kareina

several days

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 12:54:07 GMT

I had posted on Monday that it didn't feel like a monday (as it was a holiday)

my entry for Tuesday was "but today did. It was one of those days when I was tired all day and couldn't focus on work. Nothing interesting to report about it."

In contrast Wednesday's was: "now that is better. My equilibrium/ability to focus was back. I went to work, worked productively on the bus, and at work, and once home did some pre-packing for this weekend's trip to Crown Tourney before heading to choir practice.

It was the first time I had been since before Easter (and only the third time at all). Since my second week at choir was the last practice before their Easter performances at the church (which I wasn't willing to participate in, in part because too new to the songs, but mostly because church/religious songs), it wasn't as fun as my first visit to them. However, today's choir was much better--now that the pesky religious holiday is out of the way, they are working on traditional Swedish songs in praise of spring, many of which I already know from having sung with the choir in Luleå, so it was just a fun evening again. I guess I will keep going."

and for today (Thursday): a visit from my apprentice. While we were in Luleå last weekend Kakwkylla gave me some honey for Astrid, so today, after dropping her small child off at pre-school Astrid came here, and we worked together, with occasional breaks for snacks. It was really nice. I am, of course, trying to convince them that they want to buy one of the houses for sale in Lövånger. Astrid likes the idea, but convincing Josef might take more work.

Our flight tomorrow morning leaves at 06:00, so we need to be packed and ready before getting a nap tonight, so I will post this and get to work.

comments

it doesn't feel like a Monday

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 19:09:55 GMT

T oday Keldor finished putting up the last of the drywall between the downstairs loo and laundry room, and installed the ventilation tube between the wall and the ventilation box with the fan. Since he wanted the spackel he put up between the dry wall and the original wall to dry reasonably quickly he built a fire in the wood stove in the laundry room. This prompted me to clean the stove (before he lit the fire), and scrub and oil the baking plate from that oven. Then, when the oven had heated to level 2, I baked a batch of scones in the wood fired oven. This is the first time we have used it, and I am pleased that it worked. I hope we are never in situation where we can’t use electricity to cook at home, but if we are, and there is something to burn, we can cook. (the stove tops also get hot enough to cook—I put the Pyrex bowl with butter on top of the stove while the biscuits were baking, and had to take it off before the rolls were done, as the butter was not only melted, but bubbling)

In addition to baking with wood fire, I also did the painting for both his and my banners (Keldor arms silk painting and Kareina arms silk painting)

comments

Sunday adventures

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 19:07:51 GMT

Keldor woke me more than normal when he came in at 03:30 because he was so cold. He didn’t mean to wake me, but his legs and hips felt to me like he had been sitting in a snow bank before coming to bed.

It took a bit to fall back asleep, but he warmed up reasonably quickly after i added the extra blanket over our doona.

I slept in till after 07:00, so when I went downstairs Styrmir, Kakwkylla, and their dogs were already awake. My hips were aching, so I did some pliaties.

By the time I finished Alfarinn and Ranghild were up, and I picked back up sewing, as did Ranghild.

It was a a pleasant morning of company and projects. When brunch was served at 09:00 I woke Keldor to see if he wanted some. Yes, yes he did.

Just before noon we left and stopped by Kjartan and Caroline’s, where she was hosting a sewing afternoon for friends in her Middle Eastern dance troop, including Frida, the Archaeologist I worked with on the dig at Kirua. While I hubg out and xhatted with David, Keldor enjoyed chatting Norrland Archaeology with Frida. I would have enjoyed that conversation, too, but it was so good to see David, so I can’t mind missing it.

We spent perhaps 15 minutes or a half an hour there before continuing south. On the way home we dropped the Shire stuff we’d used at JMBards at the storage, and measured the space so now we know how much bigger is my preferred option for moving the storage to.

Once home we set up the pavilion he washed last week, and determined the new poles are about 20 cm longer than they need to be.

In the evening I finally traced Keldor’s arms onto the silk for his new banner

comments

a visit to Luleå

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 19:06:08 GMT

After my morning zoom call with my sisters I finished and sent my letter, and echoed it to my blog, by which time it was already closing on 10:00, and Keldor was thinking about getting up.

So we played Qwirkle, then packed sewing, snacks, and bedding and started north. First stop was to pick up a second hand bow and arrows that Keldor bought, then a quick stop at the store.

When we arrived at Kakwkylla and Styrmir’s house Ranghild and Alfarinn were already there. They had just eaten some saffranspannkaka, so Keldor and I happily finished up what they hadn’t eaten.

