–17°C for the 2nd morning in a row. Bloody freezing. Indoors some bits are down to +17°C which isn’t quite bloody freezing but just a bit chillier than I would prefer. But yr.no promises above-zero temperatures already tomorrow so it’s not worth adjusting any of the thermostats. I’ll just pull a blanket over my shoulders in the evening.

The cold water pipe to the shower seems to have frozen. All the other taps work fine, but the shower only gives me hot water. Should have turned on the heating coils but didn’t think of it in time. So got to wash myself and my hair the old-fashioned way this morning, with a tub and a scoop. It brought back memories of all the saunas I’ve been to during my ski tours in the north of Sweden.

Bonus side effect of the cold snap: light pillars at night, several days in a row.

The neighbours have apparently bought new string lights and hung them on the fence between their garden and ours.

I’m normally a fan of string lights. We hang up many metres of our own, every winter. But these are an absolute monstrosity. The light they cast is very cold and incredibly bright. When they switch on, it’s like a flash. I cannot not look. They feel brighter than any other lights around me, although I’m sure it’s not quite as bad as that in reality but just my subjective experience, due to the contrast and the colour temperature. They pull at my attention, even though they’re far away in my peripheral vision, even though I’m looking at a well-lit screen in front of me as I’m typing this.

They’ve only been up for two days. Perhaps I’ll get used to them.

We promised Adrian a visit to his favourite restaurant, Ri Cora, for his birthday. Which was nearly 3 months ago.

First we were going to do it when we were in town anyway for Forever Piaf, but left it until too late with the booking so we didn’t get a table. Then we had a similar booking problem a few weeks later: just when we had agreed a day and time that worked for all of us, and I was about to press the button, the last few available tables got booked right as I was looking at it. And then there were weekends with other things in the way.

Now finally we made a new attempt and I was surprised to find tables for the same evening. Which works great, because Adrian’s school has a study day for staff tomorrow, so he doesn’t need to get up on time, so it’s OK if he’s a bit tired afterwards.

Ri Cora is Adrian’s absolute favourite restaurant because of the limitless egg rolls and dumplings he can eat. Ingrid also loves it, although she samples the buffet more widely, and prefers sushi to most dumplings.

The buffet has been completely unchanged for the last three or four years. Nothing changes, not even which fresh fruit they serve (melon, watermelon, pineapple, grapes, strawberries), or the ice cream flavours (blueberry, melon, Oreo, plus one I’ve forgotten), or the “season’s roast vegetables” which are always potatoes, sweet potatoes, sweetcorn and broccoli, completely regardless of the actual season. But predictable also means reliable, and the staff are always attentive and friendly, and make sure the buffet is fresh and clean and filled up. While I wouldn’t want to eat there very often, it’s a pretty decent place, as buffets go.

Borrowing a photo from an earlier day because I forgot to take one today.

We’re in the middle of a proper cold snap, with temperatures hovering around –10°C to –15°C for several days now. Luckily I had the foresight to sweep the garden stairs and scrape the car windows just after the snow came, when it was just a few degrees below zero, rather than in this cold!

I saw this dance performance together with Eric already several weeks ago. Jotting down my notes here for future me before the impressions fade too far away.

Six independent duets by six different choreographers. The whole thing was supposed to be performed in Oslo but there was some sort of strike there so it was moved to Stockholm with short notice. Lucky us to get tickets.

1. Sasha Waltz, Impromptus. Male/female. Technically beautiful but not very interesting. Lovely piano music by Schubert.

2. Emma Portner, Islands. Female/female, with the two dancers wearing a single set of four-legged loose trousers. They moved sometimes like twins, sometimes like mirror images, and sometimes my brain literally interpreted them as a single body with an unclear number of legs and arms. Very cool. Somewhat disappointing that they disconnected from each other towards the end.

3. Mats Ek, Julia & Romeo. Male/female. An excerpt from a longer narrative ballet. Energetic and playful and loving, but it felt a bit misplaced without the rest of the story.

4. Chrystal Pite, Animation. Male/female. The man’s movements start out broken, as if he doesn’t have full control over his body. The woman supports and guides. (Even so I clearly felt that he is the main dancer, not she.) As time passes, he becomes more “normal” and his body more “whole”. Something something love heals all ills? Too bad, because I found this message rather clichéd and his normal movements towards the end much less interesting.

5. Jiří Kylián, 14’20”. Male/female. I have no particular memories of this piece.

6. Ohad Naharin, B/Olero. Female/female. Bold, angular, energetic, cool. Great finale for the evening.

Photo credits: Islands © unknown because the page has been removed from www.operan.no; I got the photo from Google’s cache. Animation © Eric Berg.

tretton37 Christmas party at Riddarsalen (Münchenbryggeriet). Good food, good company.

After dinner a group of us played a game where we randomly guessed things about the person sitting next to us, based on nothing but gut feeling and prejudice. I guessed, among other things, that Ben to my right would be an overly cautious driver (and was spot on) and that Farnam to my left collects something weird (and was completely off since he turned out to be strongly against collecting anything). It was a lot of fun.

The people around me guessed that I am particular about some/many things in my life, but not about travel destinations, that I would be happy to travel just about anywhere. Yes, I said, but isn’t everyone like that? Apparently not – people can be very picky about wanting to travel to their bucket list places but definitely not want to go to some-other-place. I really would be happy to travel just about anywhere as long as I don’t have to worry about my health and life – Colombia would definitely be on my no-go list, for example.

It also came out that I am a private person, and that I give a serious impression regardless of what lies underneath. And I do. I keep the private and professional spheres quite separated, and make sure to make a professional impression at work. I don’t even really know why. I’ve done it as long as I can remember, and it is second nature by now. I think I expect people to not take me seriously unless I make them. And I think I expect/fear negative reactions if I let my private self come to the fore, so I keep it safely hidden.

We did a second round of scabies treatment, as per instructions, which also involves a second round of laundering and airing all textiles.

Depending on which source I read, I get very different information for dealing with clothes and bedding and such. One place says to just wash them; another says that it needs to be done at 60°C. Many of our clothes wouldn’t survive such a hot wash, so then they need to be quarantined and aired. And again: one source says 3 to 5 days; another says 2 to 3 days but it has to be outside. The difference between 2 days and 5 is significant… I guess I’ll average them out to 3 days, and do it outside to be on the safe side. Hopefully the cold will do its part to kill any potential parasites still there.

This year’s Advent calendar only contains sweets. It was easy to give fun things to the kids when they were young (socks, erasers, hair elastics, pencils, stickers) and activities when they were slightly older (crafts, baking, games) but now that they are in their tweens and teens, none of that would be appreciated. So it’s back to basics. Mints and orange-flavoured chocolate for Ingrid; hazelnut nougat and gingerbread-flavoured pralines for Adrian.

I’m amazed by how unbothered our friendly neighbourhood cat is by the cold. It can apparently just sit out here without freezing its paws off.

The weather has turned really cold – it’s been between –5°C and –10°C for several days now.

I’m pleased that I don’t have to commute in this weather. Not because the cold is so bad, but because the temperature differences are. I have to get dressed for the weather outside, and then walk for 10 minutes before I get on the train, which is hot in comparison. And then I have to either swelter, or peel off my layers and find a place for them on a crowded train.

Now I can just enjoy the snowy views – which are much nicer here in the suburbs than in the city, where all the snow melts or is pounded into slush by tens of thousands of feet.