My new assignment is at the other side of town, and on a good day it takes me 50 minutes to get there. With all the train troubles recently, it’s often been over an hour. Twice a day. I’m spending up to 10 hours a week on commuting. There have been good reasons to be in the office during this first month but I really don’t want to live like this forever.

Plus it’s not even smooth and pleasant commute. The change at Stockholm City is a crowded walk through multiple corridors and up several stairs. And then we get extras like today, with “slippery tracks”. That usually means leaves or snow, neither of which can really happen in April, so I’m guessing a chemical spill of some sort.

I just liked the way it looked.

(The rip-to-open strip of a cardboard package happened to curl up in a pretty shape in the sun.)

Bought and planted some spring flowers for the porch, for the first time in several years, in yet another step to getting back to the way life used to be.

The first truly warm day this spring. Short sleeves, sandals, and lunch out in the sun. And several hours of spring cleaning in the garden.

Spring is not complete without a photo of Viburnum flowers.

This is the season when not a day goes by without me passing some part of the garden and being amazed about all the beautiful things emerging there. Truly the best time of the year.

I’ve missed the last three meetups of my embroidery club. First we were away skiing during the spring break; then I was away for a different kind of skiing on my own; then I was travelling for work. And then one meetup was cancelled due to Easter. I thought the next one would be today, but when I turned up, there was nobody there. Either I mixed up the weeks, or they shifted everything by a week instead of skipping Easter Thursday. The arranger was away on vacation so I couldn’t get in touch with anyone, either.

I had been looking forward to this for many weeks. If the embroidery club isn’t happening, I’ll make it happen. So I went home and had my own one-woman embroidery meetup in the sofa. Put on some music, poured myself a glass of glögg that we still had since Christmas, and asked not to be disturbed.

I’m working on a glasses case. It seems fitting, somehow, to embroider something for the glasses that I need for embroidery.

Commuter train schedules have been unusually erratic for the last couple of months, because of staff shortages. I don’t understand how staff shortages can come out of nowhere and stay for months, but whatever.

Now the train company has decided that trains no longer need two members of staff, and a driver can do the job without a conductors. Drivers vehemently disagree and say that it is unsafe. If anything were to happen, they would be alone with no help or support. I can understand their point of view. Imagine being involved in an accident, for example – and then, while still in shock, being solely responsible for upwards of 2000 passengers.

It’s gotten to the point where the drivers have gone on a three-day wildcat strike. Spånga is located right on a train line, but far from the tube lines – which is great most of the time, but not so much when the trains don’t run. Spånga to Sundbyberg (the next station towards the city) takes 5 minutes by train, but 25 by a zig-zaggy combination of bus and tube via either Rissne or Tensta.

I worked from home yesterday and the day before, but didn’t want to miss the tretton37 lunch today. For the way home I picked another tube + bus combo, via Brommaplan. The next 117 bus from Brommaplan to Spånga was a shortened route that stopped earlier, and instead of waiting for the next one, I walked the last kilometre and a half. It was nice.

Every spring, for about a week or two, we get ants in the house. They wake up because it’s spring, but don’t quite find enough food outside yet, so they come in to look for more. As soon as the ground comes to life with whatever they eat, they leave our kitchen alone again.

During that week or two, though, they can be quite annoying. We have to make sure to not leave any overripe fruit in the fruit bowl, and to keep the food compost inaccessible.

I’m pretty inured to the ants and just squish them when I find them and flush them down the drain. The kids both find the ants kind of disgusting, and complain a bit. And then one of them leaves half an apple on the kitchen counter, and is surprised when there are more ants the next morning. It’s like they sometimes just turn off their logical thinking abilities.

The Venus flytrap isn’t looking quite as lush and happy as last year, but it’s sending out flower stalks and making new leaves.

Just a piece of downy fluff that I saw on the garden stairs.