kareina

On 25 December my friends Linda and Marcus arrived at my place for a visit. They had spent "Christmas" (which in Sweden nearly always means Christmas Eve), and a few days before, at his parent's house, about 4 km from here, but their house is small, and they wanted to see me, so they came over.  We had a good time catching up that afternoon and early evening, and then on the spur of the moment she and I decided to go see the new Star Wars movie (which we enjoyed). He opted to stay home and work on the computer--he figures he will see it eventually, but didn't want to bother paying full price for it.

Since we hadn't seen one another in ages, and I had been home alone for a few days they opted to sleep upstairs with me the first night, so that we could lay awake talking more before sleep. However, after enjoying a day full of adventure and sewing projects together the next day they opted to take the guest room downstairs the second night.

They slept late the next morning (and then stayed in bed talking for hours, so it looked even later from where I sat), which meant that I was able to catch up on things like vacuuming and tidying up in the morning before cooking lunch, finishing it up just as my friend Julia arrived. She moved back to Åland last autumn, and I have missed her. She came up to spend Christmas with her aunt in Kalix (about 45 minutes north of here), so had to visit me while in the area.  We had some food, then went out for a walk.  The snow machines have started driving on the ice between my house and the nature reserve, so we were able to do a very pretty loop.

Right after we got back to the house our friend Villiam also arrived, and then Linda and Marcus came upstairs, so we had second (or first) lunch (or breakfast, for some) and then we did acroyoga for a while. Villiam has gotten much better at <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10217800159506539&set=a.4413122137044&type=3">bird-in-hands</a> than when we took that photo--these days we don't need that extra thick mat as crash protection--indeed we don't need any props to get there at all.  So. Much. Fun! I love acroyoga.

Then it was time to head to the folk dance evening. Villiam had (yet another) fire show to prepare for, so he declined to join us, and Marcus doesn't have any points in Swedish folk dance, so he opted to head back to his parent's, but we girls all went. We arrived at the dance at  soon Stellan (whose idea this dance was) and his wife finished putting away the tables that the previous group to use the room had left out.  I started the evening with handstand practice (as I always do in that room, since it is big enough there is no worry that I might come down wrong and break a window or something (as there is at home).  I still can only pause up there for a very tiny amount of time, but it is a noticeable pause, so I am happy with the progress (especially given how little time I have spent training lately).

Then I took off my tights out from under my skirt (I knew that it would soon be too warm for them) and put on my dancing shoes, and more musicians started arriving, so I took turns dancing with Linda and Julia while waiting for other dancers.  (As often happens, as dancers arrived they first went into the kitchen to greet one another and chat briefly before heading to the dance floor. I kinda get that, but I am so not willing to miss any of the dances myself, never mind that I do enjoy the company of everyone in the dance group). 

Soon more and more people arrived, till we had at least 8 musicians and more than 20 dancers (I never actually counted, just comparing my memory of how densely that fairly small room was packed with people).  Then I did take a pause in dancing--my friends Hjalmar and Sofie (who live three hours south of me) and her mum (with whom they are spending the holidays, and who lives an hour north of me) arrived while Linda and I were dancing, so after doing yet another loop around the floor, to give them a chance to start getting coats and boots off, we danced out to greet them, and introduce Julia.  As soon as they were dressed for dancing we promptly returned to the floor, and we six spent much of the evening dancing with one another, but I did also sometimes dance with the local folk dance regulars.  Such a fun evening. As the evening wound down more and more people slipped out. Eventually Hjalmar, Sofie, and Stina decided they should get going, since they had a long drive north to get back to Stina's house, and the evening was cold and the car hadn't been plugged in to keep the engine warm while we danced.  

A bit later, when we were down to only three dancers, and four musicians (and a few more people who were done dancing or playing for the night, but still chatting) Julia, who had driven us there, realised that she should go out and see if her car would start. It didn't. -20 C is not good for batteries(it was only -10 that morning when she had arrived).  Luckily Stellan had jumper cables in his car, so he stopped playing music and went out to help.  I decided that was a good time to do my yoga while they got the car started, and finished up just as they came in to report success.  So that the engine would have a chance to warm up properly and let the batter take a bit of a charge we took the long way home, and then, after swinging by the house to let Linda get her stuff, we took her back to Marcus's parent's house for the evening.  

By the time it was home it was after midnight, so she crawled straight into bed, and I took a hot shower to help my legs recover from so many hours of dancing (as usual, I was the only person to dance every dance, unless you count the half dance I missed when Hjalmar and co arrived), but we still lay awake talking for a half an hour as the dawn light went through its dusk cycle.  

We were up the next morning before 09:00 and had a quick breakfast (and she got a shower) before heading out to pick up Villiam to go visit yet another Linda, from our jester group Phire, and her boyfriend at their new apartment (like they started moving in the day before Christmas new).  We had a lovely fika with them and lots of conversation, and then, since they have a nice big living room with no furniture in it yet save a matres on the floor, we did some acroyoga.

Around 13:00 we left, swung by a grocery store to pick up a few things, dropped Villiam off, and then Julia dropped me off at home and went back to spend her last night in the north (this time) with her beloved aunt.  That gave me just enough time to make a yummy spinach sauce and steamed vegetables, and thaw some bread rolls from the batch I baked just before Christmas before my friends Eva and Göran arrived. We had a wonderful visit and enjoyed the yummy food (including the left over fruit salad from the day before).  After they left I considered working more on my application in progress, but somehow I wound up spending the time reading facebook and chatting in group chats to finalise plans for the upcoming trip to 12th Night Coronation, and it is somehow nearly midnight. So I should do my yoga and get some sleep.

Tomorrow Linda, Marcus and some of their friends will be here for a gaming session, and then just before midnight I will head to the bus station to pick up Hampus, who will be here till we head south to Umeå (together with Hjalmar and Sofie) on time to head to 12 Night.

Today was a work from home day, which meant that while working I was able to run some laundry, and for my lunch break I took a long enough break to get complicated with my cooking:

First I pierced the skin of a spaghetti squash in a few places (so steam could get out later) and set it in the oven to roast at just under 150 C. While it slowly roasted I cooked up a sauce from canned tomato, tomato paste, the last of my garden beet greens, and garden kale (harvested last week before the frost), some store bought garlic, some finely chopped walnuts, almond, and sunflower seeds, plus some haloumi, a bit of Hushållsost ("household cheese"), and couple of handfuls of frozen black currants (from our garden), and some green herbs and spices. It was so good I was forced to eat seconds.

Sadly, the first bowl was enough to fill my tum, which wasn't so happy with me for the next hour or so, but my mouth has no regrets...

Then I resumed work for a few more hours, working right through the normal Friday afternoon Phire practice session at 16:00 (so I haven't made it on a Friday once since we started back up this autumn). Then I decided that since I hadn't gotten any exercise, and because the car was acting weird on the drive home from Herrskapsdans on Wednesday (refusing to go into 3rd or 5th gear, but 1, 2, and 4 were ok), I would bike to the store to get a few groceries. I biked there, filled my basket with food, and started biking back. By a funny coincidence I saw David, who was just getting off of work for the day (they had some stuff to do on a server that is best done after regular business hours), so I stopped and chatted with him a bit, and resumed biking. However, I quickly noticed that while I was no longer riding on the annoying bumpy bricked pavement between the buildings, I was still experiencing a rhythmic bumping. So I stopped, looked, and saw that my rear tire was flat (the one under the very full basket full of food, of course).

Since I had only just passed E house, where the uni has an air station for filling tires, I dragged the trike back to it, and discovered that I had ridden on the flat tire long enough without noticing that the inner tube has rotated a bit, and the nozzle had shifted to an angle, with the end pressed up against the spokes in such a way I couldn't attach the end of the air nozzle onto it. So I called David, and he agreed to bring the car and rescue me. While I waited I took the stuff out of the basket, removed the center bolt, took off the seat, and folded the trike in half, as far as it will go with the basket still attached. I tried to remove the basket too, to get a lower profile, but while my bike repair kit has a monkey wrench which would turn the nuts holding the basket-attaching bolts on, I didn't have anything to keep the bolt from spinning. Luckily it turns out that we could just wriggle the trike into David's car in that position, so we didn't need to take the basket off. We put it into the garage, and tomorrow I will look at the tire and find out if it does, in fact, need a new inner tube (it has been quite a few years since I have had a flat, so it wouldn't surprise me if it does need replacing).

