I really miss my big camera. Taking daily photos with just a compact camera (even if it is a good one) is just not much fun. It doesn’t do well in low light, and it can barely focus closer than at an arm’s length. So many times now I’ve had a vague idea of a photo I want to take, and I cannot even get close. It’s like there’s an invisible wall between me and the idea, and regardless of which direction I try to approach from, I always get blocked.

Ingrid’s laptop got stolen in the burglary (along with mine, and work’s).

I replaced mine immediately so that I could work. The company wasn’t quite as fast with replacing my work laptop – or rather, Dell had delivery problems – but I finally got a replacement this week. But Ingrid has been without a computer until now.

Her old laptop was an old laptop. Her new one is not only brand new but also built for gaming, so she can play Overwatch and Fortnite and whatnot on it. In return for this upgrade she’s getting an extra chore (emptying the dishwasher) and giving up half her allowance, for the rest of the year. She was quite happy with this trade.

Adrian is sometimes less than happy about his chore of laying the table for dinner.

Another day, another trip to the ice rink. Just as we arrived, it looked like it might start to rain, but it never went beyond “a few drops of moisture in the air” so we stayed for a long while, until we got hungry.

The rink got resurfaced shortly after we came, so we got to skate on mirror blank, newly polished ice for a while.

Ingrid caught a photo of me skating as well.

Today was the first sunny day in ages, so I took the kids for a forest walk. Meanwhile Eric is away in Italy, skiing and cavorting with his colleagues.

Right next to the parking lot where we started, we ran into a playground. That was a good start: it’s been a while since we’ve been to a new playground, and this one had a bit of a climbing / adventure trail and the kids always enjoy that kind of stuff.

Then we walked through Grimsta nature reserve and picked up a few geocaches, until we came to Kanaanbadet (where we enjoyed the last Sunday of summer some months ago). I had been expecting the beach to be completely deserted on a winter day, but the beach café turned out to be open all year round, so there was a steady stream of walkers passing by.

What little ice there had been on the lake had all broken up and lots of large pieces were floating near the shore. The kids tried to fish them out and push them to the beach, but they were slippery and heavy and fragile, so it didn’t go very well.

Then we grilled sausages and walked back to the car.

Browsing travel/outdoors magazines and dreaming of snow.

I’ve just booked a ski touring holiday for April, and I’m really looking forward to it. It doesn’t look like we’re going to get any winter here in Stockholm this winter.

Sometimes on weekends we eat lunch right around those magical ten minutes, starting at about 13:35, when we have sunshine in our kitchen.

(This photo is from the weekend. I am normally not at home in the middle of a Wednesday.)

That spot on the sofa is a comfy one.