Then I started working on the calculations for the Tunic for Styrmir, with a short pause for a yummy bowl of soup, getting it cut out on time to join the others in the sauna and before I sewed the neckline.

comments

a letter sent

Sat, 04 Apr 2026 07:25:52 GMT

I mentioned in my blog post about JMBards that I got a bonus houseguest I hadn't met, a friend of a friend. I have always had good luck with making friends with friends of friends, and this was no exception. This time, however, we are not only keeping in touch, we are playing an email game I used to play with my sister back in the late 80's (before she had kids and had no more time to send letters). We would exchange letters, putting a new word in the subject line of each message, which the recipient would then have to use in their reply. This was fun, and made for much more interesting letters, as one needed to work the assigned word into the letter in as natural a way as possible, and we delighted in giving the other words that we might not even know (this is how I learned the word callipygian, for example).

Having just sent a rather long letter (wherein my assigned word was "radicalized"), I will copy it here (lightly edited), too.

( the letter )

comments

I like Friday's that are holidays, we get stuff done

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 21:42:14 GMT

got almost 9.5 hours sleep, then did 30 minutes pilates. Then lost a game of Qwirkle to Keldor before putting a coat of primer paint on the laundry room side of the new wall in the cellar. While I painted Keldor finished cutting the trim for between the floor and the wall in the upstairs loo, and put up more insulation in the attic, and after the trim was in place I added some silicon caulking at the joints, and between it and the floor.

After getting the kitchen cleaned up after baking, I had just enough time to before yoga to paint the outline lines on the smallest of the knots in the attic loo. I really like the paint pens that Emma told us about this winter. They are so much nicer for doing a good outline on knotwork than using a paintbrush. Especially when working on a ladder in a corner like this.

During the various projects Rizza came over and cleaned the upstairs. I don’t think I will ever get tired of the joy of having my house cleaned while I am busy doing something else.

After the main renovation projects I took the time to bake some homemade crackers, a fun, if messy project. This process is made much easier by the pasta machine I was given by Colin when we lived together 20 years ago (how can it be that long already?). I don’t often use it for pasta, but it is perfect for cracker-making

After tonight’s yoga we finished up sewing the bag for the new/used (made out of the hammock we cut up to make seam binding). Now I really should get some sleep as I have my fortnightly sister’s call at 06:00, and we will be heading to Luleå to hang out with friends tomorrow.

comments

an early night

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 21:38:20 GMT

Keldor got a vaccine yesterday, so when he woke today his arm hurt and he had a fever, so decided to stay home. I had a meeting, and the next visit for the Swedish Glaucoma Nicotinamide Trial (SGNT), so I opted to go in, but, since the car was available, I grabbed a quick shower and he drove me to the bus stop.

On the bus the computer didn’t want to start the first several times, so I sent a note to IT, who explained that it is time to update my bios, so that might be why. So I backed up my foders that aren’t on OneDrive, and booked time for him to do that after my morning meeting.

I caught the bus home directy after my SGNT exam, and spent a lazy bit of tine on the couch with Keldor. He went to bed at 19:00, I did an hour of yoga, and went to bed just after 20:00.

comments

ideas heading nowhere, and that is ok too

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 21:36:34 GMT

Woke in the middle of the night to go use the toilet, and on the walk back to bed was struck with inspiration. I have often wished for water within reach of bed, so I didn’t have to get up to refill my water bottle.

We have discussed the possibility of putting an aquarium in the attic bedroom, built into the around the bed reading nook.

Would it be possible to run a cold-water only line over there, and a drainage sink? Not only could I fill my water bottle if I run out in the night, but then he wouldn’t need to carry water to the aquarium to refill it, and not need to carry bowls of water from the aquarium to clean it.

So I picked up my phone to make a note of the question, saw that I hadn’t plugged it in before sleeping, did so, and didn’t fall right back to sleep, so updated my logs, and then got back up to do a yoga session.

As a result, by the time I got back to bed, the dawn light had already started slowing waking up, but I got a nap till Keldor’s alarm went off. He really didn’t like the idea of a sink by the aquarium at all. Not one little bit. Sigh. I still like it, but without him on board there isn’t much point in discussing with the plumbers if it is possible.

During my lunch break I looked a the local real estate page, as one does now and then, and I see a property not far from here that is a decent size and a great price If I had a bit more in savings it would be tempted to just buy it and keep living here while we slowly fixed it up. Do any of you want a cheap fixer-upper with enough room to hold camping events? You could live in our guest room and work on it till it was liveable.

