Jan Lundgren and Hans Backenroth at Konserthuset, playing tunes from Jan Johansson’s Jazz på svenska. Absolutely wonderful. Music that I know and love, expert musicians enjoying themselves together, and me in a front row seat. It doesn’t get more perfect than this.

It’s thawing outside and all the streets are like fields of ice, pitted and wet and treacherous.

The fight that Nysse had last week left him with a jagged wound in his right ear. Those ears are like a record of his battles. The tips of both are a bit ragged, one is split at the end, but this is the largest wound yet. I’ve been a bit worried – he hasn’t quite had the same appetite and energy as he usually does. The wound doesn’t look infected, and he doesn’t have a fever, and he is still eating and going out, so hopefully he just feels a bit off. My pet insurance company offers free online consultations with a vet, and they confirmed that all seems OK, so I guess I’ll just keep him under close observation.

I wish he could just stop fighting – but if the neighbours’ cat is trying to claim that our yard is now part of his territory, I can understand that Nysse won’t accept that.

The knitting club has started up again after a break for Christmas and New Year. The Wednesday afternoon sessions are messy in the best sense. It’s crowded, there is barely any place to put your bag down, there are multiple conversations going on at the same time, and I know the names of maybe one fifth of the people. There’s no common project or theme like we sometimes have at the embroidery club – everyone just does their thing. Which is absolutely wonderful – I can be inspired by so many different ongoing projects. Today someone was wearing a cardigan based on a pattern that I’ve been thinking about knitting, and I could talk to them about it. Someone else turned out to have Estonian heritage and was knitting with a handspun yarn from Haapsalu. Another person had made felted slippers with the same yarn that I used for mine, but gotten them more felted than I managed, so we talked about what we did differently.

All past photos are up now and regular posting will resume tomorrow.

Meanwhile the laptop I got and returned has reached a workshop, the problem has been confirmed, and they’re now preparing a new one for me. This is taking forever.

Wall art at the southbound red line platform at the T-centralen station.

The suggested common theme for our embroidery group this term is “art in the Stockholm underground”, or maybe it morphed into the slightly broader “the Stockholm underground, but no train network maps, and no actual trains”.

With my and Ingrid’s upcoming trip I will miss the next two sessions, and I’m not yet done with last term’s project (which grew from one piece into a triptych because I enjoyed what I was doing). Maybe I’ll have to give this a miss.

Plenty of snow has brought plenty of birds to the feeder. This year it’s mostly blackbirds, with only occasional visits from others.

Blackbirds are not good at sharing. The main feeder is a four-sided construction, and there’s easily room for four large birds. Do they use it that way? No. Usually I see at most two birds eating, with a whole bunch hanging around and waiting for their turn: some on the feeder stand, others on the clothes drying rack, even more in the trees nearby. They don’t even wait nicely – instead they interrupt each other and chase each other away.

The photo backlog is growing to a scary size and I still don’t have a computer. Drastic measures are needed. I’ve given in and installed Lightroom on my work laptop, hoping that nobody will care in the (hopefully) short time that it will be there. I’ve got weeks and weeks of posting to catch up with. Doing it the usual, thorough way would take way too long so I’ll just throw them up without commentary and maybe fill that in someday later. Better than nothing.

Doing the rest of 2025 today and following with what’s passed of 2026 shortly. You’ll have to scroll down past the non-photo points to view them all, or go to the daily photos category.

As the title says, I finished the skirt. I now have a warm, sturdy, colourful, pocket-equipped skirt.

This is kind of what I had in mind for the skirt that I gave up on – an irregular composition of semi-random pieces of fabric. I intentionally let the shape of the fabric pieces guide the design, rather than drawing something and then trying to make the pieces fit.

While at least two of the fabrics had a clear front and reverse side, I decided to ignore that. If the piece fit and the grain was right, then I used it regardless of which way it was facing.

This way I could make the whole skirt with very little waste. I have several larger pieces left over that could become something (throw pillows?) as well as smaller scraps for decoration, patching or applique.

Ironing is one of those household tasks that would be awful if I had to do it all the time, but that can be rather relaxing and enjoyable in small amounts, especially when accompanies by good music or an interesting podcast.