced the amounts of all chillies and such by a factor of three or four, and some of it was still super spicy. We didn’t manage to eat all the spicy cabbage salad.

After dinner, Ingrid disappeared to her room, while Adrian & Eric watched season 2 of Loki, accompanied by potato chips for Adrian and some leftover lemon merengue pie for Eric.

Beautiful sunshine right now, but with the wall of cloud approaching there, things will change soon.

I have tickets this season for a second concert series, for solo piano, in addition to the chamber music series for me and Eric. It kicked off today with Grigori Sokolov playing Bach and Mozart. I don’t keep up with news in the world of classical music, or who’s who, so I didn’t even know what a big name he was until I turned up and saw the hall fully sold out and read the programme leaflet.

I enjoyed both the Bach pieces (four piano duets, and a partita) and the Mozart ones (a sonata and an adagio). The duets were especially enjoyable, with the melody wandering back and forth and duplicating between the two hands.

Grigori Sokolov himself gave the impression of being there for the music only, and like he’d have been happier if the audience wasn’t there. Walked onto the stage, gave a perfunctory bow, and started playing. No smiles, barely looking at the audience afterwards. Total and utter focus on the music, which he played by heart without any sheet music.

The audience was in raptures and couldn’t get enough. They applauded until they got two extra pieces out of Sokolov, and still wouldn’t stop. After a while it became a performance in and of itself. If they paid any attention at all to Sokolov’s body language and behaviour, they can’t have imagined that he enjoyed their clapping, so it wasn’t for his sake, but more of a showing off to the others. “Look at me, look at how much I enjoyed this.” I found it rather grating and walked out before it stopped.