Summer party at preschool: a song-and-dance-and-magic show by the kids, and then an orgy of strawberries, ice cream and merengue.

The maximum temperature yesterday in Stockholm was +6°C. Six degrees above freezing. dn.se reports that this made it the coldest June day in Stockholm since 1928. Add pouring rain for most of the day and storm-strength winds, and we stayed indoors as much as possible.

The garden is water-logged, the lilac branches are so heavy with rain that I’m afraid they will break soon, and we had to turn the heating in the entire house back on, because indoor temperature had fallen as low as 16°C which is well below our comfort level.

Today was moderately better, with a few pauses in the rain, no storm, and temperatures up to +11. But still pretty miserable. I am looking forward to tomorrow because then we will all be going to work and daycare instead of being cooped up in the house. And my legs are itching from lack of exercise.

And to think that last weekend we had kids running naked around the garden and splashing in the paddling pool.

One morning, earlier this week, a lady approached me as I was unlocking my bike at Karlberg train station in the morning. She asked if I could fill in a questionnaire about the bike parking situation there. And the situation has been bugging me so badly for so long that I was not only willing to do so, but really happy that someone was actually interested in improving the parking there.

There were questions about the state of the parking (= ranging from poor to atrocious, with the ground littered with rotting newspapers and a significant number of the slots occupied by abandoned broken bikes), how easy it is to find a space there (= I am lucky to be working part time and leaving work early, before the afternoon rush hour), where I’m going and how often I use this bike parking, etc etc. And finally a question about whether I’d be willing to pay a monthly fee for parking my bike.

I totally would. I would do it if the only thing I got for my money was a guaranteed place, because when I have 3–5 minutes to park my bike and get to the platform, I do not want to have to wander around looking for a place and shifting other bikes around to squeeze mine in. What luxury it would be to also have the place cleaned regularly, and maybe even a roof!

Now let’s hope something concrete comes out of this, and within the near future rather than in 5 years’ time.

This weekend we bought some dahlias, which I repotted and put out on the deck yesterday evening. But I forgot to check the weather report and therefore they were damaged by the night frost – just hours after I put them out. Now I feel like a fool, and sad to see for the beautiful flowers that hang brown and shrivelled. I hope they recover, otherwise I will have to start over.

And the cold I’ve had for a week got worse during the weekend, and today I realized it’s now turned into sinusitis – fever, half my head aches, and my teeth as well.

And Adrian’s reaction to seeing me trying to rest on the sofa is to get all worried and clingy, and want to nurse every 5 minutes, so really there wasn’t any resting for me until he went to bed.

Now I’m in a grumpy mood, feeling sorry for myself and the flowers. I’m treating myself with chocolate – after about 60kr worth of nice pralines from Chokladfabriken I am feeling distinctly better.

The white cyclamen we got for Ingrid’s birthday, and it has been flowering without a break since then.

The poinsettia has thrived since Christmas, which has been a nice surprise because the store-bought ones often have too underdeveloped root systems and give up the ghost after a month.

And tulips for spring and Easter.

You can give type O blood to blood groups A and AB. You can give type A blood to type AB. You cannot give type AB to anybody except AB.

Butter knives in our kitchen work the same way. You can use a knife that has previously been used for Adrian’s dairy-free margarine on both butter and Ingrid’s liver pâté. A knife that has been in contact with butter can be used for liver pâté but not for margarine. A knife with liver pâté on it can not be used for anything else.

The complication is that remains of butter and margarine are almost impossible to tell apart. So whenever Adrian wants a sandwich, we have to get a new knife for him. This is why there is an almost-constant shortage of butter knives in our kitchen even though we have half a dozen.

(On weekend mornings there is also orange marmalade to be taken into account but that luckily does not look like anything else and can be eaten by everybody.)

Often when I go out with Adrian – to the supermarket, on other small errands, to our Estonian playgroup, home from nursery in the afternoon – I take him on my back in a baby carrier, instead of a stroller.

Quite frequently someone comments on “how strong of you” or “I could never do that” (in Swedish it’s often “att du orkar”). They seem to think it requires a sacrifice from me, that I do this out of some feeling of duty.

But to me this is the easy way out. Pushing a 10 kg stroller up hilly streets filled with sand/snow mush? Getting up and down staircases, queueing for elevators? Squeezing into crowded buses and trains, navigating narrow aisles in shops? Not if I can avoid it.

The fact that it’s cosy having him on my back, resting his head against my back, pointing at the things we pass, is just an extra plus.

Having just gone through the receipts in my wallet for December, I note that I have bought 23 lussekatter at Pressbyrån during this Christmas season, for a total of 338 kronor.

(The one in the photo below was made by Ingrid and not bought at Pressbyrån.)

We have an eclectic tree with everything from delicate hand-made glass ornaments and Chinese cloisonné eggs, to giant paper crafts projects from preschool.

Ingrid is busy overseeing the opening of Christmas gifts.

Adrian couldn’t care less about the gifts but loves the raisins and gingerbread cookies.

We had our company Christmas dinner yesterday, at Ballbreaker. Not a surprising choice of venue given that the other five employees are men between the ages of about 30 and 35. To be fair, they did ask if it would be OK with me and I said yes, but I have to admit I said it mostly so as to not be a party pooper.

The place turned out to be much nicer than I had expected. The pre-dinner activities (simulator racing, bowling and slot car racing) were great fun. I suck at car racing but didn’t do too badly at bowling.

Then we had our julbord (Swedish smorgasbord-style Christmas dinner) and the food also exceeded my expectations, really nice! Delicious herring and Nobel salmon.

After dinner we played shufflepuck for a couple of hours – first for fun and points only, then, as the rest of the company was getting increasingly sozzled, for stakes – developers vs. sales and management. By the time I left, the developer team had won one afternoon fika (sort of like afternoon tea) as well as one week of “coffee service” at the office (i.e. management to make and fetch coffee whenever a developer feels like having some). The third time we wagered 2 hours of manual testing per person (if devs win) against an on-site customer interview (if sales & management win) and this time we lost. At that point I went home but I understand that by the end of the night, various of my colleagues owed each other both lunches and rounds of beer and other things as well.

Shuffleboard. Image © Ballbreaker. The hands in the photo are not ours.