Apfelstrudel, strawberry macarons, brownies, and lemon poppyseed muffins, plus cheese and crackers for those who want something other than sugar and carbs. There were several last-minute drop-outs so we ended up fewer than planned, which I thought would lead to plenty of leftovers, but the cakes were good and the guests hungry, so there wasn’t that much left afterwards.

Lemon poppyseed muffins for the family get-together tomorrow.

We’ve got a whole bunch of relatives, especially on Eric’s side, so there will need to be more than one cake. Once we started talking about it, every one of us had (very different) ideas about what to make, so we all ended up baking something.

Adrian and Eric will make theirs tomorrow, but to avoid stressing about oven times and who gets to use the oven when, I made my muffins today already, and Ingrid also will bake her macarons tonight.

Exploring chain stitch and its variations at the Thursday embroidery club. It’s more versatile than I had known.

I wanted to buy a particular kind of jewellery and thought that maybe I’d find something in an antiques shop. I trawled through almost ten of them around Odenplan, and still didn’t find anything I really liked.

I don’t visit antiques shops much at all, so I wasn’t expecting them to be as specialized as they were. Two only had furniture, more or less; one focused on lamps; one on ceramics and porcelain; one on jewellery. (That one also didn’t have anything in the style I had in mind.) And this one shop was full of metres and metres of glassware. Pretty amazing sight.

It’s a beautiful autumn day, and I had a great day at the Sortera office with my colleagues, and we had a great lunch at a new restaurant nearby.

It’s so nice to see Nysse back in his old groove. Out and free when he wants to be out; sleeping next to me on the sofa when he wants that.

He’s notably wary of cars, now, especially ones with low, rumbly engine noises. But he isn’t afraid to go out.

We bought season tickets for another concert series of chamber music at Konserthuset. Best part: as repeat customers, we got the option to keep the same seats, which are excellent. Front row, just left of center, gives us the best view and best sound.

Last year’s series was very much a mixed bag. Some I found boring; some were delightful. Today’s piano trio by Elfrida Andrée and piano quartet by Gabriel Fauré were both in the “too many notes” category for my taste.

Knowabunga day 2, hanging around Smådalarö with colleagues. We actually found a gap or two where we could reach the sea. Very windy.

It’s Knowabunga time – the tretton37 annual internal conference. A bit more superficial compared to past events, which wasn’t entirely surprising, given all the reorganization that has been going on this year.

After the knowledge part I went for an evening walk. We’re out in the archipelago so I was hoping for sea views but it was all built up, with private properties all along the coastline.

Getting out of the supermarket today, it struck me how gray the parking lot was. There was a single car that was not white/gray/black, out of twenty-odd cars in total.

Even red cars are gone. A few years ago I remember thinking that all cars were either white/gray/black or bright red, and now the colour range is even narrower.

It’s the same with clothes. It feels like everyone is wearing either black or gray, or a combination of these. And jeans, of course.

I read an article recently that analysed a set of photos of historical objects, and made the same observation. Gray is taking up more and more space.