Cirkus Cirkör with Ingrid and Adrian, at Dansens Hus. Tipping Point involved a lot of climbing and balancing on teetering structures of steel pipes. I liked the tensegrity-based designs a lot.

The most stunning part was a trapeze number, both visually and in terms of skill. Had I been their official photographer, knowing the programme and the timing in advance, being able to position myself optimally in the hall, I know exactly what moments I would have tried to capture, and what angles. It was so obvious that I went to their press photos looking for that obvious best shot – and it just wasn’t there. Obviously what was obvious to me was not obvious to others.

Picture this, but with plenty more space below them to show the height, and shot from further to the right so you get the artists more clearly in profile for that pure and elegant graphical curve:

My felted slippers didn’t even last a year before getting big holes in them.

I could make new ones – I even have an idea about what I might want to change to make them felt better and last longer – but that seems wasteful. Instead I bought a needle felting kit and some raw wool to patch them up.

I’ve never done any needle felting, and with the waxing experiment fresh in my mind, I was leery of the project. It turned out to be super easy and I was done in no time. The first mend was a bit lumpy but the next ones were better, and even the lumpy one evened out after I walked on it for a bit.

Buying yarn for a new pair of slippers would absolutely have been cheaper. But I’ve learned something new, and hopefully I’ll be able to use this stuff for some other mending project in the future. Or for these same slippers when they get new holes – the way the yarn has gone shiny on the sole, I can see it’s going to happen.

The knitted white dress is pretty much done! I set myself the goal of finishing it this year, and I’m going to make it. I only have the hem to finish now.

The skirt has curled up every time I’ve tried the dress on. It’s getting a folded hem and a lead weight cord (the kind that is often used for curtain hems) inside that to straighten it out.

I started sewing a winter skirt last season but then got sidetracked and never finished it. Now it’s cold again and I want something thick and warm and long and cosy to wear. Plus it will be nice to get that project pile off my sideboard.

I’m piecing it together from leftover fabric from the red skirt and the brown skirt and some new cream-coloured wool that I bought at the crafts festival last year.

I don’t have a clear idea of what the skirt will look like, but I found two pieces of red that are about the right shape and size for a yoke-ish part. While I ponder the rest of the design, I can get started on the pockets.

Nysse, as usual, had his own ideas of what a pile of wool fabric is good for.

The one thing on my Christmas wish list was a book with porridge recipes. I’m a fan of both traditional oatmeal porridge, and grain-based porridge-like savoury meals. The book seemed to have lots of inspiring ideas for broadening my porridge repertoire, for breakfast as well as lunch/dinner.

Here’s a luxury breakfast porridge mostly based on a recipe from the book, with caramelized banana and a peanut butter sauce. Somewhat simplified: you’re supposed to sprinkle a coconut crumble on top that you prepared in advance (I just replaced it with some coconut flakes) and the sauce was supposed to be made with tahini which I didn’t have so I used peanut butter instead.

The result looks fancy and tastes fancy but didn’t even take longer to make than an ordinary porridge. The banana caramelizes in minute or two, and the peanut butter sauce didn’t take longer either, so I got both done while the porridge itself was still cooking.

I like the taste of peanut butter but not the texture. It’s so thick that it’s difficult to distribute on the porridge. Mixing it with a teaspoon of water and another one of honey turned it into a sauce that was much easier to handle.

This is absolutely going on my breakfast recipe shortlist.

I have a bunch of beeswax cloth wraps. Bought some, got some as gifts. Managed to destroy some when I forgot a piece of fruit in it that then got mouldy.

Some are old and have lot most of their waxiness. You can buy blocks of wax to re-apply to the cloths, so they become properly waterproof and stiff again. They even include a sheet with instructions. Melt it, brush it on, put the cloth between sheets of baking paper, iron it, “quickly pull off the paper”.

It turned out to be really, really difficult. The wax solidified as soon as it left the pot, in big ugly clumps. There was no hope whatsoever of brushing it out. I thought that maybe ironing it would distribute it more evenly, but when I ironed it, the wax started leaking out on the sides in some places, while there was still too little in others. And finally, pulling off the paper took half the wax with it.

Making wax wrappers has grown into a whole cottage industry, plenty of people manage do it. How can it be so hard?

In any case, I gave up. I’m willing to pay money to skip this mess and let other people do this for me.

For the first time in forever, we have a clear sky. I went out to chase the sun. Which was a real challenge, because even in the middle of the day it is so low that you can’t see it unless you find a really wide open space.

I drove to Järvafältet nature reserve and walked around the edges of its fields. Even then, distant trees often kept me from the sun.

Then I remembered the Hansta hill. If there is sun anywhere, surely the top of a hill will be the place for it.

You can really see here just how far the shadows of very normal trees reach.

I’ve had this ivy for years and never had any problems with it. And now all of a sudden it just died. From one day to another, all the leaves dried up, and that was that. Not even just one shoot – the whole thing.

I did move it from the bathroom to the living room some months ago, so this was its first winter in this window. But it used to stand in the window next to my desk for years and didn’t have a problem with it then. Maybe it didn’t like the draft from the heat exchanger?