We have been watching the Melodifestivalen song contest on TV this year again. This time around Ingrid wants to watch it live so she can vote.

Every single Saturday I think about what a crappy way this is to watch a show. I’ll be so happy to put this behind us. Not only because I find it boring and the music is mostly crap (but that’s OK because I can sit and knit while I keep the kids company) but mostly because it is a totally unnecessary source of stress.

Having to be there on time can easily affect the entire afternoon, if not the whole day. “If we want to be ready for TV by 8 then we need to eat no later than 7:20, so we need to start preparing dinner at 6:30, so we have to be home no later than 6, and that means that if we want to go skating, too, we have to…” and so on. And then, “oh look, the show starts in 2 minutes, we’ll miss the beginning!” and “but I can’t clean the room now because then we won’t make it by 8 o’clock” and so on. It’s worse than a weekday morning.

So glad we don’t normally do this.

I had a most liberating haircut this week. I love having my hair short.

Haircuts are tricky things. For a long time I was more or less unhappy with all the salon haircuts I got. Some just had no skill; some did not listen at all to what I asked for.

I got a good haircut at a hairdressing school in 2008. Then I tried out the various salons around Odenplan which is where I worked at that time. When I found a good one, I stayed, and I hope she never retires. So now I take the train to Odenplan whenever I need a haircut.

This has been a most unwintery winter. Almost no snow, and no cold weather either. We’ve been able to go out sledding just once.

Two weeks ago we were lucky to get loads of fresh snow on Friday and then warmish weather (meaning wet sticky snow) on Saturday, so we seized the opportunity and stayed out in the snow for hours. We built two forts and had a snowball fight, made two snowmen, one sofa for the snowmen and one lantern. By the next morning it was all half melted.

Attack!

This night we got a fresh load of wet snow. Soft, heavy snow and no wind: it made for a very pretty view in the morning when we woke. And again by the evening it was already melting.

It’s like winter never happened and what we had was a soft segue from November straight into March. Gray and wet.

On the plus side, the neighbours have been reporting snowdrops and eranthis flowering already.

How do people fit in their beds?

I am a woman of average length. 167 cm to be precise, which is the average in Sweden.

I have a standard-sized bed. Lengthwise, at least, it’s the standard 200 cm. The width is way beyond any standards since we have assembled a generous 250 cm family bed for ourselves.

But this standard-sized woman barely fits in this standard-sized bed. My pillow is pushed all the way to the top edge, and my feet reach the other end.

I like lying flat and straight in my bed when sleeping. When I’ve just gotten into bed I may curl up or cuddle up to Eric or shift around and turn from one side to the other. But when it’s time to fall asleep, I turn to my back and straighten out. There’s just enough space for this.

How do all the tall men fit into their beds? Do they lie diagonally? Do their feet stick out? Do they all sleep on their side?

A mystery.

Yesterday I said I didn’t buy or make things that are only beautiful but not useful. That requires some clarification, I think.

I do like buying and making things that make our home more cosy: curtains, rugs, potted plants, and plants for the garden. Those are beautiful but not very useful.

I also like necklaces, and wear them on most days. Those are definitely not useful. But they are more practical than rings and bracelets, which I hardly ever wear.

I am too practically-minded and frugal to buy necklaces for myself nowadays. Although now that I think about it, maybe I should.

However I do like getting necklaces as gifts. In fact I think the majority of my necklaces have been given to me. Mostly by Eric, but also some by my mother, and some by other friends.

I like unusual, non-traditional, interesting necklaces: no strands of pearls for me! I have necklaces made of wood, of mother-of-pearl, of stainless steel. I have one that is made out of a silver fork, bent into a curious shape. I have a gilded lettuce leaf, and a 3d-printed geometrical structure.

Some of my favourites did not photograph well in lamplight; here are the ones that turned out well.

