Took the train to town for shopping. Mohair yarn for the white wool dress; magnetic poster hangers for two photography posters I bought months ago; crimp beads so I can make my own stitch markers; charity shops where I didn’t find any of the things I was looking for.

The trains are on a half-hourly schedule due to summertime engineering works. It’s not as bad as it has been some past summers; at least we get trains. But the trains turn around in Spånga, and if you live further out, it’s replacement buses for you.

It was lunchtime by the time I got back. I stopped at Spånga Konditori for lunch. Ingrid won’t be working there any more after the summer, so we’re going to lose our access to her staff discount. I need to get the most out of it now.

I had a lovely hummus and avocado toast and strawberry lemonade. It was quiet at the café, and Ingrid could come sit with me when there were no customers to serve.

Ingrid’s graduation party.

We were incredibly lucky with the weather. A week ago the forecast was promising 28°C and sunshine, which would have had all of us sweating and gasping for air. Now we just had a beautiful summer day, warm rather than hot, sunny but with a bit of a breeze.

I put the camera to the side for a while. A friendly soul picked it up, so now I have photos of me and Ingrid, too!

The “kids’ table” with Ingrid and some of her best friends.

There was cake – from the bakery where Ingrid works, of course.

Ingrid’s baby cousin was incredibly interested in the cakes, to the point where I felt I had to keep watch to make sure Ingrid could actually be the first one to cut a slice.

We had a quiz with 20 questions about Ingrid, and I presented the correct answers with the cake. Ingrid’s boyfriend won; I guess any other outcome would have been slightly concerning.

Congratulations to Ingrid, who graduated from high school today!

Ingrid’s graduation day.

We got to the school yard in good time, we thought, 45 minutes before the actual event, but there was already a big crowd there.

When the graduates came out, the crowd became a sea of signs. We ended up towards the back, so Adrian as the tallest of us got the task of holding up our sign.

Here’s our proud high school graduate!

And here’s us, proud of our high school graduate.

Once more, with feeling:

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There was some time for friends and family to congratulate and take photos and what not. Then the graduates went back into the school building to change out of their nice dresses and suits and into their coveralls for the studentflak ride.

One last moment of showing off their shiny selves…

… and then the mood switched boom boxes, plastic whistles, and copious sprayed drinks.

The flak trucks for all the graduating classes took off as a convoy towards the city centre, and the rest of us went home. Ingrid came home a few hours later, completely drenched.

We celebrated the end of the school year – today for Adrian, tomorrow for Ingrid – with a dinner at Sushi Sukai. Both of them finish their years with excellent grades.

Sushi Sukai was also excellent, with interesting and delicious food. Everything from crab tacos to spicy fried popcorn shrimp, salmon tartar to tuna tataki.

The studentflak tradition involves a lot of spilled and sprayed beer and other beverages these days. At some point the students realized that this is no good for party clothes, or even ordinary clothes, and now there are special coveralls for wearing on the flak. These aren’t traditional student coveralls (which are actual pieces of clothing) – they’re more like plastic protective gear.

White is boring, of course, so another tradition that has emerges is spray painting the coveralls. Ingrid and her friends had a coverall painting party in our back garden.

National day cake by Ingrid.

Active Solution celebrated the start of summer with a day at Gröna Lund amusement park for all the employees, with families. I haven’t been there for ages and was very happy for this opportunity.

We were offered armbands for unlimited rides, or a bundle of tickets for the various competitions. I’ve always been fond of roller coasters, and absolutely chose the armband. So did both Ingrid and Adrian, of course.

We were ready to enter when the park opened. Even a bit before – the gates opened before the rides started, so we were literally on the first round of the first ride. The park was nearly empty, almost spookily so. Teenagers sleep late, of course, and the chilly, windy weather was also on our side. (I was properly layered up but was still cold most of the day. Some poor folks in their t-shirts must have been freezing.)

We went straight for the roller coasters. For the first hour or so, we could go on the most popular roller coasters with barely any queueing at all. Twister was one of our favourites – a classical roller coaster with wooden tracks.

Monster was another favourite. On a busy day, the queues to Monster are 30 to 40 minutes, according to Ingrid, who’s been coming here regularly every season. Now they were next to nothing, so we waited a few extra minutes to get front-row seats.

Three or four back-to-back roller coaster rides later, I was actually feeling a tad queasy. Am I getting too old for this? Probably not – mostly it was the abrupt braking at the end of Monster that shook up my stomach. The rides themselves were no problem. We calmed down with less challenging attractions like the “funny house” and “tunnel of love” and the “scary train”.

After lunch, the kids convinced me to try the Catapult. It’s like a free-fall ride, but goes both up and down. I was afraid it would be too much for me but said I’d try it once – and it was my favourite ride of the day. No shaking, just flying! And with wonderful views.

More roller coasters. Monster sitting at the back instead of the front (less wind, less view, more surprise, more swoosh). Häxkvasten, like Monster but tamer, which used to be my favourite. Vilda musen, which I remembered not liking, and also did not like this time, because it was all rattling side-to-side (to the point where I was afraid I’d end up with bruises from being thrown into the side of the cart) and no soaring at all.

We had planned to go on the Eclipse, a giant star flyer, way up high, but were turned away at the entrance – it was closed due to the evening’s concert. Which we had been informed about, kind of, but the info just said “closed during the concert” – not that it would close two and a half hours before the concert started. Bummer.

The old-school wave swinger was nice, but not quite same.

The park was getting crowded now, and there were actual queues. (Many visitors probably came in the afternoon for this evening’s concert with KAJ, the Melodifestivalen winner.) One last ride, we said, and went back to the Catapult.

After that we all felt we needed some sugar to boost our flagging energy levels. Ben & Jerry’s ice cream for Adrian and myself; candy floss for Ingrid.

Today Ingrid finished the last exam in the last subject of her last school year, which we celebrated with ice cream at Spånga Konditori. She’s been studying so hard that she deserves all the ice cream.

Adrian still has more tests to get through tomorrow, and we’ll be celebrating that with all the fresh raspberries, blueberries and strawberries that we can eat.

Preparing to charm and impress the parents of Ingrid’s long-term boyfriend, whom we have invited over for fika.