Sörmlandsleden stage 22, from Hagtorp to Hälleforsnäs, 16.5 km.

This stage has been blocking me for weeks and weeks. No way to get there by public transport, of course, and 16.5 is too much for a one-day out-and-back hike. 33 km would take me ten hours at least, plus driving there and back. Not doable. But now I had a whole free weekend, so I can walk one way today and back tomorrow. (I am again reminded that I should look into the car plus bike solution, so I can get these kinds of longer stages done in a single day.)

Hagtorp is barely a place, even: googling for Hagtorp brings up two kinds of hits only. There is the eponymous transport/shipping company, and there is Sörmlandsleden. I’m not sure what shipping activities the company actually does – there are no trucks or anything visible at their site – but they do have plenty of open gravel surface which makes for a great parking lot for hikers.

I had a leisurely start with a proper weekend breakfast and only started driving at 10:30, hoping to be hiking by 12. But there had been some kind of accident on the E4, which caused major traffic jams, and my drive took forever. When I finally got started on the trail, past one o’clock, I was very happy to be let out of the car and have a chance to stretch my legs.

This stage had proper woods and wild nature, unlike the previous one. There was some mixed forest, and a lot of the typical pine and spruce forest with heather and blueberry bushes. And the occasional lake for beautiful views, and the occasional clear-cut area for contrasting ugliness.

I found my thoughts spinning back to the tretton37 drama all the time, and from there to code problems I left behind at Sortera yesterday afternoon, and then on private worries, and then around again. I ended up turning this into an intense mindfulness walk. Whenever I found myself ruminating again, I made myself focus on what was around me.

Sound. On a large scale: silence. Apart from the start and end, this stage was far from noisy roads, and truly very quiet. This time of the year, there’s very little bird sounds, either. But I myself was making noise all the time: there was the crunch of my boots on debris, and the swish of grass against my legs, and the slosh of water in my water bottle.

Sight. I wish I could have looked around while walking, but much of the path was really rough and uneven, with rocks and roots and tussocks, so it took constant concentration. I would have tripped or twisted an ankle quite quickly. But I could pay attention to the rocks themselves, and all the pine cones on the ground, and the various plants and bushes around me.

Smell. Not much. Books sometimes have people walking on “fragrant pine needles” but in reality any needles on the ground are dead and have no scent at all. Perhaps pine trees in other parts of the world are different, who knows.

Touch. One the one hand, plenty to experience, but on the other hand, most of what I can feel while hiking tends towards the unpleasant. The pressure of the pack on my hips. A wrinkle in my t-shirt under the straps of the pack. The sharp scratch of a juniper bush. But I liked catching the seed heads of tall grasses and letting them slip through my fingers.

Taste. It’s berry season! Lingonberries and bilberries and bog bilberries are all ripe and plentiful. I was extra happy when I found bog bilberries, not only because I like their flavour but also because the bushes are taller and the berries thus easier to pick without bending down (which can be awkward with a heavy pack).

Most lingonberries were mostly ripe, and some were all the way ripe, but I’d say they needed another week or so to reach perfection. Which didn’t stop me from eating them, of course.

Bog bilberries look less appealing. The bushes are sparse and have an air of scragglyness. The berries hang singly or by twos at most, and the colour is muted, so they look underwhelming on the whole. It takes effort to make them look good in a photo.

Bilberries I don’t care much about at all, while I’m out walking. They’re good in pies and muffins and yoghurt and all that, but on their own, they’re too bland for my taste.

Due to my late start, and my slow pace because of the uneven path, I was worried about getting to the end at a reasonable hour. It was seven in the evening by the time I reached the camping area. I had been keeping my eyes open for the last kilometre or two of walking, for alternative camping spots in case the end of the stage was underwhelming (because the other end was literally a gravel parking lot!) but the area around Bruksdammen was beautiful. I put off all thoughts about cooking dinner and getting my tent set up, and instead admired and photographed the area. It was a wetland area with pink water-lilies in deep dark ponds.