In other news, the cats are still seriously cute.

comments

a bit more energy today

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 21:34:23 GMT

It was a much better energy level day. Worked a full day, and a little extra so that I ended the month less than -10 hours for my flex tine calculations (it was more than -10 yesterday). I even managed to wash the bedsheets while working.

Keldor stayed late to add a water proofing liquid to the tent fabric, which is part of how I managed to make up the missing work hours. He had just finished when I put down the computer and called him.

After he got home, we started cutting the first two bits of trim for the attic bathroom loo floor then it was time for Reengarda officer meeting. Still no decision on if/where we will move storage, but before the next meeting we need to go to the existing storage and measure it.

During the meeting, and after, I sewed the first half of the container for Charlemange’s camera holder. Keldor fell asleep on the couch, so I stayed up later than I should have working on it, but the first half is done.

comments

tent washing

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 21:30:09 GMT

When the housekeepers were here on Saturday, they found the cat’s favourite toy, and left it on the shelf in the living room. This morning I saw it there, put it out in the middle of the room (both cats were in the kitchen eating just then), and turned around to hang the dust cover back over the extra monitor. As I did I wondered if I should do anything to call the cat’s attention to its return. I turned around to see Kali already happily chewing on it.

My work day was spectacularly unproductive, which I will blame on the time change. After work Keldor used the high pressure wash on the tent and hung it up to dry (he likes having access to the lifting thing):

After he got home we had time for Qwirkle before our evening zoom yoga/training session.

comments

Double Wars prep

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 11:25:34 GMT

I had forgotten that today was when clocks change, till I woke to head to the loo, and my phone said it was 04:00, so I wondered if I should just get up and di an early workout, but when I returned to bed the dawn light said 03:00, at it sounded much less appealing, so back to sleep I went, not waking again till the phone said 07:18. Keldor woke then, so we wound up talking for an hour before we got up and played Qwirkle over breakfast (I not only won, but got a record high score, for me, of 79 points).

Today was Reengarda’s crafts day in town, but we decided to stay home and work on our project here (this decision prompted in part by a discussion with my sister in Australia about fuel prices just now, and realising that it cost even more here than there).

So today was the day we fixed our newest tent. When we were in Lofoten last summer and needed something in the way of a roof over the outdoor smithy to keep rain out of the forge, they discovered that one of the geteld tents hadn’t been dry when it was put away last summer and was so mouldy that it would need to be thrown away. We pointed out that mouldy canvas couldn’t be hurt any more by smoke from the forge, and they agreed, so the back wall was sliced open with a knife, and it became a lovely sunshade:

At the end of our couple of weeks out there, when we took it down for the end of the season we realised that having it out in the sunlight, plus all the smoke from the forge had worked magic, and while discoloured, it no longer smelled of mould. We couldn’t bring ourselves to throw away that much canvas, so we rescued it.

Today it was time to fix it, so it will be usable at Double Wars. So we took a strip of canvas from a hammock Keldor found at a second hand store sometime this winter (the hammock looked new and unused) and sewed it (by hand) to the knife-cut tent wall. Keldor did the first pass of sewing, while I cleaned the dust off the under floor layer in the attic loo. (the rest of the hammock is a good size to make a bag for storing/transporting the tent).

Then I folded the strip of canvas over the seam and sewed down to seal in the cut edges, while he went upstairs and installed the linoleum floor.

Then he did top stitching through all the layers of the seam to strengthen it, while I painted the the first layer of paint on the wood trim that will go between wall and the floor.

Then we took the tent out and put a stick of rattan in the top channel of the tent, staled down the walls and lifted up the ridge pole and compared the tent height with pavilion poles from our sunshade. This tells us that we want uprights that are about 2 m, 30 or perhaps 40 cm tall, so he will make some.

Then we pack the tent fabric into the car. Tomorrow after work he will use the high pressure wash on it, and hang it to dry in the shop overnight. We don’t expect it to be perfect, but it should be useable for Double Wars. We have quite a few people who need crash space in tents in our camp, and the price for this one was right.

Then we curled up on the couch with some popcorn before I went down to paint the next layer of paint on the trim.

comments

a productive Saturday

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 11:24:38 GMT

I went to bed early last night, which meant that I woke early, too. I started my day with a quick pilates session, and finished washing all of Reengarda’s black sheets that we use as tablecloths at events.

