The website that had a recipe for “the ultimate lussebullar” also had one for “the ultimate Christmas wort bread”. The former was so great that I didn’t even go looking for an alternative recipe, just went straight for this one when I found it.

Baking any kind of bread in this cold house takes a lot longer than what the recipes say. I now turn on the radiator in the kitchen, even when I’m not cold myself, so that I can set the bread dough to rise next to it. Otherwise it takes forever and I’m not even sure that the dough will actually rise fully.

The result was absolutely delicious – just as dark and moist and fluffy and flavourful as a good wort bread should be.

Christmas party! As one of the newly-joined employees this year, I was roped into the party committee. Which really didn’t involve much more than a brainstorming session for finding a theme. After that, our new office assistant took over, because it turned out that organizing a party is one of her favourite activities, and she wasn’t very interested in offloading any tasks to the rest of us. Until this afternoon, when I got to hang up balloons and other decorations.

It didn’t look like much in strong lamplight but felt quite festive with added disco lighting.

And here’s my alien costume! There were a few more aliens in the party crowd, and three Edgar the Bugs.

Active Solution has a tradition of themed Christmas parties, and this year’s theme is Men In Black, like in the movie. I expect the vast majority to turn up as agents in black suits and sunglasses, but it’s a lot more fun to be an alien.

I made an alien costume for Ingrid for Halloween, oh, maybe ten years ago? I can’t remember which one of us came up with the idea of a four-armed alien, but it was an awesome one, so I’m reusing it. Apparently I took no photos of it at the time, or at least none that ended up on the blog.

Two simple long-sleeved tops that (almost) match in colour and material, and a pair of gloves. Stuff it all and attach the one to the other, and when you wear it, bam, four-armed alien. Pieces of elastic at the wrists looselyl attach the fake arms to my real ones, so when I move mine, the extra two also move.

This time I think I’ve managed to do it with almost zero waste. Both tops are from Skyddsvärnet second hand, and the bottom one has a buttoned neckline so it fits around my waist without any cutting. I’m attaching them to each other with safety pins, which will make fewer holes than machine sewing would.

The sleeves are stuffed with rolled-up wool felt that I had in the basement; the gloves are my mitten liners; the stuffing inside them is a few sheets of newspaper and some squares of kitchen towels for the fingers. I hope to be able to dismantle it all when I’m done, donate the tops back to Skyddsvärnet, and put the gloves back in the glove box.

What I haven’t managed so well is getting it done in time. I bought the tops two weekends ago, and had the arms all done this weekend. I totally forgot to take into account all the evening activities this week – two concerts and a major after-hours release at work – so here I am, putting in safety pins a half-hour to midnight. I’m sure the lighting at the party will hide all shortcuts and mistakes.

Halfway through the autumn term, Adrian was coaxed into playing with an orchestra attached to the music school. A quarter of the way through, he was frustrated and close to giving up: with a late start and lots of tricky pieces to learn, he felt like he wasn’t going to be able to learn it all by the end of the term. Plus it took quite a lot of time and led to rather late evenings. He was their only percussionist, though, and they convinced him to stay on at least until the end of the term.

Today they had their end-of-term concert and all that hard work paid off.

I came there expecting something rather like the previous concert. I don’t even know why: I already knew that this was going to be an orchestra and not just a few kids with drums and some backing from a recorded track. And that it was at St. Birgitta Church rather than the school’s somewhat scruffy rooms.

This concert was on a whole other level – very impressive. There were two orchestras in one – a smaller ensemble that then got subsumed into a larger one. The larger version was basically a full chamber orchestra: violins, cellos, double basses, a whole row of woodwinds and brass, a piano – and percussion, of course.

The repertoire ranged from Jingle Bell Rock and Sleigh Ride to the March of the Toreadors from Carmen. Adrian was joined by one of his teachers and they both had a lot to keep up with. Complicated music to play and a lot of switching between instruments. And I totally understand why they were so keen to keep him: percussion was essential to most of the pieces. Adrian did an excellent job, and now he’s even considering continuing with the orchestra in the spring.

For some reason they don’t place the percussion section at the front and centre of the orchestra. I could get a glimpse of Adrian at times, but mostly not. I rather suspected that this would happen, and got a photo in when they were still warming up. Adrian is not in the frame but this gives a feeling of the ambience at least.

My favourite cyclamen has gotten an infestation of some sort of nasty, tiny, black fly. I spray it with a soap and alcohol solution and temporarily beat them back, and then I forget to follow up and they multiply again. They’re just an eyesore – I don’t see the plant suffering at all – and mostly on the underside of the leaves, rather than the blossoms, so it never feels particularly urgent.

For some reason those flies are not spreading, either. The pot with the other cyclamen is on the same windowsill, within arm’s reach, thus logically also within wings’ reach, but it doesn’t seem to tempt them at all.

End-of-term concert for Adrian’s percussion class. An eclectic mixture of Christmas music, pop songs, and made-for-drums creations.

Here’s Adrian expertly playing the marimba.

One of the pieces they played was “Crazy frog” which in its original version is known primarily for how annoying it is. Played by a percussion ensemble with several marimbas, xylophones and vibraphones in the foreground, it was surprisingly pleasant.

The photo is from their final practise run just before the concert. During the concert itself, the lighting was all weird and not at all photo-friendly: red and patchy. Some kids were squinting from having strong lights straight aimed in their faces; others were in total shadow.

After the concert, I tried to figure out what makes the marimba different from the xylophone. I asked a teacher but only got a mostly useless answer. (Yes, I heard that they have different sounds; yes, I can see that the marimba has a wider range.)

I did some reading when I got home and learned that one key difference is how they are tuned (to a different set of overtones) and how the tone plates are shaped. They look like flat pieces of wood at first glance but absolutely aren’t – they’re scooped out underneath into an arch shape, and that’s what changes the pitch. Yamaha has interesting articles about the tuning of marimba tone plates, among others.

The length of the resonators, the different types of mallets used, and the playing technique, all reinforce their characteristic sounds: deep and mellow for the marimba, sharp and bright for the xylophone.