The weather was much less windy today, and we were all much less tired, so we enjoyed our skiing a lot more. We explored new lifts and pistes, but generally still stayed in the Björnen side of Åre. The upper areas were still closed due to high winds for a big part of the day, so we couldn’t ski to blue pistes on the other side of the mountain. There are shuttle buses but it didn’t seem worth the effort when the blue pistes on this side were so nice. Especially late in the afternoon when the sun came out, and the lifts and pistes emptied.

We arrived in Åre at 7 in the morning. After a breakfast at the train station, our first priority was changing clothes. We travelled in clothes suitable for Stockholm where the temperature was an unseasonally warm +5°C. Here in Åre we were met by winter, closer to what Swedish winter is supposed to be: the temperature is below freezing, it is snowing, and the wind has a real bite.

Shuttle buses took us to the Björnen area where we picked up our equipment and left our luggage. Then we were ready for the slopes.

The wind remained strong and unpleasant most of the day and the skies were gray and heavy. The lifts to the upper slopes were closed and we probably wouldn’t have wanted to be up there anyway. So we stayed in the lower slopes around Björnen.

By lunchtime the kids were already tired. The skiing was nicer in the afternoon and we got some beautiful moments of sunshine. But after last night’s short sleep we felt quite done by around 15.

It’s sportlov and we’re taking the night train to Åre for a week of skiing.

We’ve “always” travelled to the fells by car. The closest ski resorts are about 5 or 6 hours from Stockholm by car, which in practice means a whole day of driving. That’s about as much time as we/I are willing to spend just sitting locked up in a car, so this limits our options quite a bit. Åre, for example, is one of the most popular ski resorts, but is too far from Stockholm by car (for my taste).

This time we thought we’d try something different and take the train instead. We travel in a more climate-friendly way, get back that lost day – and get to try out a new resort.

On the downside, we get a very short night of sleep. The train was supposed to be ready for boarding at 23:00 and leave at 23:20. Now it’s delayed until 23:30. We’re tired and bored.

I’ve been mulling over an app idea for some months now, but not found the time or energy for it.

I’ve also had this Raspberry Pi lying around for some months now, but not found a use for it.

Now I made a start on the app, and realized that the app idea and the Raspberry Pi are a match made in heaven.

The app will be a custom Sonos controller. We use Sonos a lot to play music at home, and while the Sonos ecosystem is great at playing music, its apps for controlling the music are so-so. One feature we really miss is some kind of music recommendation service.

We have hundreds and hundreds of albums ripped from CD to a file server. Back when we listened to the CDs directly, we could walk up to the CD shelf and stumble upon music we hadn’t heard in a while. Browsing the album list in Sonos is slow and clunky, and it only shows a very small number of albums at the same time, so those serendipitous finds never happen. We simply can’t remember all the great music we have. I’m hoping to write an app that brings back those lucky stumbles, so we can listen to more of what we have.

How do I write that app, though? The Sonos system is on our local network, so I want the app to also run locally, or otherwise figure out how to reach the Sonos from some server somewhere. Local app seems hard because (a) I’ve never written any native mobile apps, and (b) I use Android while the rest of the family use iOS devices, so I’d need to do something cross-platform, and (c) distributing iOS apps, even privately, looks like an expensive and frustrating bureaucratic process.

And then suddenly I realized that if I write a web app (which I know how to do) and run it on a web server on our local network (hello Pi!), all those problems go away! Tada!

I straightened out those kinked hanks of yarn and wound them into balls again. For the n:th time. So now I’m ready for a new start. Because I still have this yarn, and I still want a green cardigan, and how else will I get from green yarn to green cardigan if not by starting knitting again? I just need to pick a new pattern.

Adrian made things with polymer clay: an infinity gauntlet, and a rainbow of tiny rosettes.

I love photographing him doing things. He goes all in and his face is so expressive. And there all these colours!

(I borrowed these photos from a recent weekend. We do not have quite this much light on weekday afternoons yet.)

Ingrid suddenly went on a smoothie making spree, with smoothies for both breakfast and an afternoon snack. Adrian realized that he can also make smoothies on his own and doesn’t have to wait for me to make one. Here they both are with a smoothie breakfast.

Adrian is reading Kalle Anka as usual. He never tires of them.

Ingrid is reading her notes for her upcoming physics test. She totally does tire of them. (Forces, levers, action and reaction, acceleration and all that.)

Remember that green cardigan that I have now started on four times, and twice gotten most of it done only to realize that it does not fit? (First attempts in 2012 to 2015, then again in January 2018 to May 2018.)

It’s been waiting for me in my cupboard, half-finished for nearly two years. But whenever I think about it I mostly feel frustrated and hopeless, so I never actually pick it up. Instead I’ve worked on various other projects.

It’s time to give up.

This pattern is not going to work for me. Either it’s not right for me as a knitter, or it’s not right for my body – which would explain how I can end up with a cardigan where some parts fit me while others are way too tight or hang loose and floppy.

Today I ripped it all up so I can reuse the yarn. Deep inside me I’ve apparently given up on this cardigan a long time ago, because I didn’t feel the least bit of loss while losing all this work. All I felt was relief.

We were in town. The way home took us to Södra station, Stockholm’s South station, with its colourful platform floors. Between each pair of pillars is a field of yellow. Between the fields of yellow the floor is made up of regular curved shapes coloured either red, green or gray.

At some point years ago we made up a game. (Probably one of the kids was tired or cranky or bored and needed entertaining.) Each player has a colour and can only step on fields of that colour. The yellow fields are “home” for everyone. The shapes are just wide enough, and the colours distributed just evenly enough, that it’s doable but slightly challenging – especially but not only for those with short legs. Sometimes, if you don’t plan ahead, you may have to back track and choose another path.

Ingrid and I have outgrown the game and Eric was never a fan but Adrian still enjoys the challenge.

I am so glad I read the newspaper this morning and that I even skimmed the pages with event listings and event ads, which I sometimes skip. Otherwise I would have missed the yearly sewing and crafts festival, and that would have been a pity.

I spent several hours just walking around and looking at things. I barely bought anything (2 metres of fancy woven ribbon and three pairs of socks) but I came home with a whole lot of inspiration and creative energy. Just like when I go to software conferences – even when I don’t learn much, I get an incredible amount of energy.

I was not very interested in the sewing side of the festival, other than as a curious observer. Sewing machine makers and resellers took up a lot of floor space. There was also an immense variety of fabric. Quilting is clearly a big thing – there were lots of vendors selling colourful fabrics in smallish pieces clearly meant for patchwork. Also lots of printed jersey fabrics, and I think the main target group there was mums sewing clothes for their young children.

Mums sew, but knitting, embroidery and other such textile crafts is clearly mostly done by ladies of an, ahem, mature age. I felt quite young there.

There were endless amounts of crafts materials of all kinds. So many lovely yarns in so many colours! But I can’t just buy something without a plan, without knowing what I will use it for. Maybe some other year I’ll go there with some actual projects in mind and have a reason to buy some.

I was more interested in all the finished projects, displayed to inspire you to buy yarn or even whole ready-made kits. I’m not interested in embroidering someone else’s design, but I can still be inspired. I’m especially happy to find ideas about what to actually do with embroidery. It’s not hard to come up with designs, the hard thing is to find something to do with them. I don’t want to make useless things that can only be hung on a wall.