Plant shopping at Ulriksdal. Always very pleasant, except for the effect it has on my bank account. Plants are annoyingly expensive. Three of this, four of that, a bunch of ground cover, all of it doesn’t even fill half the cart, and I’m almost 2000 SEK poorer.

Raindrops on Alchemilla leaves. A cliche, but for good reason.

I never manage to take a photo that really does them justice.

I’m all ready to start a new knitting project. Before I can actually start for real, there’s a whole lot of swatching to do. And after every swatch, I realized I needed another one.

First a swatch with 3 mm needles. Then one with 3.5 mm needles. Then I realized that, since the top I’m planning to knit has a large lace section, I should also knit the lace pattern with both needle sizes, to figure out whether I liked the look of it with this yarn and these needles. And then of course they all need to dry before I can get proper measurements. This cotton-linen-viscose mix takes even longer to dry than my wool sweaters, which I hadn’t thought possible.

I took a half-day again and did fun stuff after lunch instead of working. Kulturhuset (“House of Culture”) organizes free performances of various kinds in Stockholm’s parks during the summer. I went to see Pianofavoriter with Norrdans, a dance performance set to “the most over-played pieces of classical music”, at the park in Bandhagen.

That description does cover some of the pieces that they played, but far from all. I think maybe the pianist has a slightly skewed idea of just how many pieces of classical music the average person knows. (Relevant XKCD.) Yes, everybody recognizes “Für Elise” and the Moonlight Sonata. But does Norrdans truly think their audience will hear a piece by Ligeti and think “oh that old thing”? Rachmaninoff? Gubaidulina?

The live piano was the part I liked best. The dance was interesting, some pieces more than others, and did add an extra dimension, but I found it slightly difficult to focus on it with so much else going on around us.

I had the company of a friend, and we brought a picnic lunch, so I was enjoying live music in a sunny park with good company while eating a potato omelette and fresh strawberries. Overall a very good way to spend a weekday afternoon.