After putting the groceries away I went on to the the next stage of cooking. I took the yummy spaghetti squash and harvest/tomato/nut/cheese sauce and used it as filling in 12 pastie-shaped bread pockets. Then, since there was room for four more on the second pan I mixed some of the remaining sauce without squash with a bit of chopped fresh spinach and sprouts to make four more bread pockets, these shaped more like dim-sum (so I can tell them apart later). Then there was just enough bread dough left to make a large deep dished, covered pizza, so I took more of the sauce and added some chopped artichoke hearts and some more of those bean sprouts and filled the pizza. That left enough sauce to save some in a glass box for tomorrow, and the rest is in 9 silicon muffin cups in the freezer. All of the pockets and the pizza have been brushed with melted butter and put into the fridge to rest till morning, when I will bake them. All of the bread pockets will go into the freezer for easy meals later, and I can eat the pizza over the next few days. My future self is so going to appreciate today's efforts...

Even though I know and believe that I will be happy with either path--either the interview for the PhD position in Medieval Archaeology at the University of Bergen will lead to a job offer and I will move, or I get to stay here, in a place I love, still the background stress of not knowing if I will be moving in October seems to be effecting my ability to focus on work in the meantime. I know what the source is, I know it shouldn't be an issue, but still my log of work hours and list of work accomplishments makes it clear that I am not as productive just now as I would like to be.

They told me at the interview that it could be "at least two weeks" (at one point in the conversation) or "two or three weeks" more (at another point in a conversation) before things progressed to the job offer stage. Monday will have been three weeks, and I hadn't heard anything as of the end of the business day on Friday, so I will try to just enjoy the weekend and not think too much about it.

This is in total contrast to my reaction to my other job application that is still outstanding. Just before I went to Bergen for the interview I saw an ad for exactly what I am doing now, except full time, with a better base rate of pay, in a part of Canada where there is snow on the ground six months of the year (and since I love snow better than any other possible weather conditions, I applied, pointing out in my cover letter what a good match my CV was to what they are looking for). They sent a prompt "thanks, we received your application packet" note, and I hadn't heard anything further from them, and I pretty much even forgot about having sent it. However, yesterday I got a note asking me to please let them know my citizenship and/or permanent residence status. I wrote back promptly saying that I hold citizenship in three countries, Sweden, Australia, and USA, and that of these, I felt that Australia would be the most useful passport for a move to Canada, and sent them a photo copy of the Australian passport. So, clearly, they agreed enough with my assessment of the CV match to think it worth asking. Now, if I were them, and I had two candidates who are qualified for the position, and one of them is already legal to work in Canada, and the other would need immigration paperwork, I would choose the one who didn't need immigration paperwork, even if the other were otherwise a stronger candidate. Therefore I am not necessarily expecting that application to lead to an interview, but, on the other hand, neither would it surprise me if they did want to have at least a chat over skype. Either way, there is no sense of this one contributing to my stress levels.

On the other hand, my personal life has some nice highlights recently. Since last I posted we had the performance of the Kadrilj från Sörbyn, the 16 person dance that was traditional at weddings in this area a century and more ago. We did that at the Spelmansstämman held in Boden in conjunction with the town's 100'th birthday celebration. This is the first time that I have been to a Spelmansstämman in Boden, but during the event I found out why--it has been 30 years since the last time they had one! It was a lovely, fairly small, Spelmansstämman. I recognised a high percentage of the folk in the audience as being active in the local folk music and dance scene (Boden is a half an hour drive inland from Luleå, close enough that the two cities share a hospital half way between them. There is a small village near the hospital, but nothing else in the way of city development in the area--just a huge building not far from the highway sticking up out of fields and forest).

Since neither of our cars were working I got a ride out to the event with the lovely couple who organised our dance performance. They have both been doing folk and other dance in the Luleå area pretty much all of their lives--and I attended his 80'th Birthday party some years back, so he may well have met some of the people who did the Kadrilj från Sörbyn at the wedding in Boden 100 years ago--it was the fact that the dance got mentioned in the newspaper as part of the wedding festivities at the time that prompted us to choose that dance for the performance, and before we did the dance he gave a short lecture on the dance customs back then. They opted to head back to Luleå directly after the last of the day time performance and not stay for the evening dances, and I didn't have the motivation to ask after other possible rides home, so I went home too.

Much of that week David spent trying to fix my car. When I had taken it in for the annual inspection the week before I went to my job interview they said that it needed a new spring for the left front tire, and the extra break lights above the back window were working. We were given the deadline of the weekend I was in Bergen to have it done, and if not, then we wouldn't be permitted to drive it till it was fixed.

Since I was focused on preparing for the interview I decided not to worry about it till we got back, and David, who, having talked with his brother, who fixes up old cars for a hobby, felt that he would be able to fix it himself, was also busy just then, so he ignored it. However, his car had had a warning light for some important issue of the sort that doesn't make it impossible to drive, but if you don't do something about it there will be consequences later, so he booked time in the shop for that car. Then, while I was in Boden one day as he was driving between the house and the apartment there was a clunk, after which he could only put the car into certain gears, so he quit driving his car, other than to drop it off at the shop a few days early for its appointment.

This suddenly pushed fixing my car a bit higher on his priority list. Sadly, my car is old enough that pretty much everything that can rust shut had, so he spent one 13 hour day just trying to get the spring out, gradually opening up more and more things in hopes that one of the possible access points would work. A day or two later he tried again, and this time managed to get to it. However, in the process one of the bolts holding the wheel to the axel broke, and the shaft needed to be drilled out. While working on that he noticed that there was another part that was in bad enough shape that it needed replacing too, so the next day I did the bike ride out to pick up that part (half an hour each way), and the following day I biked back out to get the bolt and nut needed to put the tire back on the axel. He got everything back together on Thursday, and it started on the first try (yay!), and then we found the place where the wire to that break light had broken and he soldered it back together. The next day I took it back to the inspection place, arriving 5 minutes early. They looked at it directly, and I was out with the piece of paper saying we are good to drive for another year one minute before my appointment time.

Then I celebrated having a car by doing a largish grocery shopping trip, went home and cooked a bunch of yummy food. Linda, who is back in Sweden for a couple of weeks visit came over and helped me eat it and has been staying for a couple of days. She and I are heading south with Oscar later today for a birthday party of mythological proportions in Umeå (three hours south of here), which leaves my car free for David to use tomorrow for going to help his brother butcher the moose he got.

I didn't get to go to Cudgel War, but I have kept myself busy enough not to mind too much.

Monday morning I did laundry from the event and washed the pavilion floor and hung it up to dry, then hung out with David and accomplished a few things around the house. After he went back to the apartment I did my workout for the day and then some reading of archaeological literature that will be good to have read before my interview.

Tuesday morning I accomplished more things around the house and did my workout, and in the afternoon Gunnar came over to do archery with David while I carved on my soapstone pot. Then I went in for Phire practice, and after practice Julia came over to hang out, and Sara-Olivia and David fixed up the second hand violin she had bought so that it is usable.

Wednesday morning I started to do my workout first thing, decided I was much too hungry, and had breakfast instead, with the plan of getting back to it later in the day. Instead I spent the first half of the day curled up on the couch reading fiction (and eating for much of that time, but at least it was in Norwegian (till I finished that book) and then Swedish (till I finished that book). And the popcorn had dried nettle powder in the butter (I love that!)

