My aronias go ombre when they change colour: from light orange at the bottom, through dark orange, red, and finally near-black.

Maples have the prettiest leaves.

When it comes to indoor plants, I’m an indifferent and ignorant gardener. Out in the garden, I know all the species and varieties that I have, and that I don’t have but could have. Indoors, there’s various green things, and I only know the names of some of them. I re-pot them way less often than they deserve, and I’m only diligent about watering the most sensitive ones. The rest all get watered on the same schedule, when Eric thinks its time – no individual attention there.

Therefore it’s a pleasant surprise when some of the plants look like they really thrive.

The soles on my favourite comfy shoes are nearly worn through and they will soon be consigned to the trash can. Time to buy new ones. For the umpteenth time I wish fashion did not exist and I could just buy another pair of the exact same shoes that I have. Or that sneakers were more repairable.

As seldom as I go shoe shopping, I keep forgetting that my feet have gotten larger. I still think of my feet as size 38, even though the last few pairs of shoes I’ve bought have all been larger, and then I’m surprised when the shoes I ordered are too small.

This is my little green corner in the office. The plants in the big pots are company plants, the small bonsai tree belongs to the colleague who sits opposite me, and I take care of the two small ones.

I rescued the two small black flowerpots from our old office, when everything left behind was going to get thrown out. One of them had an aloe plant in it, near death. I had hoped to bring it back to life but it died during the summer holidays. So I started over with two baby plants: a cutting from a jade tree we have at home, and the smallest plant I could find at the garden centre. They may have arrived a couple of months after us, but to me they are symbolic of moving in here.

Behind the plants is the air vent. It’s much smaller and less green than the plants, but at least as noticeable. There is almost always chilly air coming out of it. We complain occasionally, the landlord sends a guy who checks and says all measurements are good, and we continue to shiver.

Adrian’s homework each week is to read a chapter in their book, and answer a few questions in writing. The reading goes quickly and easily; the writing takes time.

Eric wants to make sloe cordial, and possibly also sloe gin and/or sloe wine, so we went picking. (The sloes are there and there’s plenty of them this year, so they are simply crying out to be used for something.)

Adrian gathered sticks, dragged them around, and used them to crush sloes. And shot sloes at me with his slingshot.

I learned that sloe bushes come in several varieties – I noticed at least two distinct ones. One had larger, more oblong berries, and larger, greener leaves. The other had more thorns; smaller, flatter berries, more like blueberries in shape; and its leaves were smaller and had already turned red.

Ingrid on her way to a scout hike.

She moved up to the next age group as of this autumn. Bigger scouts have bigger hikes. Ingrid’s previous hikes have involved maybe a few kilometres of trekking, and staying in a hut of some sort. This time the scouts will be sleeping under tarps – that they will be carrying, along with food and stoves and water. Her new pack that we bought for this hike (the old one was hopelessly undersized) is almost as large as mine! The kids will be out for two nights instead of one. And they will be spending most of the day between those nights walking. I foresee picking up a very tired girl on Sunday.

Some marketing association has named 4th of October “cinnamon bun day”. Cinnamon buns are ok (except for Swedish store-bought buns which are always covered in large amounts of pearl sugar which I find nearly inedible). Poppy seed buns are much better, though. Ours are an Estonian family tradition – they’re a cross between cinnamon buns and the long poppy seed rolls that are traditional across all of Eastern Europe.