I’ve signed up for an embroidery course for this autumn, in addition to the club I attend.

The club is very much a social thing – “turn up if you want and embroider whatever you want, or don’t embroider if that’s what you feel like today”. It’s fun and pleasant, gets me out of the house, meeting new people, embroidering more than I otherwise would. But a challenge it is not.

The course sounds like it will be really interesting. Titled Svart, vitt och en färg – “black, white and one colour” – it will focus on composition and graphical design in embroidery. I was super glad to find a course with such a modern and creative approach to embroidery – so many courses focus either on techniques and stitches, or particular established, traditional embroidery styles.

Today I went shopping for all the required materials listed for the course. It was a lot. The fabrics and threads made up less than half the list; the rest was all papers and paints and pens and brushes and crafts knife and cutting board and so on. Luckily I can borrow much of the basic stuff, like pens and brushes in various sizes, from Ingrid.

Work is still being very frustrating. Killing all energy and desire to do anything. I nevertheless managed to trick myself into working out, promising myself that I could do the shortest workout I could find, but then ended up doing a 35-minute session anyway. Felt better afterwards.

Embroidery club, first session of the term. I continue on my Stockholm embroidery, which is taking an absolute eternity. I’m half-way done at most. But: still enjoying it.

Today’s photo is a close-up showing the technique I use to fill in the crowns of the trees. Random, criss-corssing small stitches, sort of like overlapping rows of very mangled herringbone stitch.

I am out of my favourite chocolate, the Friis Holm Tobago dark milk. I normally have one stash at home and one at each office, and now they’re all empty.

What’s even worse is that there’s none in the shops either. Today I asked at the chocolate store in Hötorgshallen, and apparently there were problems with the cocoa harvest this year so the chocolate production is delayed.

However will I cope? Some meals almost require a palate cleanser afterwards. Especially anything with lots of onion, or even the smallest bits of raw onion.

At least I got some nice pralines from Ölands Choklad.

Ingrid continues to learn to drive. (Have I posted about that? I think so.) Just plain driving on relatively quiet streets is not much of a challenge any more, so we have started spicing things up. Larger roads (with 60 km/h speed limits), driving late in the day when it’s getting dark (although this just happens because that’s when we have time), roads with lots of roundabouts and traffic lights. And today: parking in tight spots. Nine o’clock at night the parking lot at Coop Vinsta was rather empty, but we managed to find a place where we could pretend that there were cars everywhere and we just had to squeeze into the last free spot.

Mushrooms, from today’s Sörmlandsleden hike.

Hälleforsnäs to Hagtorp. Yesterday this stage was 16.5 km but today it took me 18.5 to walk.

First I got an extra kilometre by starting walking without checking the updated weather forecast. Yesterday, the forecast promised rain for today, but only from late morning. When I was packed up and ready to go at around 7:40, I saw the clouds but didn’t think that rain would be imminent. It started raining before I had even walked ten minutes. I started thinking about where I could find shelter, but quickly realised that the best and closest shelter was back at the camping site. So I walked back, through the rain. Gained absolutely nothing but getting thoroughly wet.

It rained for almost two hours. Luckily I had my Kindle.

Afterwards the woods were, of course, very very wet. Not so much the ground, because the soil hereabouts drains quickly, but the bushes and grasses can hold on to a lot of water. Walking through wet forest is like I’m trying to use my trousers to wipe dry all the bilberry bushes. The trousers at least dry quickly, but the water also wicks into my socks and boots, and those keep all the water inside. Yes, I could wear waterproof trousers, but I don’t like the way they feel. Unless it’s cold outside, I’d rather be a bit wet.

Today I learned that lingonberry bushes dry out first, with their waxy-leathery leaves. Bilberry bushes come in quick-drying and slow-drying varieties, because some were clearly drier than others. Bog bilberries were the slowest to dry and seemed to actively hold on to drops of water. And heather almost doesn’t get wet to begin with.

There is a locally famous “rocking boulder” a few kilometres in. Why they didn’t seize the obvious opportunity to call it a “rocking rock”, I have no idea.

I went to see it, of course, but to my disappointment, it did not rock at all, no matter how hard I pushed. Either it needs more weight, or it’s gotten jammed.

The rest of the day was pleasant, unexciting walking. More mindfulness, like yesterday. It went easier today, after all my practise.

Here’s me having bread and butter and a boiled egg for lunch. It took a good while to find a spot where I could sit down for a meal – wherever I looked, it was just wet bushes.

In the afternoon there was another surprise burst of rain. And I had again just passed a shelter, so this time I didn’t even hesitate – turned back as soon as I felt the first drop and ran back, and had my second lunch at the shelter instead of the exposed lakeside cliff I had been aiming for. Another extra kilometre gained.