Thursday morning I took the car in for its annual inspection (it turns out that a spring in the suspension is broken and needs replacing), and then David and I went to his parent's house. Their village was having its annual party/bbq, so we went out early and helped out a bit with set up and enjoyed hanging out with his siblings and their families before the party started. One of his brothers and his family weren't there, but that still left lots of us: both of David's parents, four of their kids, plus a partner each, plus six grand children. So we made up nearly half of the party (there are only 11 houses in the village (which is about 45 minutes south of Luleå, and half an hour north of Skellefteå), and most of them are only two people per house).

All of the neighbours brought their own grills. On our grill they cooked moose burgers, and mine was so tasty I ate a second, even though I really didn't need it. But yum! After the food we divided randomly into teams for silly games. One station involved hitting a puck with a hammer hard enough to slide it along a trough, with increasing points for each zone along the trough, but, if you hit it so hard it fell of the end, you got zero points. Another involved tossing rainboots towards marked circles on the ground. but the most fun and challenging of them was the one where we had to fill in a grid of letters to make 8 different 4-letter words, each in a category: a barn-yard animal, a colour, a type of fruit, the capitol of an European country, a type of tree, a music group, a kind of fish, and a bird. No one in my group could think of a fruit that has a four-letter name for a really long time. We came up with one for each of the other categories, but the four left over letters were totally useless, so we were certain we had something wrong. eventually we came up with LIME, so we took letters from one of the other words and started trying again. Eventually the person in charge of the station decided that we had taken quite long enough and should give up so that the next group could come try. Afterwards I went and looked at the solution. We had had five of them correct at one time or another (LAMM, LILLA, GRAN, ABBA, MÖRT) but we had put in RIGA for the capitol when it should have been PRAG, and I had never even heard of the bird ORRE. Of course when we put in LIME, that meant that we lost LILLA (which was correct), so then we tried GRÖN, which meant losing GRAN (which I didn't think we should lose, since the party was hosted by the Granbergs, and they devised the games). If I had only remembered KIWI before we ran out of time we could have lost KORP, and then perhaps someone else in the group would have noticed that we had the letters needed for ORRE. At one point we had tried RIPA for the bird, which is close, there isn't so much difference between a ptarmigan and a grouse--they are both pretty tasty. But in a game where you have scrambled letters you need to sort out they are not interchangeable.

After the party the family (minus the three littlest kids and one of their moms) gathered in the house around the table for fika till after midnight, when David and I went home.

Friday I had a quiet day at home--did some research reading, some embroidery on my 12th century shoes, read some email, and stayed up till 02:00.

Today (Saturday) I slept in--didn't wake up till nearly 11:00, whereupon I went outside to put down the awnings, and, while there, decided to water the berries and vegetable patch and eat the smultrons and strawberries that were ready, at which point David arrived, so we went in and I ate a quick breakfast and back outside to do some yard work--adding more paths between the black currant bushes. Then I had a quick lunch, after which I baked a crumble from the red currants we had picked while in the yard, and while it baked I picked some kale and beet greens and combined them with egg yolk and spices, whipped the egg whites, combined it all and put it into a sesame seed lined pan to bake while he mowed the lawn, then our friend Barbara arrived to dig up some of our extra berry bushes for her property, and we went to her place, helped her plan them, had dinner and played games. On the way home we stopped by the grocery store really quick (getting there with just enough time before they closed), put gas in the car, and were finally home by 23:30.

Since then I have updated finances, paged down a bit on FB, chatted with a friend hearing his adventures at Cudgel, and typed this. Now I should do my yoga and get to sleep, since it is almost 02:30. Perhaps tomorrow will have time for that workout I didn't finish on Wednesday as well as more of that reading I need to do.

On Tuesday I took Aurelia to Storforsen, where she happily took over 500 photos. Then we returned to town and I took her to visit my apprentice Ena, who sold her a bunch of beautiful tablet woven bands. Then it was back to the house, were we made lingon pie and butter, oat and almond ice cream, and then she and David got to talking politics while I did my yoga and caught up on a few things on the computer.

On Wednesday I managed to do some work during the day, then in the afternoon took her to the museum in town, and to a second hand store (where I found one of those things for holding yarn while rolling it into balls, but this one is about 1/4 the size of the one David has), and then to the train station so she could start her journey home.

Since then I haven't left home, though I have made it out of the house a couple of times. I have been enjoying working from home and catching up on house work. I have been listening to Norwegian audio book while reading, and watching films in Norwegian with subtitles while working on embroidery. I still don't know if I will be moving or not, but I want to have my brain as used to Norwegian as possible before I travel to Bergen for my job interview in August.

I am really enjoying Nick and Jess's visit. I had never met her before, but Nick and I were good friends when I lived in Tassie, so I was not at all surprised to find that his wife is also delightful company. I feel like they are both "Kindred spirits".

Yesterday we spent much of the day cooking. We turned the left over moose spaghetti sauce that David had made into filling for a bread rolls (by adding yet more veg and some haloumi), and a pot of soup that we packed into thermoses for today. This morning we picked up Villiam, and the four of us went off to Storforsen, where the water is even higher than normal Mid-summer high levels, since the snow melt was supplemented by lots of heavy rain yesterday. They met through a rafting club, and were both fascinated by the rapids, which they pronounced faster and more dangerous than they would be willing to try. After they had a chance to take lots of photos of the rapids as we worked our way downstream we then moved inland a bit and wandered around the rocks, needing to take the many small bridges provided, as the extra streams were all quite full.

We stopped for lunch near the canyon, were I was amused that the rock shelf that is normally available as a "beach" by the swimming hole in the canyon is currently under a good 30 cm of water. Then we wandered around a bit more before returning home, where Villiam taught them some simple juggling, and we showed them some acroyoga and had them try a bit. Much fun. Then David did some archery with them before we went to the store so they could by some supplies for the road, and we returned Villiam to his home. A few more hours of chatting and they wisely went to bed early.

I stayed up talking with David, and then spent time typing up the steps to the dance they enjoyed from our performance that they want to take back to Tassie with them, and then, instead of doing yoga and going to bed when I realised it was after midnight, I read some posts on FB and caught up on DW. Now I really should do that yoga and go to bed, I am supposed to work tomorrow...

The trip to Spring Crown was fun. Josie and I were smart enough to start out Thursday after work and go as far as Umeå, where we stayed in the guest room at Hjalmar's apartment. Bright and early the next morning we picked up Wilhelm at his place, and Jessica at hers, and started south. Josie, wonderful lady that she is, did all of the driving on the southern trip. On a normal road trip I would have been sewing, but on this occasion I didn't sew at all, but was content to just talk with people. I guess that still being in recovery from surgery mode was probably a factor in that.

We reached site Friday evening around 18:30, or about half an hour after site opened. Josie and I had paid for beds, and oh, such a nice room we got. Our room had one big bed comprised of two single beds pushed together, another single bed against a wall, that had already been claimed by someone, a sofa, a door in one corner that looked like it might lead to a big closet, but turned out to be a private shower and sink, and a smaller door in another corner that was a closet, and the heraldry on the costume hanging there told me that the claimed bed belonged to Jahanara. The list on the door revealed that there was one more person yet to arrive, so Josie and I decided to share the big bed, and we moved the couch aside and took the mattresses out from under our bed and set them against the wall for the fourth lady.

Then we got dressed and went out in search of the evening food (I wasn't hungry, but Josie was). After she ate and I hugged All The People (she commented after about half an hour "you sure know lots of people here!" it was time to head to court. It being a Friday evening I couldn't help but wonder if the Crown might take the opportunity to send someone on vigil for one of the orders (though I knew, of course, that they wouldn't be doing that for a Laurel). Therefore, I was hopeful that this was it when, towards the end of court, the autocrats were called up to make their announcements, after which Her Majesty called Ingrid over (and had someone bring up a chair for her), so that she could extend her personal thanks for Ingrid's willingness to step up and take the lead on the event, which had been Isabetta's suggestion in the first place, before she got distracted by her Champion winning Crown. Sure enough, my anticipation was correct, for after the thanks were given, the Order of the Pelican was called forward to take her away to stand vigil and consider joining the Order. Before they did a few nice words were said, and Ingrid was in tears from the moment she understood what was happening. After court Josie commented that it was so touching that even though she didn't know any of the people involved she still teared up.

