I’m fed up with my vague symptoms and almost-unwellness, so I ordered a covid test. It involved poking a tickly stick at the back of my throat, and up my nose, which was distinctly unpleasant. Now the results are in a tightly closed tube, wrapped in a sealed bag, wrapped in another sealed bag.

I’ve been participating in a crowdsourced study of covid-19 since last summer. Or maybe longer, I can’t remember. Every day (when I don’t forget it) I report whether I have any symptoms that might be related to covid-19. The list started out quite brief but has grown with time. Now there are four pages of checkboxes: from fevers and chills and aches, through rashes and purple lesions on toes, on to tiredness and lack of appetite – and so on and on. I’ve never been observing minor symptoms of disease in myself as closely and curiously as I am now.

I’m checking more and more boxes on that list, but none of them severely. And not the really specific ones like loss of taste or smell. The same with Ingrid, who is still not really well either but not really sick either. I’m focusing more on the sneezing and tickly throat side of things, while she has more aches here and there.

What I notice most now is the tiredness and lack of energy. I tried working but felt after an hour that I really had no energy for anything that required concentration or active effort. I spent the rest of the day lying (not even sitting) and reading in the sofa, and then moved to doing the same in the bed because it was flatter and had a better pillow.

I got up for lunch and dinner, and while my body had no problem doing it, my brain was constantly telling me how much I wanted to lean the weight of my head on my elbow, and how heavy the cutlery was, and what an effort it was to move the food to my mouth. Couldn’t someone invent some kind of thing to do the work for me. Ingrid agreed.

Ingrid found out this weekend that one of the friends she hangs out with is unwell, and his mother has tested positive for covid-19. And now she is sick as well. It started with a slightly sore throat, and then continued with headache, tiredness, mild fever, and a general feeling of being unwell and achy.

The current procedure is that everyone with symptoms of possible covid-19 infection should get tested. In Stockholm you can either make your way to a drive-in testing station, or get a DIY test delivered home. We went the home testing route.

The process was very smooth. You book online, and a few hours later a test is delivered to your door. You get 15 minutes to take the test, and then the courier comes back to pick up the little test tube with your sample.

Ingrid took the test in the middle of the day and late this evening she already got the result. Negative.

It’s an odd coincidence that she would get some other respiratory infection just as she has been exposed to someone who has been exposed… or perhaps this was a false negative. Who knows. But lacking any other information, I guess we’ll have to trust the test.

And now my own throat is feeling a bit sore. We’ve been trying to keep Ingrid at more of a distance than usual, but we’re still in the same rooms, breathing the same air, so it’s hard to not infect each other with whatever it is.

I needed to go to the tretton37 office today. Last time was in September I think?

My back has occasionally been acting up still, so I didn’t dare to commit to cycling all that way, especially since cycling involves (1) bending at the waist and (2) pushing with my legs, both of which have been a bit problematic recently. So, train and tube it is.

I left home early to avoid the worst of the morning rush. I wouldn’t quite describe the train as crowded, but definitely not empty either. And those who were there didn’t seem to be thinking much about social distancing or any such thing. Less than half the passengers were wearing masks. And people were squeezing past others (and me) in the narrow aisles without any second thoughts, and likewise on the escalators.

I guess if you have to be on public transport every day because you cannot work from home then after a while maybe you simply stop worrying, because you run out of worry.

This was my first time in a crowded indoor space in months, so it was also my first time wearing a face mask for real. It didn’t feel like I had expected.

I had expected the bands around my ears to be uncomfortable. I usually hate such things. I only ever buy sunglasses with straight arms to avoid pressure behind my ears. But I didn’t even notice these.

I constantly noticed the mask itself, though. It comes up high enough under my eyes that I see it all the time. And especially when I tried to look down. When I wanted to read, I had to hold my magazine up high to see it properly past the edge of the mask. And when I tried to use my wallet to pay, and when I touched my key fob to the door pad, and so on.

If I had to do this daily, I’d probably try to find a different make that didn’t come quite as high up on the sides. But now it’s not worth the bother.

It got steamy inside the mask when I took the stairs fast.

