I rarely take off my rings, but I do do so when I work out. I once damaged one of them when working in the garden, carrying rocks I imagine. Since then I take care when lifting or carrying hard, heavy things, such as rocks. Or kettlebells.

My workout discipline is still so-so. I don’t push myself nearly as hard when I am doing it alone. I will be badly out of shape by the time this social distancing ends. But something is better than nothing.

Half of stage 14 and most of stage 13. From lake Glådran to lake Stora Envättern, 15 km.

I woke up shortly after six. I’m never hungry early in the morning, so I postponed breakfast and instead just packed up and started walking. Breakfast tastes much better when I am properly hungry. I stopped for a porridge breakfast around eight.

The Sörmlandsleden trail has been split into stages based on some kind of logic, but that logic is not always very obvious to me. Sometimes a stage ends (and the next one begins) by a road, which makes sense if you want the starting points to be easily accessible; other times it seems to be a random point in the middle of nowhere. The stages are not much use for planning an overnight hike: shelters and other suitable campsites are rarely near the end of a stage.

Instead I planned my days around lakes. Lakes are nice to look at, of course, but more importantly, they have water – which is most useful for doing the dishes and for cooking. This part of Sörmland is dotted with small lakes, so with a little bit of planning, it wasn’t hard to end each day near one of them.


For drinking water there are freshwater springs, well marked on the maps and clearly signposted. Unfortunately, all of the springs I passed today were dry, or nearly so, with just a muddy puddle at the bottom. I had filled up my water bottles at a spring yesterday, but when that water ran out today, I had to switch to lake water.

Most hikers agree that water in mountain brooks is safe to drink. Opinions about the potability of lake water in Sörmland vary. Some say you should boil or purify it; others say it’s OK to drink without treatment. I look at these lakes and see them all surrounded only by wild, clean nature – untouched by industry, agriculture, beaches or summer cottages… so I just went ahead and drank the water as is. A little bit of fish poop won’t kill me. The water had a slightly metallic taste, but didn’t cause any problems.


The hiking today was much like yesterday’s. Up and down rocky hills, through pine and spruce forest. Wonderfully wild and peaceful.

On top one of the hills there was a viewing tower, built by a local orienteering club back in 1969. It had a cute little money box for donations, dating back to the same era. The vintage sign exhorting visitors to donate to the tower’s upkeep was now accompanied by a much more modern sign with a Swish number. I didn’t climb the tower – I’m sure I would just have seen more of the same forests and lakes I’ve seen already – but donated anyway, because I liked the look of the sign so much.

The path down from the viewing tower passed through wonderfully rich lingonberry fields. After eating bilberries off and on all day yesterday, I was getting heartily tired of them and was more than happy to switch to lingonberries and the occasional bog bilberries.

If I went out to pick berries, I’d probably want the berry bushes to be on flat ground, but when I’m hiking, I like them best on uphill stretches of the path. That way I don’t have to bend all the way down to reach them (because bending with a rucksack can be awkward) and can just scoop them up without really stopping.

By now I’ve gotten properly into a hiking mood. My thoughts drift. Sometimes I notice the trees and bushes and rocks and roots around me. Sometimes I just walk without really noticing or thinking about anything in particular. Time passes, and I can’t say how much of it has passed.

I take a lot of breaks. After snack breaks, I sit and read for a while, instead of hurrying onwards. I started early and I don’t want to stop until around dinnertime, because once I’ve stopped and set up camp, there won’t be much to do. I’d rather spread my walking over a large part of the day than have a long empty evening.

There were several camping spots around Lake Envättern, so I could find one without any other campers and more or less pretend that I was out there alone.

Just as I had finished cooking dinner, it started raining. I’d gotten hit earlier in the day by a very sudden rain shower – it took just a couple of minutes to go from tentative drops to pouring rain, and I had to really scramble to get my rucksack covered and my rain clothes on. This time I knew what to expect, which helped a little bit, but I still only had a few minutes to get all my things into the tiny tent. It was a total jumble in there.

The tent fabric seems so incredibly flimsy that it’s hard to imagine it withstanding any kind of weather, but it kept me nice and dry.

Wildlife today: one heron flying above a lake. One vole, larger than a mouse but smaller than a rat, that ran across the path. Splashing noises from fish in the lakes. Bumblebees and grasshoppers. Thrushes and various unidentified tweeting birds.

