At the opera with Eric.

We’re holding a gathering for our extended families on Sunday, with the kids’ birthdays as an excuse. (Normally we’ve tried to squeeze it in between the two birthdays, but this year due to lack of planning it’s happening in November instead.)

Adrian wanted a brownie or a chocolate cake of some sort. I suggested an apple cake. Ingrid is craving a blueberry cheesecake. Eric has his hands full baking them all.

The poncho is generally progressing well. I’ve done the green part, and the gradient from green to blue, and then some plain blue. Now it’s time to start the snowflakes, white on blue.

I took the metro to Odenplan to get my hair cut.

I’ve been going to the same hairdresser for many years, back since I worked at ReQtest and we shared offices with Konsultbolag1 in Norrtullsgatan. Since then I’ve been with ReQtest at three different locations that I can remember (Nybrogatan, St. Eriksgatan, Fridhemsgatan) and with tretton37 at two locations (Kungsgatan, and Kungsgatan again).

Afterwards, as I walked onto the metro platform, I continued out of habit to the stairs down to the commuter train station and nearly got on the train that would take me home. That’s what I normally do when I walk past that spot at around that time in the afternoon, after all. The power of habit is strong.

Ingrid is catching up with her sentence-a-day diary.

As Ingrid turned thirteen, she became eligible for a whole bunch of new banking services. Today we all went to the bank and arranged for her to get access to Handelsbanken’s banking app, Swish (for instant money transfers) and a MasterCard. All of which she was very excited about.

When she tried out Swish, she immediately zoomed in on the social features of the app. Her first payment to me – just to try it out – came with a card attached, and animated effects. I’ve used the app for years and never even noticed that those features existed. How differently we approach these things!

Another pair of patches on another pair of trousers. These I’ve mended before but Adrian keeps wearing out the knees. Apparently they’re really comfortable, I had to confiscate them and promise Adrian he’d get them back the same day before he let me have them.

Polar fleece is the ultimate fabric for patching children’s clothes. Soft, stretchy, comes in a multitude of colours and doesn’t fray at the edges.

We went to a theatre performance in the afternoon – a modern version of Hansel and Gretel at Orionteatern. (Some fun touches but too much over-dramatized acting, not my style.)

Since we were going to town anyway, we left earlier so we could fit in a visit to the Science Fiction Bookshop. It’s conveniently on the way, close to the Gamla Stan metro station. Adrian wanted to look for books about drawing science fiction monsters; Ingrid wanted more manga; I always need more fantasy and sci-fi books.

After shopping we had lunch at Vapiano. It’s my go-to place for family lunches in the old town but they don’t seem to ever change their menu so even though I eat there just a few times every year, I’m beginning to get bored with it.

I was aiming for “the scream” but it came out more like an “aww”.

Favourite position in favourite corner of the sofa, with favourite oversized sweater and favourite reading matter.