The office was mostly empty. A handful of people were there but the overall impression was of abandonment.

I left in the early afternoon to avoid the rush hour again and finished my work at home. The whole commute felt like so much wasted time. 40 minutes there, 40 back, all chopped up into little pieces so I can’t even do much with the time.

The only times I leave the house these days are for walks, and for grocery shopping. Even the trips to the supermarket are tinged by guilty feelings.

Both supermarkets here in Spånga try to guide shoppers towards less busy times. I still mostly end up shopping during the red periods but even then Coop is never what I would describe as crowded. I rarely pass close to other people, because the shop is laid out like a circle: enter at one end, loop all the way around, pay and exit next to the entrance. In ICA I often have to step aside into an aisle or otherwise walk uncomfortably close to people, because their layout is more tangled.

It is mandatory for shops to limit the number of people inside based on the available floor space. I think it’s one person per 10 sq m. ICA takes this half-seriously at best. There’s a sign that only 40 people are allowed inside, but there is no way to know how many are there, so I’m not sure what the point is. Coop on the other hand has a nifty system: they use the number of baskets to control the number of people. Every shopper has to take a basket, and when the baskets run out, you know the limit has been reached.

Minecraft is perhaps not the most exciting game, but it’s one that both Ingrid and Adrian keep returning to. In reality it’s a social platform more than a game. It’s not the gameplay that attracts them. The game is just something to do while they talk to their friends. Like in previous generations people would meet over a game of bridge, or pool. But corona-friendly.

Having a calendar at all for this year feels rather pointless right now. There is nothing on the horizon or beyond it. The long-awaited ski trip to Norway that got cancelled last year will not happen this year either.

Oh well. I guess we can look forward to celebrating one year of covid-19 some time in March.

Is there even a point to writing a review for the year that ended? I thought. But what is obvious and top of mind for everybody right now, won’t be as obvious a few years from now.

2020 was the year of the coronavirus and its associated disease, covid-19. It became a topic during the last week of February in conjunction with winter break, when many people go on ski trips either in the Swedish mountains or in the Alps. (We went to Åre: day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5, day 6, day 7.)

There were plentiful reports of lots of people being hospitalized with covid-19 in Italy but the Swedish authorities still thought it unnecessary for tourists returning from the Alps to self-quarantine. Just two weeks later the situation had deteriorated enough for the authorities to recommend working from home. People were stockpiling toilet paper, fearing a full lockdown, which never came. The summer was a bit better (the virus being less active during the summer, just like other coronaviruses such as the common cold) but in autumn it all went downhill again.

Some countries managed to contain the virus and limit its spread but Sweden plainly didn’t, and the situation now is worse than ever. Hospitals are nearly full and people are dying in record amounts. 8727 deaths thus far in Sweden, which is about 870 deaths per million people – ten times more than Norway (80 per million) and Finland (100). The authorities keep trying to redirect comparisons towards the worst-hit countries instead and of course we could be up there with France, Italy, Spain and the UK (1000+ deaths per million) or even Belgium (near 1700) but given that we are closer in all ways to our neighbouring countries, this just looks like a futile effort to deflect blame.

I started working from home on March 13. While things were calmer in the spring and summer I made a handful of trips to the office for workshops and retrospectives, but I haven’t been there at all since early September.

Working from home felt unfamiliar at first. Then during summer I quite enjoyed it. It’s more flexible than working in the office: I could have lunch outside in the sun, or work in the garden. I dug and planted bushes behind the house as well as a new flowerbed. Not commuting saves me at least an hour and a half every day – I’ve never been so little stressed about times and schedules. And I am mostly more productive this way.

Now during the dark, dull half of the year I am enjoying it rather less, especially with all the extra restrictions.

Eric has been working in the office mostly (or sometimes at a customer’s office) but commuting by bicycle. Ingrid and Adrian’s daily lives have been least affected. Adrian’s least of all; Ingrid would be hanging out at the movies or McDonald’s or a gaming centre with her friends, if it wasn’t for the virus.