I was already tired from the long drive (and being only two weeks post surgery), but Ingrid is one of those people I really admire, and I felt it was important to join the vigil queue, so I stayed up. The guy holding the list announced that since the Theatre Arts are important to Ingrid he would be willing to accept bribes in the form of Theatre presentations to consider moving people higher on the list than they started out. So, of course, I had to perform something, and chose the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, since I have had that one memorised since I was like 13 years old, and have performed it for the Norrskens Bard competition, so it was reasonably fresh in my mind (thought I am pretty certain I skipped the line about Zepherus' sweet breath, oops). I enjoyed talking with people for an hour or so as they worked through all the Pelicans (there were a lot of them on site) and then started on the "everyone else" list. Eventually I got to the point that I was just too tired to stay up longer, so I told the keeper of the list that I was going to have to give up and go to bed, unless there were a chance to take cuts. He told me who was next and to ask him if I could, so I did, and Erik said I could.

I am glad that he did, it was so nice to go in and speak with her (in Swedish!), and hug and cry a bit together. Ingrid tells me that she will come north for a visit when she has recovered enough from surgery that she is walking properly again. I really look forward to that. Then I went to bed at 23:30 and slept deeply till 05:30, when I was AWAKE. They had announced the night before that breakfast would open at 07:30 for fighters and consorts, and at 08:00 for everyone else, as the fighters needed time to digest before armour inspection at 09:00. Therefore I had promised Wilhelm that I would join him for breakfast. I didn't feel sleepy at that point, and I knew that if I managed to go back to sleep anyway I would wind up missing breakfast, so I got up and went for a walk. I first checked the building where Wilhelm was sleeping, and found that the crash space room where he was was a sun-room on the side of the building, with lots of windows, and a deck outside it. He was (of course) still asleep, so I went for a walk.

I climbed the hill on the other side of the road from the site and admired the rock there, then walked along the edge of the lake to a nature reserve and climbed the hill there and admired the rock. That got the clock to 07:00, so I went back to the crash space room, where Wilhelm was waking up, and he and I went to breakfast. After breakfast I helped him re-tape his sword and took my tourney chest out to the side of the list field, after loading it with snacks and water for the day. Then it was time for armour inspection (of course he passed). He had made a new surcote for the occasion, so he looked good too, even if his borrowed helm is a bit rusty. There was time after inspection to braid his hair before the tourney.

The tournament had 22 couples sign up, but one couple had to withdraw. Even so this was the largest Crown List Drachenwald has ever had. The normal Drachenwald Crown is run as a round-robin tournament, with every fighter fighting every other fighter. But they knew that would take too long with this many, do they divided it into two fields, with approximately equal skill levels on each (dividing up the knights, etc.). They also took some care to make certain that fighters who live in the same town aren't on the same field, unless there were more than two of them, in which case they tried to split them up equally. They had someone to fight the bye-fights, so that every fighter would get to face ten opponents on their field. Then the best three from each field faced one another for a second round-robin list, and finally the best two from that did a final round.

Before the tournament started was the invocation of the lists, where heralds presented each couple and boasted on their behalf. Except for two couples. When it was our turn instead of delegating our boast to a Herald I introduced myself and told everyone present that I considered myself the most fortunate of a consorts present, because my champion:

Wilhelm, son of Mar, was born to be a warrior
For he swings his sword with grace and beauty as he fights
His speed and fluid movement, as he dances o're the field
brings joy to all who witness as he enters in the fray.

Yet Wilhelm, son of Mar, is more than just a warrior,
true he swings his sword with grace and beauty as he fights,
yet his courtesy and service, as he lends a helping hand
brings joy to all who witness, as he often saves the day.

Wilhelm, son of Mar, is my heart's most favoured warrior
as he swings his sword with grace and beauty as he fights.
He will carry well my favour, as I send him to the field
and he'll bring joy to all who witness as he enters in the fray.

The other couples who choose not to use a herald, it was the fighter who spoke, and praised his wonderful consort, and then briefly introduced himself. Before the tourney Wilhelm said that his goal was, as always, to have fun, and he wanted to make the other fighters work. He achieved his goal, with many good, fun fights. He managed four victories, and three other fights were closely matched and lasted a while. He even managed to lay stick on them, but due to timing issues between when he stepped and when he swung just that moment, didn't have the power needed to take those bouts. The only fast bout he had was when Morales managed a beautiful single shot to his face before Wilhelm had time to do anything, which is pretty impressive considering how quick my champion is.

Once they moved on to semi finals Wilhelm took the opportunity to pull out his phone and report on the remainder of the tournament as it happened, so that the people watching the day via FB could know how it went. After the tournament Josie and I went down to the market and Wilhelm went to fight pickups. I managed to refrain from buying anything, but she wound up getting a couple of gifts. She even gave me one--a lovely cloak clasp in my colours!

Then I took a 40 minute nap and got up on time for the banquette, which was served at 15:00, which meant that I got to eat! Josie had saved us a place at the end of one of the tables, which turned out to be perfect, as the servers were able to easily find me to bring me the special vegetarian no-wine or vinegar dishes that had been prepared (or in some cases just set aside before adding sauce) for me. There was a bit of time after feast to visit with people before court, during which time Josie wound up making friends with a little girl from Finland (the daughter of the Baron and Baroness--the same child whose company I enjoyed when I was at an event in Kaarnemaa year or so ago) who is really good at English. She sat between us for Court, and was delightful company. Court opened with the Pelican ceremony, which, of course, was full of praise for the wonderful Ingrid, followed by a variety of other well-deserved awards for others. Then the Prince and Princess held court, and towards the end of their court the little girl asked "will it be done soon?" I had insider info about one piece of business in the King and Queen's court that hadn't happened yet, so I told her that there was still more to go, at which point the girl relaxed again and waited patiently. Very soon thereafter the court was passed back to the Crown, and not long thereafter they called up Mistress Victoria to give her a Writ summoning her to Coronation (which is being hosted by her local group), where she will sit vigil for the Order of the Laurel. Then court was ended and we kids were free to go play (and, in my case, do yoga).

Not long after court the room was cleared for dancing, and I danced for all of the first set and much of the second before I realised that since I would need to do all of the driving home perhaps I should go to bed. I did pause to say goodnight to a few more people, and chatted with each of them for longer than I should have, but still made it to bed just after midnight. I got up just before 06:00 and started packing. After I got my stuff organised I went to breakfast with the others. Just after breakfast, as I was driving the car around to the door, it started raining lightly, but not enough to interfere with loading the car. While we were loading it turned into pretty light, fluffy (and very wet) snowflakes, and I jumped for joy at the beauty of it (some of the others on site were not impressed).

We managed to get the car loaded and started driving (Josie at the wheel) just before 10:00. We took her to one of the suburbs north of Stockholm, where she was going to meet a friend, and dropped her off an hour and a half later. From there home I had to do all of the driving. When we reached Umeå we dropped off Hampus's stuff at his place, and he grabbed a couple of things to take north with him, then we dropped Jessica off at her place just after 20:00. While we were unloading her stuff my phone rang; it was Hjalmar wondering if we were back yet, and reminding me that I was supposed to pick up the stuff that Linda had left with him for me when she moved to the UK. Since I was feeling a bit tired I decided that it was a good idea to head to his place, where Wilhelm helped Hjalmar eat his dinner and I took a 20 minute nap.

I woke up as Hjalmar was trying on a suit coat that doesn't fit quite right--bigger in the waist than he needs, but a bit tight across the chest if he buttons it. He was wondering if it could be altered to solve that problem, and I thought that it could. So I took the time to pin it at the lower back to show how much fabric could be taken away there to make a better fit at the waist, which fabric could then be split in two at the mid seam, and each segment inserted between an arm and the front of the jacket. I think it will work, and it will be interesting to see how it comes out, but I didn't have time to stay for the cutting, and we got back on the road.

