Much of my morning commute from Spånga to Liljeholmen is lovely. I cycle via Brommaplan, Alvik, Stora Essingen and Gröndal, and there’s nice bike lanes almost all the way.

The best views are from the bridge from Äppelviken to Stora Essingen.

Cherry trees flowering in Spånga, last week. I took the photos and then for some reason posted something else that day. But I can’t just not post cherry blossoms.

We’re back to dull and grey April weather, with heavy clouds and the hint of almost-rain in the air, so the first pink blossoms of the cherry trees in Spånga are a welcome splash of brightness.

First thing in the morning: IKEA, to start looking for a new bed, and to buy clothes rails for my built-in closets. Visiting IKEA on a Saturday can be a nightmare, but not if you’re there right when they open. Plenty of space in the parking lot, and no crowds inside, either. By the time I was ready to leave, the situation in the parking lot was rather different, with cars hunting for free spots.

Next up: a trip to the city to buy embroidery yarn, which was also this season’s inaugural bicycle trip. My 30-day travel card ran out yesterday, and today was a bright, sunny day, which seemed like a clear sign that it was time to dust off the bike, pump up the tires, and start pedalling.

The sun is warm, but the air isn’t. And at this time of the year the sun still doesn’t reach very high in the sky. Even at two o’clock in the afternoon, long sections of the cycle lanes from here to the city are in full shade from the houses that line them.

In the evening: party. Eric, Ingrid and Adrian had a housewarming party at their new apartment. They’ve got all the essential furniture in place and have settled in. The living room sofa is large enough to fit Adrian’s entire band of friends at the same time!

And then later in the evening, Melodifestivalen with Ingrid, while Adrian was watching it with his friends at the apartment – we preferred a quieter evening. Much of the music is pretty boring – artists trying to repeat their wins by replicating previous hits – but the winning song, a catchy and humorous Swedish-Finnish song about saunas, was actually fun.

Exhaustion and bedtime after that.

When the Eranthis are flowering, I know that the snowdrops will be out, too. The ones in central Spånga are just that little bit out of the way that I don’t notice them on my way past. Then some sign of spring makes me think of them, and I go check, and see that they’ve clearly been there for a while already.

I checked for crocuses in my lawn, too, but nothing there yet.

I keep an eye out for the first spring blossoms nearby. There’s nothing, and nothing, and nothing – and suddenly the Eranthis are there. Some years, they peek up through the snow, but we’ve barely had any this February, so they’ve got an easier start this time around.

New housing has been going up in Spånga for years now. Low-density industrial sprawl replaced with apartment buildings, student housing, and services. That area is out of my way, so it’s happening close enough for me to notice it when I’m driving past, but not close enough to affect me day to day, or for me to be particularly interested. The most I do is occasionally make the detour to go to the new, larger Coop supermarket, instead of the smaller, closer one in the centre of Spånga.

Now the hair salon I’ve been using in Spånga has moved from central Spånga (from a building that is slated for demolition and replacement) to a shiny new one on the other side of the tracks, right across from the “new” supermarket. I know that a pedestrian tunnel under the railway tracks has been in the works for a while, but I’ve never had reason to look at it, so I was only moderately sure it was finished and open. Google Maps still hasn’t caught up with the change and was suggesting a twenty-minute detour, but I took my chances.

The tunnel was indeed finished and open and functional, but the area on the other side was eerily empty. The houses are up and finished, the streets are there, but there are no people. No bushes, no bicycles, no garbage, even – no signs of human habitation. And wire fencing still blocked off much of the pavement. It was like a ghost town, not because it has been abandoned, but because it hasn’t come to life yet.

That’s why I haven’t noticed the tunnel being in use: there are no people there to use it.

Morning sun over the bay at Liljeholmen. And me.

Sometime back in early December I calculated that the dark season would end for me mid-February. The sun would be up in Stockholm by 7:30, which is about the time I try to leave for work, and wouldn’t go down until 16:30, so I’d catch the tail end of daylight at the end of the working day.

I’ve been looking forward to that day since then. We’ve still got a week to go, but it’s almost here! And we’re gaining 5 minutes of daylight every day.

Today the street lights were still on when I was approaching the office, but it actually didn’t feel that dark.

Happy forty-seven and a half to me!

For my birthday this summer I wanted to go out to have a nice restaurant brunch. I was going to wait until September so the brunch places in the city would open again after the summer. But then it was the kids’ birthdays, and the divorce, and Christmas, and more divorce, and it never happened.

Today Ingrid, Adrian and I finally went for my birthday brunch at Kelp, a very local restaurant, just five minutes’ walk from home. We all ended up ordering the same things: scrambled eggs, sourdough bread, single-variety Swedish apple juice, and French toast with a home-made berry compote. And then, while Ingrid and I were bemoaning how full we were, another serving of French toast for Adrian, who is in that teenage bottomless phase. Very nice.