The latest issue of Utemagasinet (“Outdoors magazine”) had a section where various contributors described their outdoor memories, based on a series of prompts. It made me think, and then I decided to do the same.

And I realize again just how bad my long-term memory is at storing experiences. Eric and I went to all sorts of places before we had children – Wales, Lake District, Scotland – but since I haven’t looked at photos of those trips in many years, I only have rather hazy mental images of them. I am very grateful for this blog.

Anyway, here goes.

Day trip: The last day of our trip to Mercantour. This was our first outdoorsy trip with the kids, and on the last day we went up to a mountain pass where we got our first taste of high alpine landscape. Dramatic views, everybody super impressed, until the afternoon thunderstorm with heavy hail. We all still have strong memories of that day.

Week trip: Padjelanta on skis. My own hikes are usually long weekends so they don’t quite qualify. All my ski tours have been lovely but this one was wilder and more fun than most. In the middle of the Padjelanta national park, we were sometimes the only group in a hut.

Of the weekend trips, I still have very fond memories of the Kinnekulle hike. Most of my hikes have been to mountainous areas, or in various pine forests, but this was a beautiful lowland hike in a completely different landscape. I’ve been thinking of going back there during a different season.

Accommodation: The cave house on Gran Canaria, or perhaps the yurt in Mercantour, which I unfortunately have no photos of.

Highest peak: In 2005 Eric and I climbed the Kilimanjaro. That was BTB, Before The Blog, so I have no post to link to, but here’s a photo from my archives:

Worst weather: Actually not the day with hail and thunder, but a gale in Skarvheimen. High wind, wet snow. The only time I’ve felt truly miserable due to the weather. No visibility, exhausting skiing. By the end of it I was numb with exhaustion and chilled all the way through.

Camp site: Nothing immediately stands out as “the greatest”, because many of the sites near Stockholm are rather similar to each other. The camping site at Trehörningen in Paradiset nature reserve is beautiful, and so is the one by Finnsjön on Sörmlandsleden stage 18. Especially when I am the only one there.

View: Actually not Kilimanjaro. It was a high peak and the views were expansive, but not the most interesting ones. The land around the peak is quite flat and barren. And at the very top I was feeling pretty awful with altitude sickness. No, the best views I can remember were from Viševnik. Only 2000 metres compared to Kilimanjaro’s 5900, but with rather more scenic views. Or perhaps the Centenario SAT via ferrata route, which is right above Riva del Garda.

Here’s Eric’s photo of a very young-looking me on that route, with Riva del Garda far below us, in 2004:

A time when I was afraid: The gale in Skarvheimen. I remember having the realization that this is how people die in the mountains. It doesn’t even take any extreme temperatures – just a bad combination of them, and a long day, and a lack of visibility.

Swim: Many of the swims in the lakes near Stockholm have been pleasant, but the dip in a bog lake in Soomaa felt unlike everything else. The top layer was warm, but beneath it the water was very cold, so I had the strong sense how large the invisible waters were that the tiny little pool connected to.

Food: The outdoor food above all other outdoor foods is porridge, especially with newly picked lingonberries.

Look who’s all caught up with the blog posts! I’m so used to having to back-date all my posts that not doing it felt a bit confusing.

I put on my glasses for reading the newspaper today. I’ve been wearing them regularly for embroidery and for some mending, but haven’t felt the need in other situations. But after seven hours of screen time at work today, with very fiddly tasks for the last couple of hours, my eyes were so tired that I couldn’t focus on the newspaper.

At first I thought this was the first time ever, but my “related posts” plugin tells me that I did it once last autumn. It felt like the first time.

Now that I think about it, the text on this blog is also kind of tiny. Smaller than many other sites. A larger font size might be a kindness to more readers than just me.

Ingrid at her summer job.

Does it look like she’s working? No.

Does she feel like she’s working? Barely.

But she is employed and is getting paid and can put it on her resume.

The city of Stockholm offers summer jobs to young people living in the city. The summer is chopped up into three three-week periods, and Ingrid got a job for the last three weeks of her summer break. Her job is to (together with a team) host activities for children at Spånga Torg.

Unfortunately they barely get any children visiting their tent.

I don’t know who did the planning, but they can’t have had much local knowledge. There are no children just randomly hanging around Spånga Torg in the summer. Spånga is an affluent suburb of large-ish detached houses, not an inner-city area. Kids here are either at home with their parents, or more likely out of town.

The team leaders (who are actual adults) work all three periods, and according to them, the group was in other parts of Spånga-Tensta before, where they had a lot more visitors. Yeah, because those areas are densely populated areas of apartment blocks.

The “employees” are making their own fun. Braiding bracelets, painting posters to advertise the tent’s existence, etc. The highlights of Ingrid’s day are when she gets to do face painting on some kids.

We all hope that word will spread, and people will come back from their vacations, and they’ll get more visitors next week.