I am so glad that Wilhelm agreed to head all the way home with me, as the conversation kept me awake enough to drive. We got home at 00:30 and opted to only unload the things that really needed to come in right away (pillows! food that wanted to go into the fridge, glasses case, toothbrush) the rest we left for the night. We did yoga, I found him a pillow for the guest bed, and I was in bed by 01:30.

Monday I managed to go to work, but I didn't accomplish as much as I would have liked. Tuesday morning I put Wilhelm on a bus home and I went to the office and had a very productive day, but didn't get to bed till almost 02:00, which meant that I was still tired when I woke up at 05:30 to go pick Josie up from the train station (train arrived at 06:30). Therefore I didn't bother to get dressed--just went in my pyjamas. How wonderful to be able to do that, and not need to stop and put on a bra first!

Then I took a nap, and went in to work around 10:00, where I wasn't as productive as I would have liked. That evening was Josie's last in town, so David, Caroline, and Julia all made it over to hang out with her one last time (I took a nap on the couch after work and before Josie and I went out to the store to pick up more alvadon (while it doesn't *hurt*, I do have enough discomfort in the upper chest area (not where the incision is, which kinda surprised me) that I am taking pills for it every so often, and, since there was still a reliable care available, some bags of dirt that I will use for planting kale when I get back from the UK, by which time the snow should have finished melting. When we got back from the errands I had time to bake a quick coffee cake with red currants in it before the others arrived. We had a delightful evening, and I went to bed before 23:00.

I didn't need to drive Josie to the airport this morning, since she had to return the rental car. Therefore, while I woke up to hug her goodbye when she left at 05:30, I went back to sleep for another 20 minutes before getting up with enough energy to take my trike into work. I had a productive day running an experiment in the lab, then came home, ate too much food, had a nap, and then drove in to Frostheim's monthly crafts night, picking up Louise on the way. Had a delightful evening there, and then picked up my computer from my office and brought it home.

In other news, When I was in Seattle at the end of November/beginning of December I should have applied for the next round of student aid from the Swedish government, but never thought of it. When I first got back I did think of it, and went to their web page, but was obviously not thinking clearly, because I saw the little box notification saying that they had received my application, and a date, and foolishly thought it meant I didn't need to do anything. Some time later I thought to look at their web page again, realised that the date in that box was last school year's info (remember I started my program in January), and I was already late to be applying for this year. oops!

So I quickly turned in everything I thought they needed. They replied with a "send us the following", I did that, and they replied with a "no, we need an official letter from your school saying that you are approved to continue studies" (something not available on Durham's "self-service portal", so I contacted a human and got such a letter printed.

Yesterday I got the good news that my application was approved, and the bad news that one only gets back-dated money for studies for four weeks before the application date, which, in my case, was 22 Feb. So I am out a bit of money for part of January. Good thing I realised I needed to apply when I did. On the other hand, when I looked at the list of payments I will be getting, I see that even without the bit I applied to late for the total for the year will still be a little more than I got last year.

But now it is after midnight, and I need to do my yoga and get some sleep. I think I won't bother to set an alarm, but just sleep till I wake and then work from home.

Earlier this year I was put in touch with a woman at the Silvermuseet in Arjeplog, who, my contact tells me, had collected a fair bit of soapstone artefacts from the Viking Age. When I wrote to her she replied that they were really busy just then with some applications, but perhaps I could come visit in March? Since Josie would be here for all of March and wanted to do at least one road trip that wasn't for an SCA event, I replied that March was perfect, and we agreed on Friday the 22nd, but didn't discuss a time.

When my surgery was scheduled for the 14th I wondered how I would be doing and if I would be up for that trip, but decided to wait till after surgery--if I needed to cancel the trip, then doing so early in the week would probably be fine, and if not there was no need to to let her know that I had wondered if I would be up for it. But the first half of the week was busy, and I didn't get around to writing her till Wednesday evening to ask if we were still on for Friday, and what time would be good for her? Given that it is a three hour drive to Arjeplog from here Josie and I decided that it would make sense to head out Thursday evening, so that we would have the day there on Friday. Then Josie decided that she didn't want to drive after dark, which meant we should go Thursday afternoon.

When I didn't see a reply to my email on Thursday morning I tried calling the lady, but her office phone didn't answer, and the mobile number she sent didn't work at all. So I tried the main museum number, and the lady I spoke with (in Swedish!) explained that my contact was in Piteå giving a lecture, but she would contact her for me and ask her to give me a call. While waiting for the call we finished packing and loading up the car, taking longer about it than normal, since I still need to take it easy. About 15:00, right when we really should have been leaving if we wanted to get there before full dark, I she finally called, to say that yes, tomorrow is still good, but she isn't available till 14:00.

At which point Joise and I decided that it would make more sense to stay home one more night, and head out in the morning. So we changed our hotel reservations to Friday night instead, did a short visit to Gammelstad, relaxed a bit, and then did yoga and went to bed early.

Today, if we get on the road in good time, we should have time to stop by Storforsen on the way.

My flights home (Wed/Thursday 12-13 Dec) went smoothly, and I made all of my connections in good time. On the first flight I wound up with a middle seat, sitting next to a lady who was a delightful conversationalist, so we chatted for the first half of the flight to Chicago, and then tried to nap. On my next flight I got the window seat, and the row was only the two seats wide just there. Before we took off, but after they announced that boarding had been completed I pointed out to the man seated next to me that one row up, on the other side of the aisle, there was only one person in the row of four seats, so if he moved he could have two seats to himself, leaving me two, and the other lady on that row could have two. However, he declined to move, which meant that every time I wanted to get up he wound up getting up to let me out (it is an eight hour flight), save for the one time where he was deeply enough asleep that I was able to stand on the seat and hop over him. However, by the time I returned from the loo he was awake and stood up to let me back in. I didn’t sleep as well as if he had moved so I could have laid down, but at least I did get some sleep leaning against the wall. That flight landed in Stockholm Lucia morning, which meant that I didn’t get to be in the choir Lucia performance in Luleå, since they were already done sining by the time I reached Stockholm. However, I was delighted to wake up that morning and head to the loo just on time to see the flight crew taking their selfies in their Lucia gowns, with tinsel in their hair, before serving breakfast. Sadly, they didn’t sing as they pushed the cart down the isle, which I think they ought to have done, since they were dressed for it.

My last flight I got a whole row of three seats to myself, so I managed to sleep for most of that 1.5 hours in the air, waking only on time to go to the loo before we started the serious decent into Luleå. David had a meeting at work (at his new job at LTU), so I took a cab home and had time to unpack everything before he finished his meeting and came out to the house for his lunch break. I decided not to try working that day, but instead enjoyed being at home, where I did my first real workout in weeks, took a nap, checked mail, etc. That evening the Luleå Bug and Swing dance society had a Lucia/Christmas dance on, so David, Caroline, and I went out to it. They had a “dance bingo” game on, with cards printed for everyone with types of people we might dance with. The squares had things ranging from “wearing a red shirt” to “student” to “doesn’t like sill (pickled herring)”, and, of course, many more. They had prizes for the first five people to complete a single row, and another for the first person to fill in the whole page. This meant that everyone was looking for new people to dance with each tune, which, in turn, meant that I normally had a dance partner, though there were a couple of dances I did on my own. Late in the evening I started noticing how tired I was from not having had much in the way of quality sleep during the 26 hour journey home, so I decided to be sensible and do yoga while the others kept dancing. My timing was perfect, as the turned off the music and started cleaning up the hall just as I finished my yoga for the night, which meant I could go home and go straight to sleep.

Friday 14 Dec I was awake just after 06:00, did the 45 minute walk to the office, and was at work by 08:00. No one else was in yet in my corridor, so I started clearing out my in-box and trying to remember where I had left off before leaving. After a while the post-doc in the next office came in, and let me know that they had had a problem with the laser the week before, which they didn’t email me about. They had no He flowing in the line, and heard a hissing sound from inside the machine, so they opened the case and saw that the He tubes had come off from their attachment points inside the machine. So they turned off the flow at the wall, re-attached the tubes, adding clamps this time to keep them from loosening, and then started with the normal morning start up tasks. At which point they realised that the laser needed an ArF gas exchange, as it no longer was able to get to full power, so decided to just wait till I was home to deal with that.