Sörmlandsleden stage 22, from Hagtorp to Hälleforsnäs, 16.5 km.

This stage has been blocking me for weeks and weeks. No way to get there by public transport, of course, and 16.5 is too much for a one-day out-and-back hike. 33 km would take me ten hours at least, plus driving there and back. Not doable. But now I had a whole free weekend, so I can walk one way today and back tomorrow. (I am again reminded that I should look into the car plus bike solution, so I can get these kinds of longer stages done in a single day.)

Hagtorp is barely a place, even: googling for Hagtorp brings up two kinds of hits only. There is the eponymous transport/shipping company, and there is Sörmlandsleden. I’m not sure what shipping activities the company actually does – there are no trucks or anything visible at their site – but they do have plenty of open gravel surface which makes for a great parking lot for hikers.

I had a leisurely start with a proper weekend breakfast and only started driving at 10:30, hoping to be hiking by 12. But there had been some kind of accident on the E4, which caused major traffic jams, and my drive took forever. When I finally got started on the trail, past one o’clock, I was very happy to be let out of the car and have a chance to stretch my legs.

This stage had proper woods and wild nature, unlike the previous one. There was some mixed forest, and a lot of the typical pine and spruce forest with heather and blueberry bushes. And the occasional lake for beautiful views, and the occasional clear-cut area for contrasting ugliness.

I found my thoughts spinning back to the tretton37 drama all the time, and from there to code problems I left behind at Sortera yesterday afternoon, and then on private worries, and then around again. I ended up turning this into an intense mindfulness walk. Whenever I found myself ruminating again, I made myself focus on what was around me.

Sound. On a large scale: silence. Apart from the start and end, this stage was far from noisy roads, and truly very quiet. This time of the year, there’s very little bird sounds, either. But I myself was making noise all the time: there was the crunch of my boots on debris, and the swish of grass against my legs, and the slosh of water in my water bottle.

Sight. I wish I could have looked around while walking, but much of the path was really rough and uneven, with rocks and roots and tussocks, so it took constant concentration. I would have tripped or twisted an ankle quite quickly. But I could pay attention to the rocks themselves, and all the pine cones on the ground, and the various plants and bushes around me.

Smell. Not much. Books sometimes have people walking on “fragrant pine needles” but in reality any needles on the ground are dead and have no scent at all. Perhaps pine trees in other parts of the world are different, who knows.

Touch. One the one hand, plenty to experience, but on the other hand, most of what I can feel while hiking tends towards the unpleasant. The pressure of the pack on my hips. A wrinkle in my t-shirt under the straps of the pack. The sharp scratch of a juniper bush. But I liked catching the seed heads of tall grasses and letting them slip through my fingers.

Taste. It’s berry season! Lingonberries and bilberries and bog bilberries are all ripe and plentiful. I was extra happy when I found bog bilberries, not only because I like their flavour but also because the bushes are taller and the berries thus easier to pick without bending down (which can be awkward with a heavy pack).

Most lingonberries were mostly ripe, and some were all the way ripe, but I’d say they needed another week or so to reach perfection. Which didn’t stop me from eating them, of course.

Bog bilberries look less appealing. The bushes are sparse and have an air of scragglyness. The berries hang singly or by twos at most, and the colour is muted, so they look underwhelming on the whole. It takes effort to make them look good in a photo.

Bilberries I don’t care much about at all, while I’m out walking. They’re good in pies and muffins and yoghurt and all that, but on their own, they’re too bland for my taste.

Due to my late start, and my slow pace because of the uneven path, I was worried about getting to the end at a reasonable hour. It was seven in the evening by the time I reached the camping area. I had been keeping my eyes open for the last kilometre or two of walking, for alternative camping spots in case the end of the stage was underwhelming (because the other end was literally a gravel parking lot!) but the area around Bruksdammen was beautiful. I put off all thoughts about cooking dinner and getting my tent set up, and instead admired and photographed the area. It was a wetland area with pink water-lilies in deep dark ponds.

Then there was dinner, after which I read for a while, but then went to bed at ten o’clock already, quite tired. The night was very windy – I half-woke a few times and thought at first that it was rain I heard, but it was just the wind being very loud.

Ingrid arranged a dinner party for a group of her friends. That’s the kind of stage she’s reached in her life: three-course dinner parties, with tablecloths and candles and home-made pizzas.

Her friends’ palates are not as sophisticated as hers, and they’re all meat-eaters, so adjustments are necessary. I don’t begrudge them their pepperoni pizza. But I’m glad that there was enough tiramisu that there were plenty of leftovers for us as well.

Preparing and cooking a three-course meal for six people, including also shopping and decorations, is a full-day project. Ingrid was rather exhausted by the end. I do hope her friends realize what a treasure they have and appreciate her efforts properly.