The traditional end-of-year visit to RiCora.

(Us and a few dozen other groups of families with teens.)

There’s more and more dinnertime conversation and much less kid-wrangling when they are so grown.

A very heavily pregnant deer stopped to rest in our lilac hedge. I was wondering if she would stay here to give birth, and we’d get a deer nursery again, but a few hours later she was gone.

Went to a nature photo club meetup.

I joined a nature photo club some while ago. I’ve been paying membership fees for a couple of years, and skimming the members’ magazine, but never actually joined in any of the activities. Each issue of the magazine felt less and less relevant and I was in the process of cancelling my membership. Someone wrote back and asked why, and reminded me of their upcoming event, and I thought, why not give it another, proper try. So I attended the next event – an outing to Sandemar nature reserve.

The group consisted of 90% men of mature age, and one woman roughly my age. (And one guy’s wife, but since she wasn’t there to photograph, she doesn’t really count.) Everyone came equipped with big telephoto lenses, aiming to photograph birds. And then there was me, with my micro 4/3 SLR and a macro lens.

Sandemar nature reserve is on the coast, and is a popular nesting area for water birds. The day was very windy and the birds weren’t co-operating much, so in the end I think I came home with more photos I was happy with than most of the rest of them. I photographed tiny flowers (because the smaller and lower they were, the less they blew around in the wind) and lichens, because those were very good at staying still.

After the meetup was officially over, three of us continued to the other end of the nature reserve, where there are bogs. There was some interesting flora there, but I was a tired by that time so the photos of those didn’t come out very well.

Voting in the EU election. Election day is tomorrow, but I see no point in waiting another day just to queue more.

The participation rate in these tends to be lower than in the national ones. The media do their best to improve turnout. If it’s sounds like too much work to figure out who to vote for, they say, it’s not a bad idea to just choose the same party you’d vote for nationally.

I’m not going down that route. The national questions I prioritize are not the same as one the EU level. In this vote, it doesn’t matter to me what their opinion is on education, healthcare, crime, or most social questions. I only really care what they will do about climate change, because that’s the area where national decisions matter little, and continental or global action is needed to make a real difference.

The various online guides tell me my opinions match up most closely with the Environmental party, the Left party, and the Centre party. No matter how much we agree on the environment, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to vote for the Left party. They no longer describe themselves as communists, but their communist past still permeates their ideology, and I just cannot.

We have a hiking vacation coming up, and needs new gear. Unlike Adrian, she definitely wears adult sizes now. Not that that makes things much easier. She’s got my genes, in that she has curvy hips and a slim waist. Sounds normal for a woman, right? The classical hourglass figure? But somehow most trousers sold in Sweden don’t fit that body type. When they’re right in the thighs and hips, there’s a massive gap in the waist, enough to fit an entire fist. It’s not just Swedish fashion, either – I remember having the exact same problem in the UK, many years ago.

With a rain suit the fit doesn’t matter much, but hiking trousers need to actually fit reasonably well to be wearable. Ingrid tried on about 15 pairs, I think – when she was done, the rack by the fitting rooms it looked like someone had just brought everything they found there. We were close to giving up, but a helpful sales attendant found some more for her to try. And of course the only pair that fit was by far the most expensive one she tried.

Oh well. At least she’s hopefully finished with her growing, so these could last her the next ten years or so.

Today is Sweden’s national day.

Earlier this year I got my Swedish citizenship. I still have my Estonian one, and I guess as long as I don’t make any noise about having two, I can keep both.

If you asked me about my nationality, my answer would depend on the situation. Travelling abroad with the family? I’m Swedish. At work, among lots of other people who are Swedish to some extent but originally from elsewhere? I’m Estonian. In my everyday life, I really don’t care much.

The only reason I wanted this was to be able to vote in the Swedish national elections. I live here, and I’m affected by the political situation, so I want to affect it in turn. Especially the way it has been going recently, with the Sweden Democrats gaining influence. After the elections in 2018 I felt I needed to do my part. It somehow took the migration agency five and a half years to make a decision in my case, instead of the normal two or three, so I didn’t get to vote in the 2022 elections, either, but now I’m all set for the next time.

(The flag in the photo belongs to our neighbours – they have a flagpole in the yard.)

Adrian is clearing out his wardrobe of clothes he has outgrown. There’s a ton, because he hasn’t done this in a while.

He’s just at that awkward point where clothes in kids’ sizes are mostly too short, and clothes in adult sizes are mostly too wide. T-shirts and hoodies with a loose fit are easy; trousers are trickier.

These kids’ t-shirts from tretton37 are never going to fit anyone in this household again. I don’t want to throw them away, but it would also feel weird to give them to charity. Oh well – we have space in the basement, so I can just postpone the problem.

A hunter on the prowl.

Nysse is out all night, hunting, and comes home for breakfast. Goes in and out a bit in the morning and then spends most of the day sleeping. I think he’s eating his fill of mice and what not, because he often leaves some of his kibble portion, even though it’s the same size as always.

When it’s just Ingrid and me for a meal (and sometimes with Adrian) we tend to watch Robinson, which is a Swedish version of Survivor. A bunch of people on an empty tropical island, with very little in the way of equipment – surviving, competing, and voting each other out, until only one remains. We’re not invested enough to watch it outside of mealtimes, so it’s taking us far longer to watch it than it took for the actual events to take place.

Today we had strawberry cake to go with the entertainment, because Ingrid felt like baking.