So I went down to the lab, turned on the laser, did the gas exchange, saw that it was back to full power, tried turning on the He, told the computer to start the He flowing at 750 ml/s (as we always use) between the laser and the ICP-MS to clear out the oxygen that had gotten into the lines when they were open to the room, but the computer said 20 ml/s. I said “that’s odd”, and tried again. Same result. I went upstairs and asked the post doc to show me what she had done, and we opened it up, she showed which tubes had opened, and where she reattached them, and everything looked fine. We tried sliding the compartment back into place, and could hear a hissing noise, at which point the computer registered that there was lots of He flowing through the line. We pulled the compartment back out, and the hissing stopped, and the measured flow rate went back to nothing. Further investigation revealed that if the tubes that they had reattached get bent at all then a gap opens up where they attach, despite the clamps they had added, and the He vents to the room. This made it clear that there is some sort of blockage within the line itself, further up the line from where the flow rate is measured, that we couldn’t see. Therefore I sat down and sent a detailed email to the service address for both the ICP-MS company (with whom we have the service contract for both machines, since the one is useless without the other for us), and a cc to the Laser company.

Some hours later, when I had had no reply, I tried calling the ICP-MS company. The person who answered said that she would transfer me to someone who could help, but I got disconnected, so I decided to wait a bit to see if that was enough poking to get them to reply to the email. A bit later I was feeling sleepy, so lay down on the camping mat I keep in my office for such occasions, and woke half an hour later to discover that I had missed a call. Called the number back, and got a recording saying that they close at 15:30 on Fridays (it was 15:35). So I looked at email and saw a note from someone at the ICP-MS company saying that she had tried calling and would try again later. Replied to say that I needed the problem solved ASAP, and could even com in during the weekend if needed.

I kept myself busy in the office till time to head to Phire’s training session, where I did some acroyoga, some juggling practice, and some staff spinning. I also agreed to join a choreography for the Fire Show that Phire was doing for the Frostheim Jul event the next day, and we walked through the timing so that I would know when it was my turn to preform. I stayed up working on projects till midnight, then checked email and updated my financial records from the trip, and finally did my yoga and got to bed around 04:00.

Needless to say I slept in on Saturday (15 Dec), enjoyed a leisurely breakfast over email, and then wandered over to our neighbours Advent Fika when it started around 14:00. I didn’t stay long as Oscar was going to be meeting a potential buyer for his old, damaged car, that he has been storing at our house, at 15:00, and I wanted to be home, since we had the spare key in the house. After they were done (that buyer didn’t take it, but the one who came a few days later did, which means that we can now use the tractor to plow snow to the far side of the shed again) my friend Max came up to visit. He lives about an hour south, and recently got his driver’s licence, so is enjoying being able to travel. He, I, David, and Caroline went to go see the Crimes of Grindewald that evening, which ended at midnight, so Max stayed over and returned home the next day. I found the movie a bit confusing—too many action scenes wherein I couldn’t really tell what was happening—there is a reason I prefer books! I followed much of the plot, but not the parts where people were fighting or running, or whatever it was that was happening.

I wound up going to sleep before 03:00 that night, even though I had company, and after five hours sleep I woke up Sunday the 16th inspired to do a workout, so I did. Max got up around 9:00 and we enjoyed some food together before he went home and I made a spinach pie for the Frostheim Jul potluck that evening. That was a nice, low-key event, with good food, good company, and the Fire Show. It was about -20 C that evening, so I wore my puffy wool viking trousers over my normal wool tights and wool Thorsberg trousers, and put an old wool tunic under my wool jester tunic for the performance. This turned out to be enough layers, with the hood, hat, boots, and mittens.

The event wrapped up early, and I was home by 20:30, which was good as Ursula had asked for someone to beta read some fan-fic for her, and that gave me time to do it. I enjoyed the story and took the time to type up some very specific details as to what I liked, and ways that I thought it could work even better, and why. That night I managed to get to sleep just after 01:00, and woke after 4.5 hours, which meant that, including the 45 minute walk to work, I was in the office just before 08:00 on Monday 17 December.

I had sent an email the night before to the ICP-MS company letting them know that I would be in the office from 08:00 and please get back to me as soon as possible. Therefore when the phone rang an hour or so after I arrived, I thought it was them. Indeed, the name she gave sounded the same over the phone as the one that signed the email on Friday, and she was asking about the Laser. However, the call didn’t proceed the way I expected it to, as she kept wanting to know when I could expect the laser to be fixed, and I kept asking her when she was going to send a technician. Eventually we figured out that I was mistaken about who had called—that it was the researcher who had been scheduled to use the laser that week, to whom I had sent a “sorry, the machine is broken, will get back to you as soon as it works again” email on Friday. Oops, that was a bit embarrassing. Sometime thereafter I got an email from the ICP-MS company saying that she would be getting a technician in touch with me ASAP. Soon after that message arrived there was another message, addressed to her, and cc’d to me from the OLD laser company, letting her know that the laser part of that company had been bought out just over a year ago, and they were no longer the people to contact. I laughed when I saw it, as I had cc’d the correct company when I sent Friday’s message.

After an hour or two with no further word it occurred to me that perhaps the person at the ICP-MS company who had been handed my case didn’t actually have the contact details for the new laser company, so I shot her another email giving her their official service address email and the direct phone numbers and email addresses of a couple of their technicians. She soon replied with thanks, as she didn’t, in fact have that information. Sigh. You’d think that the company would keep their employees informed about these details—I know that some people at the ICP-MS company knew about the sale of the laser company, as they had managed to arrange a routine service for the laser after that transition (though it took way longer than normal to set up, in part because some employees of the old laser company had transfered to the new, some had stayed with the old, and others had jumped ship, so they were understaffed with technicians).

At that point I realised that there wouldn’t be any progress that day on fixing the laser, so I walked home just before 14:00, got a nap, and ate left over event food for an early dinner. Julia arrived a bit after 17:00, and we spent the evening doing a massage trade (which my arms/shoulders really needed after doing the workouts the past couple of days). She went home just after nine, and I should have done my yoga and gone to bed straight away, but I was inspired to type up the second half of my Seattle trip, and I found a message from a laser company technician (that he had sent just before quitting for the day) with questions on details about the laser issues, some of which I could answer that evening, so I did (and let him know when I would be in the lab the next day) which meant that it was pushing almost 02:00 before I got to bed.

Tuesday, 18 December I managed 4.5 hours sleep, walked to the office, and was there just after 08:00. I went straight to the lab and tried the tests he’d sent me, and emailed him a report. This caused him to decide that it is probably the little box that controls the valves in the He line that are a problem, and he ordered a replacement part. Given that it was nearly Christmas we decided that he would just ship me the part and I could try to change it myself when it arrives (he assures me that it is “plug and play”, since there was no way he could make a trip up till well into January.

So he sent the details to the ICP-MS company (who would need to pay for the part as it is part of the service contract), and I waited. After a bit I poked the lady at the ICP-MS company and she said she would take care of it and let me know as soon as she had a tracking number. Still I hung out in the office till time for Phire practice (more acroyoga and juggling) and then met David and Caroline after practice to go grocery shopping and then get a ride home afterwards.

That evening I got to bed before 01:00, and slept for nearly 8 hours! Wednesday, 19 December (mom’s birthday), I took the bus to the office, but managed only three hours work all day. I did get to talk with my colleagues and let them know the status of the laser saga, but I kept thinking of mom, and wasn’t focusing much. Eventually the ICP-MS company got me the shipping details, but they said that FedEx would deliver the part by 18:00 on the 28th of December (at which point I highly doubt anyone will be at LTU’s post and goods office to receive it). At that point I decided to just give up pretending to work and took my computer home, with the intent to “work from home” till either the part arrived or January, whichever came first.