Stages 15:1, half of 15 and half of 14. From Läggesta to lake Glådran, 17 km.

The connecting trail from Läggesta conveniently starts right in front of the train station. The first kilometre of the trail unfortunately goes right alongside a noisy main road, but soon after the trail turns off onto a smaller road, and then from that onto a lane. Quite soon I was on a pleasant shaded path, leaving civilization behind.



After that my surroundings were the usual mixture of Sörmland nature. Rocky pine forest with white mosses and heather; spruce forest with green mosses and ferns and bracken; mixed forest with spruce, birch and aspen. And bilberry bushes everywhere, with tons and tons of bilberries.

I’d walked half of stage 15 in 2017 and had most of the other half ahead of me today – but I realized now that there would be a gap between the two parts. I don’t know if I ever will walk all of Sörmlandsleden, but I want to keep that possibility open, so a gap here would leave a real itch behind.

I hid my pack behind a rock (not because I worried about thieves, but because I thought other hikers might worry if they found an abandoned rucksack) and just walked that missing bit back and forth, so I could check it off my list.

I felt like a gazelle walking without a rucksack. So fast, so easy!

The contrast was extra strong when I picked up my pack again, because the path went steeply uphill from there, up to a high cliff with views over the whole area, with all its forests and lakes.

Today was an excellent day for walking. Warm and summery still, but mostly cloudy, so it didn’t get too hot. And because it’s a Friday, there were very few other people on the trail.

I like hiking on my own, and having the forest to myself. I love the peace and quiet. Hearing nothing but the wind, the creak of my rucksack, the occasional bird call and the buzzing of bumblebees.

The first day of a hike, it usually takes me a while to get into the groove. I tend to worry about whether I’m walking fast enough to get to my planned destination by the end of the day. Mentally I’m partly still in my everyday life, with plans and times to keep. It takes time to let go of all of that, and some conscious effort. I forced myself to not think too much about the time, to take breaks, to be present in the here and now.

Macro photography always helps me relax. I tried to capture the bumblebees in the heather, but it was hard, because they never stayed still! The heather flowers are so tiny that a bumblebee empties one in the blink of an eye and is always moving on to the next flower.



I stopped for the night at a nice little camping site next to lake Glådran. The site was very small, but unexpectedly luxurious. Not only did it have a fireplace and a picnic table, and a flat area for putting up a tent: there was also a bucket for water, and even a rake for clearing the ground of the inevitable pine cones.

It rained most of the day yesterday, and part of today, too, but in between we had a half day of warm sunshine. Eric and I cycled to Gåseborg to do some advance scouting for a scout hike. Here we stopped on the way back to eat some late-season bilberries.

The evenings are getting darker and the days grayer. It feels like we’re on a downward trajectory now, and I have to grab hold of each beautiful moment that I get.

I had an hour of free time between finishing work and the start of a recruitment interview. I was going to just read, but fell asleep instead. And my throat feels scratchy. I guess I’ve caught some virus.

It’s disconcerting, to have to think about deathly pandemics and all sorts of potential long-term health damage for every little cough and sniffle.

Restless yet not at all in the mood for working out, I went out and cycled during my lunch break instead. I had some minor errands on my list that I thought I could get done.

To Sundbyberg where I can buy fabric for a bag I want to sew? Or to Vällingby, where there is a variety of shops for my other errands?

I aimed for Vällingby, mentally complaining about the frustrating lack of fabric shops nearby. There is only the one in Sundbyberg, unless I want to go all the way to central Stockholm.

And then I realized – there is a Stadsmissionen thrift shop in Vällingby, which can totally count as a fabric shop, and even be better than the real thing. Every thrift shop in Stockholm has piles of curtains, pillowcases and tablecloths. More eco-friendly than buying new fabric, and a more varied choice, too. The tablecloth I bought is 100% linen, thick and soft – a much more luxurious fabric than I would otherwise have bought for this.

I can feel a twinge of reluctance to cut up a perfectly functional tablecloth. Maybe someone would have bought and used it as a tablecloth? But then again, I’m pretty sure that Stadsmissionen can’t sell all the donations they get and some of it ends up recycled. So if I cut up that tablecloth to make it into a bag, it’s still getting a good new life.

Last week, my first week back at work after vacation, was dull and slow. Half the team was still on vacation, and one of the two other developers was off sick, so I felt alone and isolated. I had to make a real effort to keep myself focused on work.

