Minecraft is perhaps not the most exciting game, but it’s one that both Ingrid and Adrian keep returning to. In reality it’s a social platform more than a game. It’s not the gameplay that attracts them. The game is just something to do while they talk to their friends. Like in previous generations people would meet over a game of bridge, or pool. But corona-friendly.

The back is definitely mending fast. I didn’t dare do a proper workout today but went for a walk instead. After half an hour I was actually moving pretty vigorously. I’m very relieved.

Adrian and Eric made swirl buns of various kinds: cinnamon, poppy seed, chocolate and orange peel. I like buns and all kinds of other cakes but the desire to eat them rarely grows strong enough to make me bake. I don’t even know why. It’s not that I dislike baking, or find it difficult. I just… don’t do it. How nice it is to have family that does.

While I’m sitting at my desk I wear layers, woollen cardigans, shawls. When I’m working out in the exact same room, five steps from the desk, I am sweating through just a single skimpy layer. I had to buy shorter tights because full-length ones were too hot. It is amazing how much waste heat the body can generate from even moderate exercise.

Another thing that is near-permanently stationed next to my desk is my stack of shawls. This time of the year, especially in the morning, in this old and badly insulated house of ours, my “office” can be chilly.

I’m also rather picky about my body temperature. I don’t like being even slightly too warm, no more than I like being slightly too cold. I’m often buttoning and unbuttoning my cardigans, adding a shawl, opening up the shawl, etc. Other people don’t seem to be so bothered, I think – I don’t see others (at work or at home) fiddling so much with their clothes. Or perhaps their bodies are better at regulating their temperatures.

The flexibility that a shawl offers is unequalled by other garments. It’s so easy to shift the ends a little bit wider to let more body heat out, or wrap it more tightly around my shoulders to keep me warmer.

The white one I knitted myself in a lovely silk and merino yarn in about 2002 or 2003. I remember working on it in our first apartment in London. The orange one I bought somewhere, probably London as well. The black and white and pink one has a design of large rose or peonies or something. I got as a Christmas gift from my mum.

The best thing about them is that they’re all so luxuriously soft. I feel positively spoiled when I wear them. The next best thing is that they are so different. Whatever I’m wearing, one of these will look nice together with it.

Women don’t use shawls so much these days, other than perhaps decoratively draping one over a ball gown. But in old photos you often see women wearing a shawl or a wrap as an outer layer, especially in wool-producing countries, ranging from Ireland to Ecuador and Nepal. A coat is more practical, so I can understand why this tradition is dying out. But there is a special cosiness about wrapping myself in a shawl that a cardigan or jacket can’t achieve, no matter how soft the material.

My knitting basket is near-permanently stationed at my desk during working days. Long remote meetings become so much more bearable when I can keep my hands busy.

I wonder what my colleagues think of it. It hasn’t come up in our discussions yet. The knitting is mostly out of view for the camera, but not always. And I’m sure they notice that I’m not looking towards my screen and camera. Then again, it’s not rare for people to have their camera somewhere off to one side, so those folks are never facing the camera, so perhaps my doings don’t look as odd as I imagine.

Outside there’s a thick blanket of snow on the ground and it’s still –10°C, and I’m glad we got a proper winter this year after all. But every day is lighter than the one before, and one of the cyclamens in the kitchen is putting forth buds, and it really makes me think of spring.

Ingrid came home today with a chart of her height and weight development, from the school nurse. The girl who used to be shortest in her class, always at least one standard deviation below the average for her age, has now caught up with her peers and hit the average line. 163.5 cm and counting.

The points on that curve are sparse so it’s hard to say anything about the slope, but since she’s grown 10 cm in each of the last two years (according to my home measurements) she’s likely not done growing yet.

I’ve always expected this to happen, and always told her so. I was a late grower myself. Always among the shortest in my class. The militarily inspired gym classes in Soviet Estonia did their best to rub it in by lining kids up at the beginning of each lesson, first by gender, then by height. I caught up later than Ingrid, some time in high school I think.

Ingrid was never too worried, I think, but still very conscious about her height, or rather the lack of it. Now she is very conscious and very pleased to be as tall as she is. She often shows off how she can touch the door lintels – without even being on her toes! – and how she is almost as tall as me.

I wonder what it is that makes us not want to go to bed at night, when sleeping is actually a rather pleasant and comfortable activity.

I stay up too late way too often – reading, mostly – and when I finally go to bed I wonder why I didn’t do it earlier.

Adrian does the same. He knows he needs to shower but he puts it off, and then he wants a last late snack, and then he stays up reading Kalle Anka some more, and by the time he finally gets to bed it’s later than he wanted it to be.

A beautiful, snowy walk on Järvafältet around Säby.

We saw quite extensive ski tracks on the fields. I didn’t know there were prepared tracks here. Tempting. I wonder if my back country skis would fit in the tracks.