When the Eranthis are flowering, I know that the snowdrops will be out, too. The ones in central Spånga are just that little bit out of the way that I don’t notice them on my way past. Then some sign of spring makes me think of them, and I go check, and see that they’ve clearly been there for a while already.

I checked for crocuses in my lawn, too, but nothing there yet.

I keep an eye out for the first spring blossoms nearby. There’s nothing, and nothing, and nothing – and suddenly the Eranthis are there. Some years, they peek up through the snow, but we’ve barely had any this February, so they’ve got an easier start this time around.

New housing has been going up in Spånga for years now. Low-density industrial sprawl replaced with apartment buildings, student housing, and services. That area is out of my way, so it’s happening close enough for me to notice it when I’m driving past, but not close enough to affect me day to day, or for me to be particularly interested. The most I do is occasionally make the detour to go to the new, larger Coop supermarket, instead of the smaller, closer one in the centre of Spånga.

Now the hair salon I’ve been using in Spånga has moved from central Spånga (from a building that is slated for demolition and replacement) to a shiny new one on the other side of the tracks, right across from the “new” supermarket. I know that a pedestrian tunnel under the railway tracks has been in the works for a while, but I’ve never had reason to look at it, so I was only moderately sure it was finished and open. Google Maps still hasn’t caught up with the change and was suggesting a twenty-minute detour, but I took my chances.

The tunnel was indeed finished and open and functional, but the area on the other side was eerily empty. The houses are up and finished, the streets are there, but there are no people. No bushes, no bicycles, no garbage, even – no signs of human habitation. And wire fencing still blocked off much of the pavement. It was like a ghost town, not because it has been abandoned, but because it hasn’t come to life yet.

That’s why I haven’t noticed the tunnel being in use: there are no people there to use it.

When Eric moved out, we split our shared property evenly in value, but unevenly in kind. I got most of the things, he got most of the money. I believe we both wanted it this way.

Now I have the mismatched drinking glasses, the chipped bowls, the incomplete sets of crockery, while he has brand new everything.

That’s the way I like it. Had I ended up in the opposite situation, I could probably have found my way to accepting it, found a way to make myself see the positive in it, but it would have hurt. When we agreed to divorce, one of his first comments was “we’ll need to sell the house” while my first thought was “what do I need to do to keep the house”. Was keeping the house an economically sound decision? The jury is still out on that, but I need to at least try.

I get attached to things. I mend things that, from a utilitarian point of view, are in no way worth the effort, like old towels and shopping bags. The mere fact that I have owned something and used it for years gives it an inherent value of its own. I feel a responsibility to my things – to value them, to take care of them. To hold on to them.

Leaving the buns overnight made no difference.

I thought again about throwing them out but Adrian convinced me to bake them after all, because why not.

Some of them (I had four trays full) rose a bit in the oven – not to the level of fluffiness I’d expect, but there was a definite improvement. Others came out almost as small as they were when they went in. I tried one, and while the texture was disappointing, there was nothing wrong with the flavour. Good enough that I ate another one. I guess they can go into the freezer instead of the compost bin. I just need to remember to have the right kind of expectations when I take them out to eat.

My brother visited us today for a slightly late low-key birthday celebration. We ate semlor from Spånga konditori, which were delicious but which I forgot to photograph, and made poppy seed buns, which I remembered to take a photo of.

For some reason the bun dough refused to rise. I waited for hours, moved them to a warmer spot, but nothing. The dough is starting to look rather dry, despite being covered all the time. I was close to just throwing them out but might as well leave them overnight to see if the dough wakes up. Nothing to lose, I guess.

Nysse gets breakfast when the first person in the house wakes up, lunch at noon, and dinner at six in the evening. Except when we’re out of the house, or he’s out of the house, or he’s asleep, or something else happens to disrupt the schedule… Asking around whether anyone had fed Nysse yet got old fast, so we started keeping track. There’s a notepad in the kitchen close to his food tin, and we draw a line for every meal served.

You might think that this shouldn’t be necessary on the weeks when I’m the only human feeding him, but you’d be wrong. I can easily lose track even when it’s just me. The feeding is so routine that the occasions melt together, and I lose count. I remember putting food in his bowl, but was that actually today, or was it yesterday?

Nysse himself is an added source of chaos and uncertainty. He has a way of piteously meowing and crying for attention, especially just after coming inside, as if he’s starving and nobody has fed him for days. If it wasn’t for the notes, I’m sure he’d occasionally fool me.

I can even, apparently, lose count of entire cats. With Nysse I have a signal: I leave the door handle at an angle when I let him out, and straighten it when he comes back in. I have no such routine for Morris, who still comes by now and again. He can hide away in a bedroom and sleep for a few hours, and then I’m unsure whether he’s in or out. This morning he came in and snuck away upstairs and I forgot about him – and was met by two cats instead of one when I came home from the office.

Nysse is surprisingly good at not getting into my yarns and threads. I can knit and embroider right in front of him, and he doesn’t react. Large swathes of soft fabric, though, are tempting. But we reached an understanding: he moved away from my embroidery project when I served up a better, softer cat bed.

The IT team at Sortera moved from floor 3 down to a new section of floor 2. Sortera used to rent half of floor 2 and a part of floor 3. The tenant occupying the other half of floor 2 moved out some months ago, and Sortera is now taking over. Our team is getting much more daylight, access to more meeting rooms, new furniture, and hopefully better ventilation and temperature control. (Our old space managed to be cold and stuffy at the same time.)

And, last but not least, closer contact with the rest of Sortera. Sitting as we were in a cul-de-sac corner of the office, on a separate floor from most everyone, we were rather cut off from the rest of the company and only saw them when we went downstairs for lunch. Now we’ve actually got people walking past and saying hi.

This is what happens when you leave me to my own devices. There are knitting projects all over the coffee table, in all stages of life. They used to fit into a basket or two, but somehow they’ve multiplied and spread out.

The red at the bottom left is an alpaca mix that I, daringly, bought from Tradera. Last time I bought second-hand yarn I ended up sending it back because it smelled so bad. And guess what? This yarn also smells. Luckily not of toilet cleaner this time, just a faint floral soapy smell. I’m hesitating between knitting first and washing when finished, and unwinding it all so I can wash it first.

The white in the basket on the right is one step further along. I’ve started swatching, to get a feeling for the yarn and figure out what it’s best suited for.

The reddish brown on the top right is well underway. It’ll be a pair of felted slippers.

The other basket has all my sock yarns and an ongoing pair of socks.

Finally, in the middle, there’s the sweater that I reknitted the hem for. I’ve just got a few yarn ends to weave in (which I’ll be doing tonight) and then it will be ready for use again, better than before.