Once Keldor got up around 07:00, we noticed that one of the center bed legs had fallen down, so we took everything out from under the bed, fixed the leg, vacuumed under there, and put things back in a better order, so nothing will get pushed against that leg and knock it over again.

Then we did a quick game of Qwirkle over breakfast (he points out he slaughtered me), and then started working on the house.

First up, trying to solve the problem with the cellar floors flaking in a few ares. When we bought the house there were places on both the walls and the floors that had been flaking, due to too much moisture. We solved most of that by just opening all of the ventilation in the cellar, which the previous owner had blocked with newspaper. But the closet we had spackeled and fixed the walls and floor before painting it four years ago is starting to have flaking issues again.

So Keldor bought some vents for the various doors, which we installed this morning. By the time that had been accomplished the last load of shire tablecloths we dry and ready to pack, so we could start working on the loo, where we got a far bit accomplished:

finish putting up the outer wall over the insulation on the laundry room side.
then he put up most of the drywall on the bathroom side of the wall, while I spackeled the outer wall.
he started working on the ventilation for the room, he installed the collection box, with its sound damping and one of the vents. (There was already a fan at the exit vent that the box now covers, but now it won’t be so noticeable)
He drilled the large hole in the wall through which vent tube will run, to carry moist air from the laundry room and out that collection box (there are advantages to living with a partner who installs ventilation for industry buildings for his day job (he want me to add that he is also seriously cute, and talented at Qwirkle))
eventually he reached a good breaking point and went upstairs to feed the fish in the aquarium, and I cleaned the bathroom and laundry room, not only getting all the dust from cutting wood and drywall, but even cleaning lint out of the dryer door beyond where the lint trap is.
When I finally came upstairs, he was asleep on the couch.

I forgot to mention that our housekeeper made it over today as we were working. Can I just tell you how nice it is to have time and energy for doing these renovations because someone else is taking care of the basic “keep the house liveable” cleaning? We appreciated it extra this week, as they had a family medical emergency the week before, and couldn’t come, so we had two weeks worth of cleaning to be done.

comments

working at the office

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 11:23:43 GMT

I woke in the middle of the night with discomfort in my hip, on the left side of my tailbone. It has done this a couple of times before, always on days after doing the HIT app, which is weird, as during the training my body feels good, but clearly something is getting out of position doing it. Last time I found videos on line for adjusting one’s hip on one’s own, and it cleared up. But perhaps it is time to talk to a physical therapist about how to keep it from happening again, if I can find a good one.

I must not have remembered to plug my computer in properly yesterday evening when we did training, as when I got on the bus this morning, the computer started to turn on, and then abruptly turned off again. Normally I just work on battery power on the bus, and it is fine. I got out the cable and plugged in the computer, but it took a while before it would turn on. Luckily, today was a day I had a messenger conversation with my SCA mother, so I was glad of the excuse to not have a computer on which to work.

By the time she said goodnight my computer was functioning again. But by then we were close enough to town that it didn’t seem worth working, so I updated this instead, and looked up physical therapists in Umeå. There is one whose office is reasonably near the uni, so I may call them—they open around the same time I will arrive on campus.

I blame the hip discomfort on the part where I forgot to pack my water bottle, so all of I have had to “drink” during my morning bus ride is the apple and orange I brought with me. So, as soon as I arrived I went straight to the lunch room, and found a 2 liter carbonated water bottle someone had left, so I rinsed it out and filled it, and had something to drink from the rest of the day.

I did try calling a couple of physical therapists, and sent messages to a couple of others, but didn’t manage to find any with time today, though one I messaged said that they regularly get last minute cancellations, so it is always worth it to check.

During full department Work Place Meeting I was having problems hearing the speaker, so I pressed the button my hearing aids, and suddenly I could hear the sound from the microphone piped directly into my hearing aids. This is the first time I have neededthat program, usually a microphone playing in the room iis good enough.

While I was in that meeting, they delivered my office soffa. Yay! After the meeting I met with one of the PhD students who had been involved in digitising a lot of old documents associated with an archaeological excavation back in the 1990’s, to find out what they did and get an introduction to the collection. I have volunteered to see if I can make sense out of the information and transform it into an archaeological report to turn into the county in which the excavation happened. Apparently as one of the archaeologists who ran that dig later got a PhD from us, we are responsible to write the report, and if we don’t the county may forbid us to ever be involved in another excavation in their county limits.

