Went bouldering as an after-work activity with my team.

It was a lot more fun than I had expected, mostly because I had expected the roped kind of climbing. With bouldering there is no harness, no rope, no queueing (at least not at the centre where we were) and no standing around half the time securing your partner. Just climbing.

It was hard work as well. Especially for a beginner like me – when you can’t rely so much on skill, you have to fall back on brute force more often. My shoulders are sore.

A new plum tree, to replace the one that our neighbour crushed. This time the variety I wanted was in stock so I didn’t even have to wait half a year to get one. Let’s see if it gets a better chance than the previous one.

Ingrid bought two chili plants last summer. They grew, produced a few flowers, and even a couple of fruit each. And then they dropped most of their leaves – but not all! – and somehow stayed barely alive. Occasionally a handful of new tiny leaves appear in some fork, and even new flowers occasionally. They look mostly dead, except for that fruit still hanging on, but according to Ingrid, that counts as still alive, so we’re not allowed to throw them out.

Stage 21 of Sörmlandsleden, there and back again, 21 km in total.

Much of this section of the Sörmlandsleden follows a ridge (or an esker if you want to be technical about it) through a narrow strip of woodland. Easy walking, but not particularly interesting, after the first novelty wears off.

Not much in terms of views, either.

Unlike stages 19 and 20, this one never let me forget that civilization is just around the corner. There was a large road parallel to the trail (or the other way round, I guess) that I could always hear and sometimes see, and smaller roads even closer.

Some spots here probably look quite spectacular when the lilies of the valley are in bloom.

All in all this was more exercise than a nature experience, and while it was an OK walk, it’s not a stage I see myself revisiting.

Aren’t they magnificent?

The younger one, closer to us in the photo, is about twice as tall as it was when we moved here in 2008. It’s almost caught up with its older sibling behind it.

Here’s the oldest photo I could find of it:

Without the discipline and routine of the bi-weekly embroidery club, how will I make any progress on this during the summer?

I bought some antique wine glasses a while ago. Tried to photograph them, but it was hard to do them justice.

I don’t drink beer or wine or champagne or anything like that, but I do like a splash of something sweet occasionally, such as a home-made dessert wine. And when I say “occasionally”, I mean like once a month maybe. I’ve made do with whatever receptacles we’ve had at home – plain water glasses, or Eric’s whisky glass – but then I ran across these and thought, why not. 19th century antiques for a pittance, probably because there were only three of them, so I bought all three.

As I said, the photos don’t do them justice. Delicate and intricate, and gently green.

Lunch out in the sun on the quay at Liljeholmen.

The bird cherry is flowering.

Back the way I came yesterday, from Henaredalen to Ånhammar, 13 km.

The paw print yesterday may have been wolf or dog, but the droppings I spotted are most definitely from a wolf, because they’re mostly made up of the hair of whatever animal the wolf ate.

I also met a hiker on the trail who was here specifically because he had seen a wolf here a year earlier and was hoping for a repeat. But I never saw anything more than the droppings.

Unsurprisingly today was similar to yesterday.

As a bonus I already knew the best spots for taking a break.

In no rush to get back early, I took a longer break towards the end of the trail, on what I guessed was a bird-watching bench next to a large lake, where I had the company of geese and ducks and herons.

The cows in the oak pasture were at the near end of the pasture today, and seemed quite curious about me. I didn’t mind the curious cows or the calves, but they were accompanied by one or two bulls of impressive size, and I felt rather more cautious about them, so I hightailed it out of there.