Then there was dinner, after which I read for a while, but then went to bed at ten o’clock already, quite tired. The night was very windy – I half-woke a few times and thought at first that it was rain I heard, but it was just the wind being very loud.

Ingrid arranged a dinner party for a group of her friends. That’s the kind of stage she’s reached in her life: three-course dinner parties, with tablecloths and candles and home-made pizzas.

Her friends’ palates are not as sophisticated as hers, and they’re all meat-eaters, so adjustments are necessary. I don’t begrudge them their pepperoni pizza. But I’m glad that there was enough tiramisu that there were plenty of leftovers for us as well.

Preparing and cooking a three-course meal for six people, including also shopping and decorations, is a full-day project. Ingrid was rather exhausted by the end. I do hope her friends realize what a treasure they have and appreciate her efforts properly.

There is internal drama going on at tretton37, and everybody is worried and/or disappointed and/or confused, which is very distracting and distressing. If anyone managed to spend even half of their attention on actual work, I’m impressed. I was in such a bad mood when I got home that I comfort ate cake. (Cherry cake, from the freezer.)

OK, so maybe it is still summer. Today was all blue skies and sunshine, and when we went out for a lunch outside on the quay at Liljeholmen, it felt like high summer again.

Sock season has started. The season for wearing socks, that is, not for knitting them – that season is always on.

I thought that maybe I could hold out until September and pretend that it’s still summer, but no.

The vegetable stand at Spånga Torg is my source for fun fruit and vegetables. Right now the best thing is plums and mangoes. They have five or six kinds of plums, where ICA might at best have two. And some are clearly relatively local, and sourced from a small-scale grower: they are so tender when ripe that they can’t have been grown with long transport in mind.

Nysse has caught a mouse and is now playing with it. Batting it around, occasionally letting it run about a little bit so that he can capture it again. Sometimes he almost gets distracted and looks away and then cannot find the mouse again unless it moves. (When it’s still, it’s very invisible.) The mouse doesn’t even look like it’s been hurt – I think Nysse has learned that he can get more fun out of his toys if he is careful with them.

I have very mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, this feels cruel. On the other hand, I am all for exterminating rodents living in or around the house.

Doing a bit of digging in the new planting area to be. The ground is hard as concrete and I’m barely making any progress. Despite that, I am finding earthworms and earthworm passages way down in the ground. Somehow earthworms manage to get through soil that I seriously struggle with.

Also, the fact that they tie themselves in knots never ceases to amaze me.

Eric and Adrian and I went to the movies to see Deadpool & Wolverine. We watched the first two Deadpool movies at home, and thought that the third one deserved to be seen on a big screen.

When the movie came up in conversations at work (people talking about their weekend plans) two separate groups expressed their surprise that I’d watch Deadpool. And I can see their point – I don’t watch comedies much. Many comedies get their laughs out of putting some character in embarrassing situations, and I can’t find anything enjoyable about second-hand embarrassment. At all. But the humour in Deadpool is the opposite – he’s so unashamed, so proud of his crudeness and ass-slapping, that it’s liberating.

That being said, I didn’t enjoy this one as much as the last two. The first one had the best writing; the second one leaned into its ridiculousness; this one just felt repetitive and nonsensical. Barely any of the characters’ decisions made sense, apart from Deadpool himself. The studio decided to “waste” less money on writers, I guess, and spent the budget on actor salaries and special effects instead. I rather enjoyed the running gag in Deadpool 2 about the studio not being able to afford all the X-men.

Movie theatre popcorn, by the way, is ridiculously expensive. 75 SEK for that bucket of what is mostly air!

The reverse side of the Stockholm embroidery, with all the loose thread ends. I could have fastened them or hidden them or something, but decided to leave them as-is. It’s working out decently well, although they are in the way a little bit.