This was the first necklace I bought for myself. It is a silver pendant, designed to look like a Viking coin (but not a real one). The size of my thumbnail and paper-thin, and on an almost-invisible chain: an economical purchase for a teenager. But I still like it after all these years.

These wooden ones Eric made for me:

Ingrid made this bracelet:

Mother-of-pearl and steel:

3D printed tangle:

And here’s a more traditional one:

From an administrational point of view it’s winter here, which means that the skating rinks are open. Meteorologically there are no signs of winter; we have constant above-zero temperatures. This is not a bad combination: we can go skating without freezing our noses off!

Ingrid loves skating even more this year than the last. She can happily stay at the rink for an hour and a half. Probably longer, especially if there are other kids to keep her company; when we go home it’s always because I’ve had enough, not because she is tired of it.

We skate at Spånga sports field, Spånga IP. It has both an indoors ice rink and an outdoors one. We tried the indoors rink once but it was hockey-oriented – noisy and dominated by fast skaters and fast pucks – so we didn’t like it at all.

The outdoors rink on the other hand is great! It’s a bandy rink, which means it’s really big. It is refrigerated, so it’s usable in weather that doesn’t allow natural ice to form (like right now). And because it is used for major league games, it’s well maintained and resurfaced every few days at least.

The downside is that the rink is not always open for the general public, but the schedule seems to allow at least a couple of hours of general access every day.

Yesterday we decorated our tree.

I know there are fashions and trends in this as in everything, colour themes and such. We don’t do it the fashionable way. I buy pretty things of any kind, so what we have is an eclectic unfashionable mixture of everything, high and low.

There are hand-blown hand-painted glass baubles, and an enamelled egg from China, and a golden star with beads and sequins.

But there are also paper hearts that Ingrid and I have crafted, and felted ornaments (both store-bought and home-made), and things that simply tinkle nicely.

From my own childhood I have strong memories of an ornament in the shape of a little snowy house. There was another figure as well, maybe a Santa Claus? So I got a snow man and a Santa Claus for our tree as well.

Anything goes, as long as it makes us happy as we look at it.

This house normally contains, for two adults and two kids:

• One stationary computer
• Two broadband Internet connections
• Three laptops
• Three iPads
• Four mobile phones

I now have both a tripod and a remote. This evening we tried them out for the first time.

This feels very representative of our evenings. Me trying to do something; Adrian hanging on to me; Ingrid turning everything up to 11; Eric seeking peace and quiet in another room.

The catch-22 of blogging: when my life is full of things happening, things that might be worth blogging about, I don’t have time to blog. When there is a calmer period and time to blog, I don’t have anything much to blog about.

So here’s a recap of some older news.

Last weekend Ingrid’s scout group had a hike. The word “hike” to me means lots of walking but this was more of an outing. We drove to a recreation area with some forest and a lake; the kids did various activities; we had picnic lunch; the kids played. The activities ranged from “intro to maps” and the basics of how to start a fire, to building tripods with sticks and rope. Families were welcome to come along, so all four of us were there. Adrian loved it as much as Ingrid did, I think. For us adults it was a welcome green break from city life.

The weekend before that my bike got stolen. I had thoughtlessly left it overnight at the bike parking at the station, and on a weekend to boot. By the time I went back to pick it up, on Sunday afternoon, all that was left was the cable lock, cut open, and my helmet. Losing the bike was bad enough, but it was even more inconvenient to lose the child seat and the hitch for the bike trailer. I don’t commute by bike but I use it every day to get the kids home after preschool and school. I’ve now bought a new bike and a new seat, but still cannot attach the trailer to the new bike.

I guess we’ve had no exposure to crime for such a long time that we’ve become complacent. (I’m thinking of the theft of our suitcases and drinks from the basement as well.)

Once bitten, twice shy – this time I bought a big fat U-lock for my bike. No more cable locks. And no more overnight parking, either. I really don’t want to lose a bike again, especially since the new one is even nicer than the old one.