There’s a small wood nearby, fully contained within a single city block. Roads on all sides, housing along all of the roads – and behind that ring of houses, a rocky hill covered in pine trees. Climb up to the top and you can almost pretend the city isn’t there.

There are other small woods nearby. What I find interesting about this one is that it’s so hidden. I’d lived here for years before I discovered it. While some other nearby city woods touch a street somewhere, so you can see them when walking past, this one you can’t see at all past the houses around it. I found it on a map first, and then went looking for entrances. There are three, not counting people’s back gardens: two cul-de-sac streets, and this tree-shaded footpath between two yards.

Now I wonder whether there might be more similar hidden woods nearby.

Still a cold and wet day, but not actually raining, so I could have a “walk and talk” meeting with the new product manager in our team, to get to know each other. Suited me much better than an awkward and stiff “let’s have a coffee”.

Above-zero temperatures are here to stay, so I declare bicycle season started.

I commuted to Sortera at Liljeholmen by bike for the first time yesterday, following the (to me) most obvious path: Spångavägen to Brommaplan, Drottningholmsvägen to Alvik, then across Tranebergsbron bridge and Västerbron bridge and Liljeholmsbron bridge straight to Liljeholmen.

That’s a lot of bridges. And the bridges in Stockholm generally are quite high above the water, to leave space for boats and what not. Tranebergsbron is a serious hill to climb.

Today I tried a different route, with only two bridges. Google says it’s 800 metres and 2 minutes shorter, and has 10 metres less of ascent. True, but Gröndalsbron bridge is even steeper than the others.

On the minus side, the cycle path shares Gröndalsbron with a ten-lane, heavily trafficked motorway. It’s noisy, windy, and the road surface on the cycle path is in bad shape. On the plus side (beyond the numbers) most of this route feels quieter and has far fewer cyclists, which I rather like. And am glad to avoid the bottlenecks and traffic lights at Alvik and Västerbron. So I kind of like it.

Or maybe it’s just the appeal of something new.

A whole new quarter of apartment blocks has been constructed along the railway tracks over the past few years, replacing the worn office block and warehouses that used to be there. Mostly student housing, from what I’ve understood. And more is appearing on the other side of the tracks.

It’s a great location – the near end is just five minutes’ walk from the train station, and there’s a bus line along the road so those living at the far end are only two or three bus stops away from the station. There’s a Lidl, and a gym, and a cheap pasta & pizza restaurant. Probably more services will pop up as more people move in.

Already the new housing has led to the opening of a large new Coop supermarket, one size up from the ones we have at Spånga torg. The grand opening was a week ago, with special offers and food tastings and whatnot, so we went for a look.

Large, spacious, and well stocked, and with a wider range of most things than “our” Coop. More exotic vegetables, and funky mushrooms. And this fridge, of like, 10 metres, is filled from edge to edge with just vegetarian products – tofu and falafel and meatless burgers and vegan cheese and so on. Nice.

We’re almost at the vernal equinox and some of the city’s Christmas decorations are still here. There’s this reindeer, and also a star-shaped thing on Spånga torg. The reindeer looks a bit lost.

For a month or two so I figured that it just takes them time to get around to all of them. After all, the number of staff is probably more or less constant, and it’s not reasonable to expect them to take down all the Christmas decorations in a week or two.

But… mid-March.

I’m starting to think the city may just have forgotten about these.

Getting ready to start working on the Stockholm-themed embroidery at the embroidery club tomorrow. I haven’t done much figurative embroidery, but why not try.

Just choosing something to represent Stockholm was hard. I wanted a concrete picture of Stockholm, not something symbolic (like the subway map). I wanted something personal but also general: an image that would be clearly recognizable as Stockholm by not just me (not a view of our house, for example) but at the same time I don’t want a generic postcard.

In the end I settled on using this old photo of mine of Karlberg. The combination of earth-toned buildings, water, and greenery all together feel like quintessential Stockholm to me.

The group’s suggested end date for the project is mid-May. I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be done by that time. The marked area on the fabric is 30 by 45 cm. I get a lot for free from the background fabric – I won’t be embroidering much on the sky or the water – but that’s still quite a lot of fabric to cover with stitches. But I’d rather make something that I can be proud of, perhaps even hang on a wall, than focus on a deadline. If it takes me until Christmas – well, then it does.

It was more or less light outside still when I got home after a full day in the office. We’ve finally gotten to the point where each day feels just a little bit lighter and brighter and easier than the one before.

The temperature has been hovering around zero. Most north-south streets are clear already. But the ones running east-west are still icy.

In our office, six floors up, looking outside, it felt like we were in the clouds. Fog below us, fog above us.

In the street it almost also felt like being in a cloud.

It’s Shrove Tuesday, which means semlor. I’d forgotten all about it, until Ingrid reminded me. Had I remembered earlier, I would not have timed my visit to the bakery to coincide with all the commuters coming home. Still, the queue was only half this long when I joined it. It grew with every arriving train.

Eric got a whole semla, while Ingrid and I shared one. It was more of a symbolic thing, really. I mean, they do taste good, but it’s not like they’re my favourite baked goods. And they’re usually huge anyway. Adrian meanwhile wasn’t interested at all.