My motivation, on the other hand, is to get a bit more directly archaeology related experience, and I think it will be fun to look at the artefacts and write the report. It will certainly need an introduction that says something to the effect of “for reasons beyond our control some of the information from this excavation is no longer available, but…”

So this afternoon I looked up the name of the person who led the dig and found them on FB! Much to my delight, I have one friend in common with them, so I sent the mutual friend a note and asked for an introduction. This got me permission to send a direct message, so now I have sent a note introducing myself, and asking if it might be ok to do an interview. I hope they say yes!

Keldor had planned to stay in town and catch a hocky game, which didn’t sound interesting to me,so it seemed like a good opportunity to do someabout the shire “tablecloths” (they are black cotton bedsheets, but they work fine as tablecloths), which had gotten wax dripped on them.

Just after I sent a photo of the project to the shire chat, with the caption “I am not saying I don’t like hockey, but this sounds more fun”, Keldor walked in the door, feeling sorry for himself, as he didn’t get to see the game after all. Poor thing. Apparently they normally play the game at the theater in Folketshus in Skelleftåhamn, and he likes seeing it there, in comfortable seats, with a crowd of fans, but it didn’t happen this time.

comments

looking like it will be a wall

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 16:03:40 GMT

I had energy issues in the middle of the day. I blame the long day yesterday. So I took a nap and then painted the cardboard mock up for my Charlemange’s camera holder, black on the inside, gold outside, then painted on “jewels” and “pearls”. If we don’t get the leather version done on time for Crown, this may do the job.

But I managed to find energy in the afternoon and so put in a nearly full work day anyway, by continuing to work for a while after Keldor got home.

By the time I managed to put down the computer, he was downstairs doing the next step on installing the wall between the loo and the laundry room.

So I started sewing the first of the clasps to his Keldor copper trim kaftan, with pauses to help when he needed a third hand.

Here he is adding the last bit of frame holding the insulation in place (and serving as an attachment point for the wall surfaces).

While the wall surface on the bathroom side of the wall is left over drywall that the contractor left here after putting in the walls for the attic loo, he is covering the insulation on the laundry room side with scrap OSB he took home from work. So when he was done with putting it up on the left side of the door I started covering the surface with spackel. There is more of that to do, but tomorrow is soon enough.

Good zoom training session tonight. Now we should head to bed, I have to go to the office tomorrow.

comments

a busy day

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 20:36:21 GMT

Today was a crazy busy day at work, with 10 hours elapsed between opening the computer on the bus this morning, and putting it away on the bus as we approached home. The highlight must be meeting colleagues from the library for fika, since Therese made a traditional German rolled cake, filled with cherries and cream. We all took seconds!

From there I went to the sound studio at Humlab to re-record the sound for the the tutorial I made. I only found out this week that we have a sound studio. Gee it gives much better quality than recording on one's phone. Then I used the computer in that room to re-assemble the tutorial using the video screen capture clips I had previously made. Since I had a spreadsheet full of notes as to which clip goes where, and with what bits of the script, I managed to get the whole tutorial assembled on time to catch the 15:30 bus, so only an hour later than my usual bus.

Keldor was just about home from work as the bus dropped me off, and it was raining, so I just waited in the bus station a couple of minutes till he arrived, and then rode home with him. Today is Sweden's waffle day, so we had waffles and a game of Qwirkle before I went upstairs to paint the last layers of paint on the knotwork in the attic. Next time we have time/energy we can put in the floor in that room, and then the plumbers can come back and put in the toilet and sink.

comments

yup, it is spring

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 20:35:21 GMT

I slept weirdly, having strange dreams wherein I knew that I was dreaming, but I still endeavoured to solve the problem in the dream "just in case I wasn't". However, I woke with enough energy to tidy up the house during our morning phone call, and then mix a new batch of Muesli before work. Perhaps the fact that the flowers behind the house are already waking up helped with having energy for that.

comments

now I have a good design to work with

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 20:01:06 GMT

It occurred to me last night that I truly haven’t time/energy to cut leather by hand to cut the leather for my Charlemange’s camera, the leather circlet to hide my new GoPro camera that I want to make for Crown, so I asked Alfarin if he could do it in his laser cutter. He was willing to give it a go, so I spent the day doing design. The original crown has 8 very different panels. It was faster and easier to make the the two side panels the same as one another, and the four small pieces the same as one another. My panels are differently proportioned than the original, in part because (I assume) my head is smaller than Charlemagne’s was, and in part because the height is dictated by the need to cover the GoPro camera. The full design looks like this:

The furthest left panel of the image is the back center panel, and then the panels progress around my head. Note that the colours are likely not what I will go with in the final version, they are just random colours selected to show that the original had lots of different colours gems, and if there was a pattern to the colour placement, it isn’t obvious to my eye.