Since there was Phire practice that evening, and normally just stay on campus for it, I came up with a brilliant plan, and called David to get it implemented. He approved of the plan, and I wandered to the next building, where his office is, and spent some minutes hanging out with him and Gunnar (an SCA friend who also works in LTU’s IT department) in their break room (his computer was busy compiling something, and he needed to wait anyway). Then I took his car key, walked over to Caroline’s apartment (10 minutes away), got his car and drove home, where I relaxed with a book and had a nap before it was time to drive back in with the car (which David needed that evening) and go to Phire practice. After practice Villiam and I walked back to my house (well, he was walking his bike, so for the down hill bits, of which there aren’t many, I sat on his luggage rack over the back tire while he peddled) and we worked on sewing projects that evening.

I have started making a leather cover for the Kindle Beth gave me so that it will (if all goes the way I hope it will) look like a real book. He went home around 22:00, since he had to work in the morning, but I stayed up doing email and chatting with friends on line till 02:30. However, I slept in till after 11, so I got more than 8 hours sleep.

Thursday 20 Dec I made no attempt whatsoever to work, but instead worked on stuff around the house, read a book, did email, researched period book binding, etc. That evening David, Caroline, Villiam and I went to an amazing concert by Kraja, a four-woman vocal ensemble who do beautiful harmonies together. We had bought four tickets because mom was supposed to have been here by now, and I sure do wish that she had still been alive to have made that trip, she would have loved them. It was nice to have Villiam’s company for it, and he enjoyed it too, but damn, mom would have been really impressed. (Why can’t I type that without crying? Never mind, I know why, carry on, I will be fine in a minute or three, or eventually, anyway. I only cried a few times during the show thinking about it, and I don’t think anyone noticed.) After the concert I was up late talking over skype with Thorvald in Canada, and didn’t get to sleep till almost 03:00, and then slept not quite six hours.

Friday, 21 December I also made no attempt whatsoever to work (I am getting kinda behind, and you know what, I don’t really care, yet) and nothing particularly noteworthy happened. I did manage to get to bed just after midnight that night, which gave me nearly 7 hours of sleep before it was time to get up Saturday morning (22 December) and get ready to go. David, Caroline, and I went down to David’s parents’ (Irene and Bror) house for an early Christmas. His mom decided that she didn’t want the whole family at once this time, so we took it in shifts—our turn was with David’s little brother Gustaf, his wife Jenny, their kids Vincent and Malin, and Jenny’s parents (whose names I have never learnt, though I see them pretty much every Christmas, but I would recognise them anywhere I happened to run into them). I gather that some of David’s other siblings came up from down south to spend Christmas with the parents, but I haven’t seen them to confirm or deny this assumption).

We arrived at their place at 10:00, and first spent a bit of time loading some of the boards that David had sawed on previous visits onto the trailer and got them tied into place and covered with a tarp, ready to bring home with us later. (We can’t put so much on the trailer at one go—too heavy, so every session he has been sawing trees into lumber has meant more wood than can be transported that day. This load is, however, probably the second to last load we need to bring home from what he cut this autumn.)

The traditional Swedish Julboard contains lots of food, but not so much that I eat:

The lunch half of the Julbord at David's family's house this year (served at 11:40—we got there too late to eat the traditional rice porridge for breakfast):



(numbers from left to right, and top to bottom)

1. Gräddeost (a mild hard cheese made from cream)
2. Knäckebröd (crisp bread: ~7 mm thick and dark; store-bought?)
3. Tunnbröd (thin bread: ~1 mm thick and pale; baked at home in the wood oven)
4. Wafers (no idea what they call them, thin, crisp, patterned; store-bought?)
5. Mjukbröd (soft bread: 7 mm thick and pale; baked at home in the wood oven)
6. Blend of butter and rapeseed oil
7. Hard boiled eggs
8. Caviar (orange eggs in sour cream to eat on the eggs)
9. Pickled cucumbers
10. Leverpastej (liver pate)
11. Potatoes
12. Pickled beets
13. Prinskorv (Prince sausages; probably not made from real princes)
14. Sill (three different types of pickled herring)
15. Another jar of something I have forgotten
16. Sillsallad (pickled herring and potato)
17. Fish casserole
18. Applesauce
19. Kallrökt lax (cold smoked salmon)
20. Gravad lax (salmon cured in salt, sugar & dill)
21. Cream
22. Ham, studded with cloves and with some sort of breading on the outside, roasted
23. Dried prunes
24. Salad containing peas and other veg in mayonnaise and other stuff
25. Kale-sour cream with mustard
26. mustard

Since I don’t like fish, ham, rapeseed oil, or anything containing vinegar, and prefer only home baked breads of the above list I ate: # 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 18. I could also have eaten 21, but David’s mom had told me that #25 was kale and sour cream, so, since I love kale, I took that, thinking it would be nice to add some fat to the potato. Sadly, what she didn’t tell me was that it also contains mustard, and the vinegar flavour from that was so strong I had to give mine to David, and didn’t feel for getting up to get the cream to pour on the potato, so ate it plain and dry.

We sat at the table and talked for a long time over lunch, and eventually moved to the living room, where the kids unwrapped their gifts, and they served home-made Christmas candies at around 14:00. I don’t eat any of the chocolate candies, as I never learnt to like chocolate, but they had three types of non-chocolate fudge, and some knäck (Christmas butterscotch toffee with almonds), which is really yummy. I may have eaten three of each (yes, that adds up to 12 pieces of home made candy! Good thing I never eat store-bought candy.). I didn’t feel any guilt about it, either.

We sat down to dinner just after 16:00, when the other half of the traditional Julbord was served:



1. Gräddeost (a mild hard cheese made from cream)
2. Blend of butter and rapeseed oil
3. Knäckebröd (crisp bread: ~7 mm thick and dark; store-bought?)
4. Tunnbröd (thin bread: ~1 mm thick and pale; baked at home in the wood oven)
5. Wafers (no idea what they call them, thin, crisp, patterned; store-bought?)
6. Mjukbröd (soft bread: 7 mm thick and pale; baked at home in the wood oven)
7. Salad: cucumber, tomato, orange, romaine lettuce
8. Left over candy trays
9. Svartvinbärssylt (black currant jam)
10. Lingonssylt (lingon jam)
11. Salad containing peas and other veg in mayonnaise and other stuff
12. Pork ribs cooked in a gravey
13. Roasted moose
14. “omelette” (the eggs, cream, and cheese filling that is used for Västerbottensostpaj)
15. Potatoes
16. Mashed root veg casserole
17. Moose meat balls

Even though I eat mostly vegetarian, my reasons for doing so have to do with the effect store-bought meat has on my digestion, a problem I don’t have with moose. Therefore I do better with dinner, and I ate: #1, 4, 7, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17.

But at 17:00 was the moment I was waiting for all day, they served the risalmalta, or, as I call it, the food of the gods. Yum! I should have stopped at one bowl full. I did eat a second, smaller, bowl full. I was strong and did not eat a third.

I also managed to mostly not eat any of the home-made cookies that they served at 19:00, but David handed me one, so I did eat that one. Soon thereafter I was tired and took a nap on the couch, and when I woke up half an hour later I discovered that Gustaf and family had taken the kids and Jenny’s parents home and the others were helping put the kitchen back together. So I helped out with that, and then David and I teamed up against Caroline and Bror for a game of När då då?, a fun board game that involves having to guess if things happened before or after other things that you already have on your time line. The things can be from any time in history, and in any category, from architecture, to science, to politics, to battles, to sports, to births of famous people, etc.

After that David and his dad started talking with one another, and Caroline and Irene started talking with one another, but all four were sitting at the same table, and both conversations were moving pretty fast so I couldn’t follow either conversation, between not yet being perfect in Swedish and the hearing problem. So I gave up and read a book for a while, then did my yoga, and then sat down on the corner of the table, where it was easier to hear only one of the conversations, which I could then sorta follow along, though it was still a challenge, even though the noise from the other was reduced.

We finally left for the hour drive home (it is faster when not pulling a trailer) around midnight, and I was smart enough to not touch the computer before bed, though I did read for another half an hour.