This week has been better. The team is back, we’re working together, talking to each other again.

And having meetings.

Remote meetings work very well when they’re small and tightly focused. But when we are six people in a meeting then inevitably some parts are more relevant to a part of the group and less so for others. In a face-to-face meeting, when others are talking about something that I am only peripherally involved in, I don’t lose focus much: I feel like I’m a part of the discussion just by being in the same room and looking at whoever is talking. But in a remote meeting, especially if I’m looking at a screen share rather than whoever is talking, my focus starts slipping and before long I am quite distracted, looking at code or browsing reddit or reading the news.

Giving myself something to do when I am passively listening helps a lot. A small distraction keeps worse distraction away. Crocheting works, and colouring. I keep my colouring books and pencils close at hand, in my desk drawer.

My second day back at work.

I realize now that I need to start thinking about lunches in advance again. During the summer someone has usually just ambled off to the supermarket when lunchtime approaches, and cooked something. But if I want to get a reasonable amount of work done during the day, I can’t take time for that every single day.

Today I fortunately found some odds and ends in the fridge. One half Mexican-inspired sweetcorn soup and one half Asian-inspired noodle soup plus a handful of roast cauliflower actually made a surprisingly good combination.

The workday was dull, both yesterday and today. The people on the business side of the team are still on vacation and one of the developers has been off sick so it felt rather lonely. And there is nothing interesting ahead of me in the backlog, only boring tasks. I had real trouble focusing and finding the energy to get anything done.

Vacation is over and I am back at work in my home office. And working on re-establishing a healthy, sustainable everyday routine.

Eric recently saw a kettlebell at a sports store! We seem to be past the worst of the quarantine shortage of weights. There was exactly one kettlebell in the whole store, and at 24 kg, it just happened to be the perfect weight for me. I’m not going to build up a whole home gym (no room for it) and I intend to make do with just the one weight for the foreseeable future. 24 kg is usable for squats and lifts as well as swings. I’m glad this one and only kettlebell was green and not pink, for example.

In this fine weather, I do my workout out on the grass. The grass feels nice, warm, firm without being hard like a floor, and wonderfully grippy for bare feet. I’ve always done my workouts barefoot and while bare feet are nicer than shoes in almost all ways, it can be harder to get a good grip on smooth gym floors for things like side plank variations. The slightly bumpy ground here in the garden is perfect.

On the flip side, grass is itchy to lie on with a bare neck and shoulders, or when I get my face too close to it. But this view during my hip lifts is pretty darn nice.

Hot day today, 28°C in the shade. It’s not hot enough to make me feel like I’m being baked; I just feel sluggish and dull.

With careful timing I got the plants into the ground in the new flowerbed. There is a short while in the late morning when nearly all of that area is covered by the shadow of the house.

After that I mostly stayed indoors. Trying to find something useful and productive to do, I went through some of the boxes of books from the basement. Bookshelf space is limited, so some books by necessity stay in the basement. But I realized that if I don’t pack up at least some of the Estonian books, I will never read them again. Accessibility matters.

I culled the contents of these boxes ruthlessly. That fourteen-volume set with the collected works of Tolstoy? Some of it I am very sure I’m never going to read (there are too many other books in the world) so I’m keeping volumes 4 to 10 and throwing out the rest without pity. Tammsaare, “Tõde ja õigus” – a great and famous work but not my cup of tea and I cannot imagine any scenario where this would be my first choice of reading material. The memoirs of Oskar Luts – I read the first volume with memories from his childhood several times when I was a child, but didn’t find the rest interesting. Keeping that first volume, mostly out of nostalgia, and not wasting shelf space on the rest.

It does feel wrong to be throwing books away. Anything that has a chance of being useful to someone else, I make sure to donate. The boxes of culled Estonian children’s books I’ll try to give away to the Estonian school in Stockholm. The adult books… it’s possible though unlikely that some used book store in Estonia might want them. (I am pretty sure that newer editions exist and anyone who wants to read them will have no problem of getting hold of them.) The effort of packing, storing, and transporting these books for that slim chance is not worth it.

And it definitely feels odd to save half of a fourteen-volume set only. But my library is not a museum or an archive. It exists for my reading pleasure, and to some small extent for triggering fond memories, not for storing books out of a sense of duty only.