I didn’t take a photo today, so here’s one from earlier, from when we actually had snow on the ground.

A bright-eyed little squirrel feeding from the bird feeder, using its tail to stay balanced.

I got a lovely fuzzy wool blanket for Christmas last year. Much softer and warmer and more colourful than the threadbare one from IKEA.

I use it all the time during the cold season. So does Adrian, who loves this corner of the sofa.

And so does Nysse. When we get up from the sofa and leave the blanket in a heap in the corner, it of course gets turned into a cat bed. And then we come back and want to curl up under the blanket, but can’t, because it’s got a sleeping cat on it.

The blanket is mine, and I’m not going to let Nysse just annex it, by the power of his cuteness.

The new deal is that tidy up after myself when I get up. I fold the blanket and put it up on the backrest of the sofa. (Or sometimes just throw it there.) No more cat bed – and I get the blanket for myself.

Then I felt sorry for Nysse for taking away his cosy spot. I understand him so well – a wool blanket is the best thing on a chilly winter evening. Now I leave the old blanket on the other end of the sofa for him.

The tracks of a Billy bookshelf, after it’s been standing in one place on untreated pine floors for about a dozen years.

The rectangular shape is the footprint of the shelf itself. The triangular area to the left, a teensy bit less pale, is where the shadow of the shelf has fallen.

Got a fresh haircut today. A colleague’s first, spontaneous reaction when he saw me in a Teams meeting was that I looked like a five-year-old boy. I chose to take that as a compliment: clearly I look youthful and playful.

Also, here’s a splash of afternoon sun.

Wet, heavy snow, quickly followed by freezing temperatures, and then a bit more snow on top of that. Now everything is covered with very picturesque agglomerations of snow.

Everything, including the car, which was properly iced over when Ingrid wanted to practice driving. There wasn’t even that much snow on it – it was just frozen hard and had to be scraped off with much force. Three of the four car doors were impossible to open, but with a bit of yanking, Ingrid got in through one of them and could turn the heating on.

Adrian gets an advent calendar with Christmas toffees. Ingrid has a store-bought Moomin-themed one with tea.

I’ve struggled to find a good place for the calendar in the past, especially with Nysse around. This year, after we’ve moved some furniture, I could hang it high up on the chimney wall. Well out of reach for the cat, well in reach for Adrian.

The chimney has been unfinished since we renovated the house, over ten years ago. Initially we dithered about maybe opening it up again – it’s been bricked up since the 1970s – and installing a fireplace of some sort. Of course if we were to do that then there was no point in wasting time and money on finishing it. We never made a decision, and then it sort of just sat there, mostly forgotten. I guess I should do something about it.

The bathroom exhaust fan stopped working all of a sudden. A new one costs a few thousand kronor and needs to be installed by an electrician, and I was already adding it all up in my head. Being a homeowner on a single salary for the first time ever has made me very cost-conscious.

I brought up a stepladder from the basement to at least poke at the fan a little bit, without much hope to solve anything. But my poking uncovered a power button that was in the OFF position. Pushing it to ON brought the fan to life. How this can possibly have happened, when the whole thing is just under the ceiling and the power button is tucked in behind the edge of the front cover, I have no idea. But a welcome surprise nevertheless.

Finally done with the digging. I had aimed to get it done by end of October, and wasn’t too far off. The autumn rains have really helped, thoroughly soaking the ground and softening it up. The last few sessions were barely even hard.

Now to buy steel edging, and new soil. And then bushes and ground cover plants.

Three days ago, the trees were at the peak of their autumn glory. After a windy weekend, today it’s all gone.

More happy pictures of glowing autumn trees. They’re almost luminous.