Adrian’s homework for this week was to write a couple of sentences about what games his parents played during break time at school.

I recall playing hopscotch. And kummikeks or elastics, which I loved but wasn’t good at. And Human knot, and chanting and clapping games. Other than that, I cannot remember any.

I also remember spending a lot of break time on the sidelines. I wasn’t quite bullied, but a few of the girls in our class decided early on that I was not to be a part of the group, and that was that. Sometimes, as an act of charity, I was let in from the cold for a while.

Seeing Ingrid and Adrian at school now, the difference is immense. The teachers here/now have a very strong and conscious focus on encouraging decent behaviour and teaching children to be nice to others. They have much closer contact with the children, a relationship of mutual trust and caring. Kids can actually talk to teachers as fellow humans, even friends, whereas in my days we were subordinates. I don’t think any teachers cared about the social aspects of children’s time at school, as long there was no actual physical fighting going on.

Half of that floor I scrubbed yesterday, plus Adrian.

Adrian is sometimes less than happy about his chore of laying the table for dinner.

Another day, another trip to the ice rink. Just as we arrived, it looked like it might start to rain, but it never went beyond “a few drops of moisture in the air” so we stayed for a long while, until we got hungry.

The rink got resurfaced shortly after we came, so we got to skate on mirror blank, newly polished ice for a while.

Ingrid caught a photo of me skating as well.

Today was the first sunny day in ages, so I took the kids for a forest walk. Meanwhile Eric is away in Italy, skiing and cavorting with his colleagues.

Right next to the parking lot where we started, we ran into a playground. That was a good start: it’s been a while since we’ve been to a new playground, and this one had a bit of a climbing / adventure trail and the kids always enjoy that kind of stuff.

Then we walked through Grimsta nature reserve and picked up a few geocaches, until we came to Kanaanbadet (where we enjoyed the last Sunday of summer some months ago). I had been expecting the beach to be completely deserted on a winter day, but the beach café turned out to be open all year round, so there was a steady stream of walkers passing by.

What little ice there had been on the lake had all broken up and lots of large pieces were floating near the shore. The kids tried to fish them out and push them to the beach, but they were slippery and heavy and fragile, so it didn’t go very well.

Then we grilled sausages and walked back to the car.

The toilet roll figure on the left was a hero, and the one on the right was a monster of some sort. There was also a cave, and a temple, and a treasure and a treasure map involved. And fighting, plenty of fighting. The hero got the treasure in the end.

We have a bunch of Lego fridge magnets. Actually we have a whole lot of fridge magnets in general, and our fridge and freezer are constantly covered in a variety of artwork, school schedules, postcards, Christmas cards, theatre tickets and other odds and ends.

But the Lego magnets have gotten a special role. I often use them as visual reminders of tasks that need doing the same day. When the task needs doing, I move a Lego guy from the fridge to the kitchen table as a friendly, colourful reminder. We walk past there so many times during the day that we’re bound to notice it several times.

There’s a Santa figure that symbolizes ordering groceries online. There’s a bearded guy that sometimes stands for haircuts but sometimes also for homework (bearded = wise = learning). There’s a shark and a manta ray that remind the kids that it’s bathing day. Etc.

Adrian also likes playing with them and experimenting with the magnets. He likes the way they sometimes attract and sometimes repel each other. Here he’s using the bearded guy to push the manta ray guy around.

We went skating. Ingrid sped around effortlessly; Adrian had forgotten much of his skating skills and tottered around, holding on to my hand.

I’m a bit disappointed that the large bandy field is always booked by clubs and tournaments, and ordinary folks have to make do with the crowded small ice rink. But even that is quite a luxury, when I think about it – there aren’t many artificially frozen ice rinks in Stockholm, and we’re lucky to live so close to one.