It’s the last day of the school year, and the last day ever at this school for Ingrid. As a graduating grade 6 student she finally gets to sit on a chair (while the younger kids all sit on blankets etc on the ground), and she gets a rose from the one of the kids in grade 0.

I still remember when she was in grade 0 and sitting at the very front, and how handing a rose to one of the big kids was a big thing. And how old the grade 6 kids looked to me then!

Afterwards we had our traditioal conveyor belt sushi lunch at Zan in Kista. Ingrid is working on her chopstick skills: she has learned an odd grip, with the chopsticks crossed, and is now trying to unlearn it to get a better… um… grip on whatever she’s trying to grab. With slippery metal chopsticks and slippery, hard watermelon pieces, it’s quite a challenge.

Eric’s niece just graduated from high school and had a party today to celebrate.

It’s national day and I had vaguely thought we might go somewhere and do something national day-ish, but the heat is such that I have no energy for anything like that. Instead we had a picnic in the garden, in the shade of the cherry tree, with the most cooling food we could come up with – a strawberry and melon pasta salad and iced elderberry cordial.

tretton37 summer party at Skansen.

The kids took the train to town together and met up with me at the office. We then took the tram to Skansen. (Eric had a restful evening at home instead.)

We had time for a brief walk around Skansen before it was time for the party itself. It was closing time and the whole place was empty. I liked Skansen this way, without all the crowds.

Then we had summery drinks in the sun, and a buffet dinner, and ninja masks and ninja making kits and ninja tattoos.

The old pine floor has gone the way of the cupboards. A trip to the laundry room (for e.g. water) now involves either balancing on the floor joists or walking through peat dust. Balancing is definitely both more fun and more comfortable.

Peat dust is rather icky. It’s very light and spreads everywhere and sticks to everything. Half the laundry room/pantry is covered in a thin layer of brown dust – I guess the door has been open while the builders worked.

But as “compensation” we’re getting new floor joists, which – unlike the old ones – are actually level.

Ingrid is giving Adrian a master class in skipping rope technique.

It was probably Fortnite. That’s the game that unites them: both like it a lot.

Or maybe all three of us were playing Minecraft together.

Ingrid’s new hair.

It’s going to take me a few days to get used to it – every time I see her, I get a little shock.

Long weekend, beautiful weather – I went for a full-day hike, and Ingrid came along. Last weekend’s outing was nice, but there was a lot more sausage grilling than walking going on.

Normally the Sörmlandsleden would be my first go-to trail, or maybe something in Tyresta. But due to the long weekend, engineering works were underway and there was no train service from Spånga station, so most trails south of the city (including Sörmlandsleden) were unreachable. So we went for something completely new and different and walked the Lovö trail instead. 17 km around the island of Lovö, mostly hugging its coast, easily reachable by bus.

Another reason for picking the Lovö trail was that I hoped it would have more than just the usual rock and pine and blueberry forests that are everywhere near Stockholm – perhaps some deciduous forests or open fields. I wanted birdsong, and while pine and spruce forests can be lovely in other ways, they usually don’t harbour much birdlife. I remember coming back from a long walk last spring, having heard nearly no birds, only to finally hear them on my way back through a park near the train station.

Lovö did deliver on that. The trail was quite varied, and while much of it was pine forest, there were some pleasant leafy forests along the southern and western coast, with both birdsong and boggy patches that seemed to promise flowering irises soon.

Spring flowers were blossoming here and there, but overall spring hasn’t come very far yet even though it’s warm, so from that point of view the pine forest was good to have, too – at least it was green. I’d like to come back here and see what it looks like in summer and autumn as well.

I stopped for photos, Ingrid stopped for sketching.

The path was well marked and in that sense easy to walk, but it was quite rocky and uneven, and there was a lot of up and down. We were walking slower than usual and the 17 km felt longer than I had intended. Towards the end Ingrid was quite tired and even I felt that I had had enough, so for the last 3 km or so, we left the trail and walked back along roads instead.

Luckily Lovö is so criss-crossed with trails that if we ever want to come back, we can mix and match and come up with a shorter walk. Not only for the kids’ sake.

Our traditional Easter egg hunt.

By now the sweets in the eggs aren’t that important – the hunt itself is what the kids look forward to. I’d forgotten to buy candy to fill the eggs with. Luckily we had some leftover candy in the cupboard that Ingrid distributed in the eggs.

Ingrid hid Adrian’s eggs, I hid Ingrid’s eggs, and then the hunt began.