The Christmas lights at Spånga Torg are up. We’ve gotten new lights this year – there used to be spirals of lights around a few of the trees, but they were purple, and only wound around the largest branches. Now it’s like they’ve wound the strings around every single twig. Looks very impressive, and brightens things up very nicely. It must have been a tricky job.

I was going to grab my camera and take a proper photo for today, but there is this cat who’s been in my lap for the past hour and a half, so I can’t, and I have to make do with the phone camera. He’s so fluffy and warm that I just want to keep him exactly where he is. And there are all these little paws.

He’s been really cuddly today. He spent two hours at lunchtime in my lap, until I was starving and was forced to move him. I think maybe it’s the colder weather. During the warmer season he’d often fall asleep on me, but then move after a while – I’m guessing because he got too warm. Now warm is good.

Sunday evening. We’re listening to commentary on the Ukrainian war by Perun while I’m knitting and Eric bakes pizza for dinner. Perun comes out with a new video every Sunday, so this has become a habit for us. (Not the pizza part. But knitting is often part of it.)

Perun’s videos are the best source for commentary and analysis of the war that we have found and I’d recommend them to anyone who is interested in understanding the background of what’s happening. Most remain relevant many months after publication. Today’s video, How Lies Destroy Armies, is about the pervasive culture of lying in Russia and how it affects the army and its performance. No surprises there to anyone who grew up in the Soviet Union, but still interesting. Others I’ve particularly liked include the instalments about Russian Mobilisation and Captured Equipment in Ukraine.

My main source for more immediate updates of what’s happening on the ground is the Institute of War and their daily briefings – here is today’s briefing – with its accompanying interactive map. The briefings are based only on publicly available information from all kinds of sources, including both Russian and Ukrainian ones, rather than any one person’s or group’s speculations. I like its regularity – I can just increment the date in the URL to get the next briefing – and the structured, consistent presentation.

First birthday.

We Eric put up the bird feeder this weekend. I’ve been watching it since then. Plenty of magpies, thus far, and some blue tits and nuthatches. But they’re few, and skittish still.

I attended beginners’ class in freeform crochet today. It was less structured than the embroidery course and more just “let’s try a few things”.

I think the longer format of the embroidery course suited me better – it gave me enough time to actually get a feeling for the process, what directions it could be taken and what angles I could try. But this was also fun. I’m already getting ideas for projects.

The outcome of an evening of freeform crocheting looks much messier than the result of an evening’s embroidery.

A quarter past four, and it’s twilight already.

On the plus side, Christmas/Advent/winter lights are starting to appear in the city.

Adrian reading The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, which he got assigned from school. I have very mixed feelings about this assignment. I’m glad the topic of the Holocaust gets covered, but I remember the book being so inaccurate that I’m afraid he’ll come away with a skewed picture.

The moment I saw it in all its shiny, red glory, I knew I wanted it, and when it turned out to fit me in size and cost no more than two lunches, I bought it without any hesitation.

Afterwards I started wondering if it screams too much midlife crisis and a desperate clinging-on to youth. Next thing, I’ll be wearing a skin-tight leopard-print dress. (No.)

Then I told myself to stop worrying and just enjoy it. So that’s what I was doing today.

It’s so dark in the afternoons and evenings, now that we’re back to winter time. Takes some getting used to. Plus it’s been cloudy, so I feel like it barely gets light even in the middle of the day. And it’s only going to get darker, and it’ll be three months before it gets lighter than this. Maybe we’ll have a bright, snowy winter.

Anyway, today being a Sunday and me having no work to do, I spent all the best daylight hours embroidering.

The swirly thing on fabric that Adrian painted got a few more swirls and feels done now. Its sibling that I painted myself is still waiting for me.

The pieces of patterned fabric gave me so many ideas that I ended up making four of them. I finished both the embellished one and the one with tentacles that Adrian asked for, as you can see in the photo, and two more where I had previously started exploring other ideas.

The patterned fabric I actually came up with a project for, which I’m really pleased about. I’d much rather use the embroidery than put it away in storage. I’ll let them rest for a week or two, then see if I want to add anything more, and if not, start assembling them into a fabric box.