Now that it’s spring and the weather outdoor is inviting and pleasant, Adrian wants to cycle. He’s outgrown his bicycle, though, and cycling on a too-small bike is not very comfortable.

We took the train to town last week to see if we could find something at Cykelåtervinningen, a second hand bicycle shop, but our timing was not the best. They only had bikes at the extreme ends of the quality scale left in his size (24 inches) – no-gear bikes with rusty scratches, and mountain bikes with more gears than I have toes and fingers – so we came home empty-handed. (Nothing wrong with many gears, but Adrian wants a back-pedal brake, and you won’t find that on a mountain bike. And they tend to be expensive.)

Yesterday we found a bike on Blocket that both looked good and seemed suitable. We met the seller the same evening and came home with a shiny new bike, barely used.

Today, of course, he wanted to cycle. Unfortunately Ingrid is completely bikeless right now, because her bike got stolen last summer. (She actually got two bikes stolen within less than a week, because she left them outside at night… so we didn’t want to buy her a new one. If she wants one, she can earn money for it herself.) But she’s now tall enough that her next bike might be a full-sized one.

We ended up with a whole chain of bike switches. Adrian took his new bike, but everyone else got something they don’t normally ride. Ingrid rode mine; I took Eric’s; Eric took his recumbent bike.

After adjusting the seat to the lowest possible height, Eric’s bike was about the right size for me. But I was really surprised about how “off” the whole geometry felt. The seat was too far to the front and the pedals too far back, and the seat angle felt wrong. Pretty uncomfortable, on the whole.

We cycled to Vällingby, just to have a destination of some kind. Once there we bought ice cream, after which we would “just browse” the bookshop for a moment but bought three beautiful jigsaw puzzles, two books and one GeoBender puzzle. And then had a lovely cycle ride back through the spring sunshine.

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.

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.

That neighbourhood cat that has made itself at home beneath our bird feeder has knocked it over repeatedly in his attempts to catch the birds. The whole stand itself is bent and some parts are just plain broken.

We’ve tried to make the ground beneath the feeder uncomfortable for it, and to to raise the feeder higher, and so on, but the cat hasn’t gotten the point. So we took a step back, considered our options, and then Eric constructed a new, hopefully cat-proof feeder stand.

The new stand is much more stable and should be really hard to knock over. At the same time it is super easy to disassemble and pack away for the summer. And cheaper and more environmentally friendly and more easy to dispose of than the old one, too. Just superior in all ways, basically.

It’s too easy to just go out and buy a solution to your problem. “I want to have a bird feeder in my garden. Therefore I should buy one.” And you can do it from your desk or your phone and it even comes delivered to a pick-up point near you so you barely have to leave the home to get it. If it had been harder, then we might have made one ourselves to begin with.

Ingrid and Adrian decorated the Christmas tree today. This year’s tree is a fir again, which goes counter to tradition and instinct but looks better and sheds less.

In the evening, the kids made gingerbread houses with Eric’s help. There are ready-made kits you can buy, but this year they’re making them almost from scratch. (But using store-bought dough, because by the time we eat them they will be dry and dusty and using home-made dough would feel like a bit of a waste.) This way we can make much smaller houses, so it’s conceivable that we might actually eat them.

The supermarket had something called “baking glue” which I haven’t seen before. We’ve tried using melted sugar to assemble the houses, and icing, but neither has worked very well. This baking glue was much easier to use than sugar, and stronger than icing.

At the opera with Eric.

We’re holding a gathering for our extended families on Sunday, with the kids’ birthdays as an excuse. (Normally we’ve tried to squeeze it in between the two birthdays, but this year due to lack of planning it’s happening in November instead.)

Adrian wanted a brownie or a chocolate cake of some sort. I suggested an apple cake. Ingrid is craving a blueberry cheesecake. Eric has his hands full baking them all.

Eric and I started couples therapy today, to try and figure out some stuff together.

The floor guy has done his thing and left, and finally the building works here are done.

In the living room we opted for soap treatment only, like we have in the other rooms downstairs. I love the smell and feel of soap treated pine floors! The floor is getting its initial treatment here, with Adrian wetting the boards and Eric scrubbing in the soap. (I did the mopping up afterwards, when I wasn’t taking photos.)

The kitchen floor is going to get so many spills of all kinds that it needs more protection, so we went for a the most matte varnish available. The end result looks and feels much more pleasant than I had expected: very matte, quite different from all other varnished floors I have seen before. If varnished floors can be this discreet, maybe it wouldn’t have been too bad to varnish the floors in the other rooms as well? It will be really interesting to see how this ages.