The first visitor to the bird feeder this season was a lovely woodpecker.

Sorting through a long-ignored pile of stuff in the living room, I discovered a box of CDs. Not just any CDs, but the ones that the kids used to listen to.

I find it harder and harder to refer to Ingrid and Adrian as “kids” but back then they truly were kids. Judging from the years printed on the covers, this would have been about 10 years ago. Not quite before Spotify, but at a time when Spotify hadn’t completely conquered the market and CDs were still a thing.

All the “Absolute Hits” and “Hits for Kidz” were in constant use in the car, together with a rotating selection of child-friendly hit CDs from the likes of Queen and ABBA. The “hits” CDs usually had a lot of songs from Melodifestivalen, the Swedish local equivalent to Eurovision Song Contest, but also such wonderful creations as Crazy Frog.

These days it’s all Spotify in the car, when we all listen to something together. Or individual headphones with whatever they all choose to listen to. But the “Hits for Kidz” are associated with so much nostalgia that we couldn’t just throw them out. Now they’re carefully packed away in the basement. Nobody will ever listen to them again, but maybe I’ll bring them out twenty years from now and show them off to my grandchildren. “Back when your mum/dad was your age, this is how you listened to music.”

A somewhat delayed eighteenth-birthday dinner for Ingrid, at Berns Asiatiska, by her request. Her boyfriend Albin also joined us, for the first time.

Berns Asiatiska was Stockholm’s first Chinese restaurant back in the 1940s, and it still has and old-school luxurious interior, reminding of days gone by, with crystal chandeliers and wood panelling. Very festive.

The sound level was very modern, though, actually making it difficult to talk to people across the table. We all kept having to ask each other to repeat our words. So there was more focus on the food and less on the conversation.

Ingrid, of course, ordered sushi. So did Eric and I.

She chose Berns because they serve not only excellent sushi but also excellent Asian fusion dishes for those who aren’t fond of seafood. (Like Adrian and Albin.) Adrian had a giant serving of tonkatsu, while Albin had Korean barbecue chicken. Both were happy with their dishes.

My dessert was a bit of a disappointment. Titled “Cherry and lime”, it led me to expect an explosion of flavours. But the cherry sorbet(?) barely tasted of cherry, and the fluffy, creamy lime was also very delicate in flavour. Not bad, per se, but after eating sushi with wasabi and soy sauce, this felt very tame.

Slow progress on the Stockholm embroidery.

It’s big and bulky enough now to be slightly difficult to transport. Folding it up doesn’t work so well any more, because of the stiff nature of the embroidered sections. I’ve taken to folding it in three lengthways, leaving the embroidered part flat, and then rolling it up.

Our lovely Bernina sewing machine was inherited from Eric’s mother, and will soon be leaving with Eric.

Every household needs a sewing machine, and I’d find it difficult to manage without one. Today I found a new sewing machine. Or rather, an old one. Here’s my new old Husqvarna Automatic 21 A. Shiny and green!

According to one site, this particular model was produced from 1958 to 1961, so it is probably even older than the Bernina. For back-stitching, you press and hold a button on this one, whereas on the Bernina you push the stitch length lever to the opposite side, so you can use both hands while back-stitching. But the Husqvarna is a fancier model, featuring a whole bunch of decorative stitches.

I’m quite unlikely to use the decorative stitches much. All I want from my sewing machine in terms of features is straight stitches forwards and backwards, and zig-zag. Possibly, maybe, buttonholes.

What I really want is reliability and repairability. I want a stable, solid metal body, and an absolute minimum of plastic components. With care and regular maintenance, this one should keep going for decades yet.

Also it doesn’t hurt that this cost me only 800 SEK.

We had a mini-celebration at work for having finished a feature we’ve worked on for a while. For some reason, Swedes’ go-to celebration cake is princess cake which is the most unsatisfying cake ever. It looks sort of festive, I guess, but what you get is a large amount of marzipan, covering a cloying sponge, loads of sweet whipped cream, and a bit of raspberry jam. It’s sugary and fluffy and that’s it. There is no texture and barely any flavour. If I never see another princess cake in my life, I won’t feel even a moment of sadness.

I took a sliver to be polite and felt no temptation to eat more. And then I got a stomach ache from all the lactose in the cream. I thought the sliver was small enough to be safe, but no. Not worth it.

In the evening Ingrid came home with tartelettes from the bakery where she works. A thin, crumbly crust; blackcurrant curd; Italian merengue with a delicate raspberry flavour. A flavour explosion in every bite. This is what a cake should be like.

The youngest Bergheden turned three, and there was a family get-together. Guess what his favourite character is.

Finally done with the digging. I had aimed to get it done by end of October, and wasn’t too far off. The autumn rains have really helped, thoroughly soaking the ground and softening it up. The last few sessions were barely even hard.

Now to buy steel edging, and new soil. And then bushes and ground cover plants.

Eric got the keys for his new apartment today. I actually didn’t take any photos today, so I’m “borrowing” these from tomorrow, when we went to take a first look at it.

It’s got three bedrooms, two balconies, and a large living room with a very high ceiling and tall windows.

Eric and Adrian are planning out who gets what room, how to furnish the living room, and what will go where in the kitchen.

A scary one and a cheerful one.

We had thirty-eight trick-or-treaters this year. Thirty-eight! And I thought we were well prepared, with Ingrid having bought enough candy for about twenty kids, based on last year’s outcome. Halfway through she went out and bought more. And still there were more kids coming, sometimes in groups of eight and even ten. In the end I was handing out vanilla-flavoured wafers of some sort that I dug out from the bottom of a cupboard. There is just no predicting this.