Adrian appears to have outgrown Legos. For now – it’s happened before, but then he became interested again.

We borrowed a large Lego set to build a model of the Taj Mahal, back in January. Adrian was engaged at first, but the build has languished for months. I’ve even tried to encourage him by pre-sorting the pieces, but even that didn’t help.

The completionist in me can’t tear down a half-finished build, so I took it over from him a few weeks ago. It was a good distraction while I was at my most worried about Nysse. Now I don’t need the distraction any more, and it’s not my favourite pastime, but I still want to finish it.

To make things more interesting, I’ve challenged myself to build ambidextrously. It’s interesting to see how naturally the right hand does the work while the left one stays still. I’m holding a tiny piece in my left hand, attaching it on top of a larger piece in my right hand – and unless I specifically focus on doing the opposite, it’s the right hand that moves the larger piece in place while the left hand stays passive, holding the little piece still and waiting for the right one to do the job.

Walking with Nysse I end up in places in the garden that I would never choose to walk through otherwise. Such as the space under the huge philadelphus bush. Plenty of space for a cat; full of scratchy branches at chest and face height for a human.

One can find interesting things this way, though. Like the remains of long-dead birds.

I like skeletons. Especially when the local wildlife have kindly picked them clean.

My embroidery club started up again for the autumn term. I forgot to take photos there – again.

It felt so nice to get out of the house and meet people I don’t see every day. It’s like coming out of covid quarantine.

Picking up the Sörmlandsleden project again, after a break of more than two years. I hope it won’t take me two years until the next stage. I have been getting my life back on track after a post-covid slump, so there is hope.

I did make an attempt to get here earlier this summer, but ended up elsewhere due to complications.

Stage 18 is one of those hard-to-reach ones. The beginning is on a road, yes, but that’s about it when it comes to accessibility. There is no parking, even. There is parking at the other end, though, so I walked this stage backwards. (I’ll be walking it forward tomorrow.) Which actually worked out really well – this beautiful lake at the beginning was for me the grand finale at the end of my day, where I put up my tent for the night.

There were several more lakes along the route, almost as pretty. But also a lot of the usual pine-blueberry-mossy-rock landscape, as well as patches of deciduous forests here and there. And clearcuts, but those bring no joy, so they don’t get any photo space here.

Stage 18 is, according to the signs, also one of the very earliest stages of Sörmlandsleden, from 1973. These days it seems to be a less frequented one, possibly because of that lack of accessibility. It was well signposted and the shelters were in great shape, but some parts of the trail itself were rather overgrown.

Had it not been for the orange arrow clearly pointing the way, I’d have struggled to find the continuation of the path here. (It goes right into the greenery, at the slightly larger dark patch.)

Here’s me having a snack break, with a view over another lovely lake.

Happy 46th birthday to me! I got cake. Eric made a variation on the redcurrant cake from my childhood, this time with gooseberries.

I’ve more or less managed to learn my age, so that I know what to answer when people ask instead of calculating every time, and then they yank it away again and I have to learn a new number!

Ingrid suggested a mnemonic for this year’s number. 4 and 6 make 10, or as it’s called in Swedish, 4 and 6 are “ten buddies”. That’s easier to remember than a random number.

I finished the shawl I’ve been knitting – since January, apparently. But really it’s been mostly finished for well over a month, if not more. I just needed to add the last bit of edging, bind off, weave in the ends and block. Which, in a burst of productivity, I finally finished today. Feels good.

Sprayed and pinned to towel-covered sofa cushions for blocking. Naturally Nysse saw this as a chance to appropriate the whole thing as yet another cat bed.

The shawl is based on the Early Blossoms pattern on Ravelry. I liked the pattern. It was easy to follow, perfect as background knitting, and easy to adjust – I think I added one extra red patch and made another one slightly larger. And the result is pretty stylish.

Even with blocking, mine didn’t come out strictly triangular, which I think may have been the original intent. Perhaps I could force it into shape but I don’t want to be too forceful with the alpaca yarn. And it really won’t matter since I’m going to be draping it over my shoulders anyway.

Travelling is all fun and good but after about a week I start missing the amenities of my own home. Eric I can call and talk to, but not the house. I miss our kitchen; I miss our sofa; I miss our bathroom; I miss not having my stuff in piles and bags. And Nysse.

As usual, I’m getting started without fully knowing where I want to end up.

Detailed plans are not for me. I can’t do weekly meal plans; I don’t have daily plans for our vacation trips; I don’t have a design for the garden; I don’t draw up plans for software I write. I have a direction, and ideas about what I might like, and more detailed ideas about the first few steps, and the rest will come later when I know more. Trying to make a detailed plan usually just ends up paralysing me with anxiety.

I semi-randomly assigned colours/fabrics to the shapes I had drawn, with no more thought than making sure that I didn’t get two of the same colour next to each other. Outlined them, and started embroidering on the first one with lattice stitch.

Having made three casual summer dresses all from the same pattern, making one more with sleeves (for cold season, office use) didn’t feel difficult at all. Now I wish I’d taken a close-up photo of the fabric, though. It looks nice from this distance but the colours and the pattern are stunning up close.

I’m making progress on darning the linen kitchen towel. I can only work on it during daylight hours (which I had today, because I worked from home and it is summer so it’s full daylight still at five in the afternoon) and even then it’s a task that definitely requires glasses.

Putting on glasses is still weird. I feel like I see well without them, and then putting them on suddenly makes everything almost insanely crisp and sharp. Like a camera in HDR mode, almost unreal.