All trips abroad for the rest of the year were cancelled and most domestic trips as well, some before booking and some after. We were forced to cancel our annual trip to Estonia. We replaced our usual summer hiking trip with a week in Gotland, just before the larger crowds got there. (Day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5, day 6. I missed my ski tour in Norway and my autumn hike in Jämtland, but replaced it with two lowland hikes (Kinnekulleleden day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, and Sörmlandsleden day 1, day 2, day 3.)

And of course we have been to no concerts, theatre, dance performances, museums, or other culture (apart from one movie, with two empty seats between each family group for distancing, back when the cinemas were still open) since March. No visits to gyms or swimming pools. No scout camp. No birthday parties and no Christmas celebration with the extended Bergheden family. Only a funeral.

For the past month or so I’ve started to really chafe at the restrictions. I used to get fresh air, exercise and at least a little bit of variety from cycling on small errands in the middle of the day, but since November all that is also strongly discouraged. I feel locked in, and I struggle to find ways to fill my time at home. Reading, knitting, blogging, cooking, etc… All nice activities, but I would enjoy them more if I could choose them freely, rather than doing them because I cannot do much else. Reading a new book is still just more reading. I want out.

Even though vaccines are on their way (and the first doses have arrived) covid-19 will be with us for many months still. But I’m about to start working on a new project at work in a few weeks: something new in my life! And the days will become longer, and January and February are usually colder than December, so perhaps we will get freezing weather and firm ground so that I can go walking without wading in mud.

PS: other notable events or achievements for this year include developing my Sonos companion app which I am quite proud of, and finally finishing my green cardigan.

I also made two skirts, one scarf, two pairs of socks and two pairs of mittens.

This was also the year of the wasp invasion in Ingrid’s room.

We don’t do much to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Have a semi-fancy lunch (this year with bonus festive napkins) and a three-course dinner, by the end of which we are usually all stuffed and have to save half of our dessert for later. Go for a walk between the meals. Play a board game or two (this year: Ticket to Ride and Mysterium.) By nine-ish we’re all sort of tired and grumble mildly about having to stay up several more hours. Then we watch a movie to make time pass (this year: two episodes of The Mandalorian).

About fifteen minutes before midnight we bring out our tallest ladder, put it up against the wall next to the porch, and climb up onto our flat roof to watch the fireworks. The roof surface used to be metal but is now asphalt, so it is very conveniently grippy and not the least bit slippery. Especially when the temperature is well above zero.

From the roof we have a great view of fireworks near and far: the neighbours right across the street, the larger fireworks shot up from nearby sports fields, all the way to Kista and Solvalla. I never remember to bring my camera and always promise to do so next time.

When the pace of fireworks slackens we climb down, get inside, toast each other in some sparkling non-alcoholic beverage (this year: Lorina sparkling pink lemonade) and go straight to bed.

This year’s toasts were for a new year with fewer pandemics, that might allow us to go to the movies! and a buffet restaurant! – or maybe just go to the city at all!

There was no hope we would get a white Christmas this year, but it did actually start to snow late on Christmas Eve. The snowfall continued today and by the evening there was enough for Ingrid to go out with her friends for sledding and a snowball fight. It was lovely to see. The world was so much brighter.

It’s almost like back when we lived in London. Whenever it snowed (which it did a handful of times during our nearly 8 years there) there was always a big hoopla – “come look, bring your camera, it’s snowing!” I guess this might be the new normal here as well.

Some people try to make climate change seem like a good thing for Sweden – a longer growing season, and who wants all that winter anyway. But even if you don’t want all that winter snow and ice, a warmer climate won’t make our winters any sunnier, or the winter days any longer. Stockholm may get the winter temperatures that London currently has (or whatever continental city the forecasts point to) but climate change will not magically move Stockholm to London’s latitude. Instead of bright snowy days we will have more dark wet days.

I went for a walk today instead of a more energetic workout. I feel slightly off-colour, sluggish and tired, and just didn’t have the energy for anything more.

It’s funny how corona-adjusted my brain has become. As soon as I see someone on the pavement ahead of me, I adjust my trajectory and step out onto the roadway to pass them at a safe distance, without even thinking about it. Unless they do it first. It has become so normal to stay away from people.

Sometimes I even do it at home, out of habit.