I had thought to try to get this journal caught up to the present before going to bed, but it is pushing midnight, and according to the tracking information the part was delivered today, so I should go in tomorrow and see if I can figure out how to insert it into the laser, so the rest will have to wait. Besides, there is still yoga to do today…

On Wednesday this week I had a couch surfer, Elena, who is originally from Russia, but has been living in the States for 25 years, having married an American. He died some time back, and she decided that she doesn't much like the way things are going in the US, so she left. She has been travelling since March, and has come north in hopes of seeing snow and Northern Lights. Her next stop will be back to Russia, where she will move back into the flat she has owned all along. Up until this autumn a cousin of hers has been using it, but she is ready to move on to something else at just about the same time that Elena is ready to return home.

I had her meet me at the gym for Phire practice, where we showed her some acroyoga moves, we played a bit on the aerial silks, and she taught us some partner yoga stretches. Then she and I had a pleasant walk home and sat up chatting for a fair bit thereafter. She had been to the Gammelstad Church Village (which is a World Heritage Site) already, so I recommended to her that she go to Storforsen while she was in the area, and we looked on line to determine that it is possible to get there at this time of the year via public transit. There is a set of buses that one could take from my place that would get one to the hotel by the rapids at 12:30, and another set of buses that would leave the hotel at 16:30 and get one back to my place at 20:30. Alternatively, one could rent a car for the afternoon for about the same price as a flight to Stockholm from here, so she thought the bus was a better option, and we agreed to take the first bus together in the morning on my way to work.

Thursday morning she wasn't feeling so well, and decided not to take the bus out there, especially as I only needed to go to work for a short time (having already put in my 20 hours for the week), so we could do something together after work. As I was walking in I talked to David on the phone (who was driving to Umeå, four hours south of here) for work, and asked him if it would be possible to borrow his car to drive out to Storforsen, and he said yes, but I would need to get the key from Caroline.

She was able to give me her apartment key between her classes at 10:00, so I walked over, got the car key, drove back to Uni, returned her apartment key, and then went home and picked up Elena and we drove out to Storforsen (stopping on the way for her to fill the tank with gas), arriving at 12:30 (same time she could have been there had she taken that bus).

We then spent a lovely 45 minutes wandering around the park, where she took many photos and some videos of the rapids. It was about -10 C, so even though there is no snow, there was beautiful, thick, crystalline frost everywhere. Eventually we were both quite cold, so we went into the visitor center (which was actually open till 15:00--I would have expected it to have been closed for the season already), where I spent too much money on a pair of reindeer skin mittens lined with fluffy wool. Then we drove home, getting there just after 15:00, so about an hour and a half earlier than the bus would have even departed Storforsen.

This gave us time to bake a black currant cobbler (using lots of cream that had been left over from Norrskensfesten in the topping). My friend Julia joined us, and David got back from Umeå on time to help us eat it, and we four had a delightful evening visiting.

Friday morning Elena headed north to Kiruna and I slept in (10 hours of sleep that night!), spent some time catching up on email and then took a nap. When I got up again I made a yummy soup of potato, carrot, Brock, and spinach, which I blended to a lovely green. I had just time to eat it before hopping on my trike and heading to Phire practice, after which Villiam followed me home (and I fed him breakfast--the boy hadn't eaten all day, since he isn't hungry when he first gets up in the mornings, so he didn't eat before work, and then after work he had only time to go directly to head directly to practice) and kept me company as I finished up the nålbindning for leash I was making for the new mittens. He went home just before 23:00, and I took a moment to check the computer to see if any important messages had come in, to find one from my sister letting me know that mom was back in the Emergency room, this time with fluid in the lungs which "they suspect is a result of some issues with her heart".

Needless to say that news worried me, and even at that point I suspected that this could prevent her planned trip to visit me next month. As a result I didn't go sensibly to bed, but sat at the computer for another hour, when I heard a sound from the other room of something falling and smashing. So I got up and went looking, to discover that David's aloe vera plant had leapt off of the window ledge, and was lying on the floor in a pile of broken ceramic pot bits, loose dirt, and goo from its broken leaves. I did my best not to think this symbolic, got the plant upright again, cleaned up the mess, and finally managed to go to sleep till about 03:00 that night, after chatting with friends on line for distraction. No new updates on her status came in till 04:00, so I didn't see them till I got up at 07:00, by which time Beth had reported that they had cleared a blockage in the same stent that had gotten blocked back in August. While there they put in a second stent, and that mom was slowly waking back up from the sedation.

So I baked some crescent rolls filled with raspberry and almond and Julia picked me up to head to the home of Linda, one of the Phire people, who was hosting a house warming brunch. We arrived at the same time as Villiam and Annette, and soon thereafter Ellinor also joined us. We had a delightful time eating too much good food and chatting, and finally returned home a bit after 14:00.

David and Caroline arrived not too long thereafter and he and I got the Frostheim hot tub up on its blocks and levelled, then discussed the plans for the new carport for the tractor we are going to build along the side of the shipping container, behind the sheds. Then they decided that since the plant had gotten too tall to stand on its own they would cut off and keep the top bit, and the rest could be gotten rid of. Since they were tossing so many leaves I decided to experiment with them and see if I could make a hair conditioner from them. One web page I read suggested that mixing fresh aloe vera gel with coconut oil makes a good conditioner. However, that page suggested 2 T of gel, and the discarded leaves yielded a full cup of it. I had only 1/3 cup of coconut oil left in the house(which already had vanilla powder in it), so that was how much I mixed in. I had thought to freeze it in small batches for later use, but the gel is mostly water, which means that cooling it causes the oil to float to the top and solidify. Therefore, in an attempt to get them to blend better (and stay blended), I picked off the solid oil and blended it with 1/4 cup of oat flour, after which I blended it with the gel again. This seemed to help. I will report back later if it is any good as a conditioner, after I actually use it.

Eventually they went back to the apartment, and I checked in to see the latest updates in mom's current saga, and then went to bed early, since we had plans to be out the door early on Sunday. Today David picked me up at 07:00 and we went out to his parent's house, where we turned logs into boards. He ran the saw, and my job was to clean off the saw dust and stack the boards neatly, with plenty of room for air to circulate around them. Since it was about -4 C the saw dust needed to be scrapped off with a metal scraper before using the brush on the boards. We worked from a bit before 09:00 to just after 15:00 (which was all the light that was available for the day, though we did take a half an hour for a quick lunch). Then we had tea (and more food) with his parents before heading back home.

During the drive I checked back in to see that my sisters had posted some not so encouraging news about mom's status. Her heart is doing poorly enough that they needed to put in a balloon pump to keep it beating, but she is still with us for now. She was doing well enough when we got home that I was able to do a quick phone call with her. She sounded upbeat, but weak (apparently she hasn't been sleeping well in the hospital).

David and I unhooked the trailer, then drove out to Storheden, where I did some quick grocery shopping at ICA, then picked up Caroline and her groceries, drove her home, and then returned to the house so that we could put the boards into the shed. As we got close to the house David told me that he was in need of some alone time, so he went out to rearrange things in the second shed (since the neatly stacked pile of boards in the first shed from all of the other times he has cut logs at his dad's this autumn was getting a bit big to take more) and I went in to cook some food for tomorrow. Since David needed alone time, but I needed togetherness time I sent Villiam a note and asked if he could come over, which he did, arriving while I was still cooking. This was good, as David came in to call me out to help carry boards before the food was done, so Villiam was able to finish up the last step for me.

Then I fed both boys before David went back to the apartment, and Villiam hung out with me till 23:00, by which time I was feeling much better. We played piano (he plays improvisation stuff for a while then pauses, I press any random white key, and he continues the improv, repeat till we are tired of the game), and then we switched to the dulcimer, where he taught me to play a song he can play on the piano. It is amazing how much easier it is to learn a song from a person than from a piece of paper (though I did write down the notes so that I won't forget).

Now I should do my yoga and get to bed, since tomorrow is Monday, and I need to go to work. Hopefully I will wake up to good news on mom's health front.