(Borrowed from Saturday.)

As if I did not have enough on my plate yet, I’ve volunteered to act as “kitchen mentor” for Spånga scout group.

The scout group arranges camps and hikes every year, some of them quite large-scale. I know from my own experience that managing the kitchen for one of those camps is a major undertaking. That task would be easier if each kitchen manager could build upon the experience gained from previous years, but for some reason that kind of learning hasn’t really been happening. So I’ve started working to get this process organized and streamlined. Browsing through existing documents, organizing and updating and collating and adding.

It’s not all about documentation though. Together with a few other “supporting members” of the scout group, I spent Saturday morning inventorying the camp kitchen equipment, counting pots and pans, matching them up with their lids, and then re-packing it all like a jigsaw puzzle. Or maybe more like the traffic block puzzle, the one with oblong blocks you can slide back and forth, that block each other and block the exit.

Ingrid at her desk.

The extended family celebrated Adrian’s and Ingrid’s combined birthdays. Plenty of cake was eaten, presents were opened, and cousins of all ages (3 to 18) had fun together. Well, the 18-year-old mostly had fun with the adults. Adrian bridged the age gap, playing wild card games with the older kids, and Legos with the younger ones.

I’ve had a bad cold for about a week, dragging myself to work in the mornings. But now I’m well enough to cycle again.

October has been warm thus far. Today was the first morning with frost on the lawn, and the cycling was a bit chilly.

Ingrid is preparing for a major history test, covering the era of the Swedish Empire. She is constructing a timeline across four A4 sheets of paper, with drawings symbolizing major events – births and crownings and deaths and wars and peace treaties and such.

I pimped my locker at work with an embroidered name tag. It’s not very “digital” in style but it definitely embodies craftsmanship.

There are some things that the eye can appreciate but a photo cannot do justice to.

My eye can see the whole and the part at the same time. I can see the carpet of cherry leaves and, at the same time, the brightest, reddest leaves in that carpet.

The camera cannot do that. I can take a photo of an individual leaf, but it looks kind of puny because the carpet is missing. Or I can take a photo of the carpet, but it looks kind of bland because of all the grass and the dry brown leaves that the eye sort of just skips.

Adrian saw me holding my camera and wanted me to take a photo of his thumb.

His thumb is the mist in the middle of the photo.

When he wants to show me some small thing, he does the same – puts it in my face, so close that I cannot even focus on it.

I’d signed up for an early morning nature photo workshop. Unfortunately I have a bad cold so my energy levels were low and my inspiration likewise, so I didn’t come home with anything photographically exciting. But it was a nice way to spend a morning.

I’ve been to these photo mornings a few times before, and by now I more or less know what the teacher will say. I’m not paying for the teaching – I’m paying for someone to scout out a nice location, figure out the timing, give me a nudge to go there before the sun is up, and then serve me breakfast.