I slept really, really badly today and have been tired and listless all day. Had no energy for anything other than reading.

Sometimes my sleep goes wrong. I hover on the edge of sleep and dream weird dreams all night and don’t get any deep, restful sleep at all. They’re not exactly nightmares, not quite – no dreams of falling or being chased – but the dreams are all about something being wrong. I’m going to gym class but I’m wearing heavy boots. I’m in a stairwell and I need to go up but the stairs are not there. I’m in a home (that’s not my real home but it is my home in the dream) but the furniture has been rearranged. I’m in my last year of university but I realize I haven’t taken any of the required courses. And so on. I wake up in the morning and I feel like I’ve barely slept.

Adrian, starving for contact, sat next to me in the sofa and browsed my blog, especially all posts in the “Adrian” category, and showed his favourites to me. From the first photos of him as a baby, to the last few days’ posts about Åre.

Another beautiful but cold day, and we made another outing to the top.

Skiing from here to there involves one really steep red run. It’s so steep and icy that when I reached it last time I was uncertain whether I would be able to ski it at all. I was very sure that Adrian wouldn’t be able to do it. Instead we took the free ski bus to the cable car station, queued for a while and took the cable car straight to the top. Very convenient.

At the top (which is not technically the top of the mountain but I’m going to call it the top anyway) everything is encrusted with snow. The cable car station doorway, all the buildings, the signposts, the cables. It looks almost surreal.

From the top it’s mostly nice, gentle, long ski routes down. Pure pleasure and sightseeing!

A day or two before our trip, I checked the weather report for Åre and packed accordingly. The weather forecast was way off target, both fortunately and unfortunately. The forecast promised temperatures just around freezing, and clouds all the time. Instead we have temperatures well below &ndash,10°C, and much more blue skies and sunshine than I had hoped.

Yesterday the cold didn’t bother me. Today by midmorning I was so cold I had to go back inside and double up on all my layers. Double polar fleeces, double leggings, double wool socks. Double layers on my hands I already had – I wear merino wool liner gloves inside my mittens so that I can take off the mittens (for taking photos, for example) and not immediately feel like my fingers will fall off in the cold.

In the afternoon we stopped at a piste-side café for a hot drink. Does the water in the vases look cloudy? That’s because it’s frozen. The tulip stems are encased in lumps of ice. But we’re out of the wind, and the hot drink is hot, so that’s all right.

Adrian meanwhile wasn’t bothered by the cold at all. He’s like a walking nuclear reactor.

He’s still bravely practicing the snowboard. I was a bit skeptical and thought that he would probably give up after a few days. But he keeps at it, not just during the lessons, and he’s learning fast. He is already connecting his turns and getting some flow going.

After two gray days it was bright and sunny today and very little wind, so I wanted to head up to the higher slopes. See some views, maybe take some photos.

Getting from Björnen (at the far right end of the piste map) to the pistes near the peak of Åreskutan (at the far left of the piste map) and then back again took me and Ingrid effectively all day. We were not the only skiers heading in that direction and the lift queues ate up a lot of time.

We did get some wonderful views up there. And the slopes were quite to my taste. The map marks them as ski routes rather than pistes – they’re relatively long, narrow and gentle. They’re great for just gliding along and taking in the views.

The slopes were not crowded but the restaurants on that side of the resort were all completely packed. At one place the waiting time for a table was over an hour. So I didn’t enjoy all the fabulous views as much as I might have because towards the end I was just so hungry.

Meanwhile Adrian and Eric stayed in Björnen all day. Adrian has decided to learn snowboarding and is taking lessons, but it means he’s effectively a total beginner on the slopes again and can only manage the gentlest inclines at the slowest pace.

I’d like to see those views from the plateau again, and show them to Eric and Adrian as well. I’m thinking of going back up there another day, maybe on a day with less beautiful weather and therefore fewer people. And with an earlier start and a more efficient plan.

The weather was much less windy today, and we were all much less tired, so we enjoyed our skiing a lot more. We explored new lifts and pistes, but generally still stayed in the Björnen side of Åre. The upper areas were still closed due to high winds for a big part of the day, so we couldn’t ski to blue pistes on the other side of the mountain. There are shuttle buses but it didn’t seem worth the effort when the blue pistes on this side were so nice. Especially late in the afternoon when the sun came out, and the lifts and pistes emptied.

We arrived in Åre at 7 in the morning. After a breakfast at the train station, our first priority was changing clothes. We travelled in clothes suitable for Stockholm where the temperature was an unseasonally warm +5°C. Here in Åre we were met by winter, closer to what Swedish winter is supposed to be: the temperature is below freezing, it is snowing, and the wind has a real bite.

Shuttle buses took us to the Björnen area where we picked up our equipment and left our luggage. Then we were ready for the slopes.

The wind remained strong and unpleasant most of the day and the skies were gray and heavy. The lifts to the upper slopes were closed and we probably wouldn’t have wanted to be up there anyway. So we stayed in the lower slopes around Björnen.

By lunchtime the kids were already tired. The skiing was nicer in the afternoon and we got some beautiful moments of sunshine. But after last night’s short sleep we felt quite done by around 15.

It’s sportlov and we’re taking the night train to Åre for a week of skiing.

We’ve “always” travelled to the fells by car. The closest ski resorts are about 5 or 6 hours from Stockholm by car, which in practice means a whole day of driving. That’s about as much time as we/I are willing to spend just sitting locked up in a car, so this limits our options quite a bit. Åre, for example, is one of the most popular ski resorts, but is too far from Stockholm by car (for my taste).

This time we thought we’d try something different and take the train instead. We travel in a more climate-friendly way, get back that lost day – and get to try out a new resort.

On the downside, we get a very short night of sleep. The train was supposed to be ready for boarding at 23:00 and leave at 23:20. Now it’s delayed until 23:30. We’re tired and bored.

Adrian made things with polymer clay: an infinity gauntlet, and a rainbow of tiny rosettes.

I love photographing him doing things. He goes all in and his face is so expressive. And there all these colours!

(I borrowed these photos from a recent weekend. We do not have quite this much light on weekday afternoons yet.)

Ingrid suddenly went on a smoothie making spree, with smoothies for both breakfast and an afternoon snack. Adrian realized that he can also make smoothies on his own and doesn’t have to wait for me to make one. Here they both are with a smoothie breakfast.

Adrian is reading Kalle Anka as usual. He never tires of them.

Ingrid is reading her notes for her upcoming physics test. She totally does tire of them. (Forces, levers, action and reaction, acceleration and all that.)

We were in town. The way home took us to Södra station, Stockholm’s South station, with its colourful platform floors. Between each pair of pillars is a field of yellow. Between the fields of yellow the floor is made up of regular curved shapes coloured either red, green or gray.

At some point years ago we made up a game. (Probably one of the kids was tired or cranky or bored and needed entertaining.) Each player has a colour and can only step on fields of that colour. The yellow fields are “home” for everyone. The shapes are just wide enough, and the colours distributed just evenly enough, that it’s doable but slightly challenging – especially but not only for those with short legs. Sometimes, if you don’t plan ahead, you may have to back track and choose another path.

Ingrid and I have outgrown the game and Eric was never a fan but Adrian still enjoys the challenge.