I used to think of this corner of the garden as a difficult one. Tucked in between a west-facing wall and a porch, it is dry, and in shade much of the time. I planted bergenias here not because I like them much (I don’t – they’re loud and somehow vulgar) but because they were among the few things I could think of that would survive here.

In the spring sunshine (not yet shaded by the large cherry tree nearby), teamed up with daffodils and with the red, still-nude branches of a dogwood bush, they actually look really good. A bit brash and vulgar still, but whatever.

I went back for more cherry trees. Today with less rain and wind, and more sunshine.

Yes, that branch of blossoms was literally hanging there against an evenly overcast sky, like it was posing for me.


The blossoms in these photos belong to two different varieties of cherry trees. The ones with the lighter double blossoms and green little leaves line the main street in Spånga; the ones with simple blossoms and dark leaves are a trio of trees off to one side. And soon the trees in our own garden will be flowering as well. What a luxury, to have all these wonderful trees around me!

These new socks are growing on me. I wasn’t too impressed with them when I had just finished them, but now I rather like them.

They pair well with all sorts of clothes because of the speckled colour mix. They go well with yellow, or brown, or blue-and-white, or even dark purple.

And the brioche knitting makes me feel them more than normal socks. I’m conscious of them when I walk around in them on bare feet. It’s almost like a tiny foot massage.

My desk feels more and more like a place of work. Work stuff fills almost all of it, both physically and mentally. I rarely sit there with my private laptop these days, unless I’m doing something administrative that’s almost like work. (Like installing OS updates, or backing up my stuff.) Instead there’s one corner of the living room sofa that has become “mine”. I’ve got my knitting and mending baskets there, and my Kindle, and a pillow or two. And now I’ve even splurged on a second charger for my laptop so that I don’t have to crawl under the desk move the one charger between the desk and the sofa.

This was the fifth hail shower in a week.

In English there’s a saying about April showers bringing May flowers. In Swedish the saying is simply “aprilväder”, “April weather”, which is unpredictable and unsettled.

Ingrid and I were at IKEA.

Or rather, Ingrid was at IKEA and I was at the IKEA parking lot.

There was a sizeable queue just to get in, what with the limits on the maximum number of people allowed inside, so I didn’t even bother trying. Sat in the car and read, while Ingrid queued. She said afterwards that the queueing took more time than the shopping itself – and that’s saying something, given how long it usually takes to tromp through the whole labyrinth that is IKEA.

You can’t see the crowd well in the photo because of all the fences and such, but there’s a whole zig-zaggy rope thing there in front of the entrance, like the queues at airports. And then even more people queueing off to the right who don’t even fit in the zig-zaggy arrangement.

The season’s first dandelions in Spånga.

A sign of a change of seasons: the glass-and-paper combo in an easily reachable spot in the living room.

When the weather turns warm, we keep the French doors ajar to let in the fresh air and the birdsong.

When the weather turns warm, the wasps and bees and bumblebees awake.

Add those two together and what you get is large insects who fly in through the gap in the doors only to get lost in here and then bump against the windows again and again. Until I get my glass and my piece of paper and put them out again.

Plasters are magical. I don’t know if it is a physical thing or purely psychological, but Adrian tells me that putting a plaster on a scraped finger makes it hurt less. Perhaps the feeling of the plaster itself is distracting, or maybe it’s because the hurt is no longer exposed to air. Or maybe it’s just a purely psychological effect. Plastcebo?

When the kids were small, they used to come to me to get the plaster magic. But already many years ago I moved our stash of plasters from the medicine box on the highest shelf to an easily-reachable floor-level spot, so the kids can serve themselves as needed.

I wish they could also learn to notice when they take the last one and note it down on the grocery list. But no. Several times I’ve needed a plaster (usually because I’ve cut my finger in the kitchen) only to see that the box is empty. (Still there, not thrown in the bin, despite being empty. Sigh.) Now I’ve learned to inspect the stores occasionally and stock up in good time.