The coloured bits representing jewels, and the larger arches with my arms and the laurel wreath will be painted silk. All the tiny black dots are holes for either sewing the panels together, or sewing the silk to the leather.

The leather will look more like this when it is first cut out (the black bits are holes):

Then “all” I will need to do is to paint the leather gold (or gold leaf it), and sew the silk in place, sew the panels to the headband, and attach the camera.

We don’t need it for a full week after I will be able to pick the leather bits up from Alfarin, assuming that it even works to print it. What can go wrong?

While I spent the day at the computer working on that Keldor slept in, and then moved to the couch to relax, and then went to the store to buy cat food and orange juice (he is not certain he’s 100% healthy today), and then he relaxed some more (hopefully it won’t develop into being actually sick). Good thing we made good progress yesterday on the house, but it would have been nice to have come even farther.

comments

progress in more directions than I had anticipated

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 19:58:27 GMT

I knew that Keldor was keen to work on house projects this weekend, but I hadn’t realised he was thinking of the not only Create an attic bedroom, but even the downstairs part of Create extra bathrooms as well as the attic part,

I started my morning with a 25 min pilates session, by which time Keldor was awake, so we played Qwirkle over breakfast then went to the attic, where he resumed putting up insulation in what will be the bedroom, and I began painting the next set of decorative knotwork on the walls

When he ran out of the metal framing pieces he has been using to hold the insulation in place he went into town to make more, and I kept painting:

When he came back he had not only what he needed for the attic, but even frames exactly the right size to hild insulation to make a wall between the downstairs laundry room and loo.

In the evening Þórólfr came over for board games. We played Albion Protects Royalty (the Drachenwald version of Cards Against Humanity), using Sven of Reengarda, the toy Sjören, as the 4th player, putting in random cards. The final scores were 28 (Þórólfr), 11 (me), 10 (Sven), and 8 (Keldor).

Then Keldor and Þórólfr played Bradw, a complicated Swedish medieval version of backgammon. During that game I finished the embroidery on the fourth dragon for the Keldor copper trim kaftan

Then we introduced Þórólfr to Qwirkle, and he won the second game.

After that game I cut a piece of heavy leather to test my calculations for my Charlemange’s camera circlet, and I determined that while it will work as planned to hold the camera, cutting all the pannels by hand in that thickness will take far too long.

So I sent an note to a friend in Luleå to ask if there was a possibility to get the pieces cut in their laser cutter and we could pick it up next weekend when we are there. Alternatively, I could do it in painted cardboard, but a leather version would last longer.

By then it was midnight, so Þórólfr went home, I did my yoga, and we went to bed.

comments

lots of unplanned errands

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 19:50:28 GMT

Since I didn’t get the call that the car was done til I was more than an hour into the bus ride home yesterday, we decided to pick up the car today. The shop closes early on Fridays, so I decided to get the car first.

So I took my normal 06:20 bus (the earliest available). I worked on bus ,but only for just over an hour. Then I was feeling too aware that I needed to get off the bus at the first stop after we got to the city, so I packed the computer and got myself ready.

Luckily, the bus I needed to transfer to came pretty quickly, so I was at the shop at 08:00, which meant that I was at the inspection station in Ånäset by about 09:00.

I had planned to work for the 50 minutes before my appointment, but that shop is a “sit in your car and wait for the SMSto tell you to drive into the shop” kinda place, so I just scrilled on the phone, so I would notice the SMS.

It worked. Since they do inspections, which mean looking under cars, they have a valley in the middle of the room, and we are to drive over it, one tire on each side of it. I didn’t know that I have a phobia about driving over a hole in the floor that is wider than half the car, but it turs out that I do. Next time either Keldor takes the car to the inspection, or I drive to the door, and let the inspection people take the risk of needing to keep tires on either side of the hole in the floor.

Luckily, and not particularly surprisingly, given that the csr has just been fixed, it passed inspection.

Around that time I talked to Keldor, who had had such an effective work morning that they had already finished the day’s job. He has been commuting in his work car, so it makes sense that I drive in to get him, so he can leave the work car at work. Besides, we needed to buy more insulation for the Create an attic bedroom project.

So, rather that going home and working, I drove in to town and we bought the insulation, then we went to several second hand stores, finding a variety of useful objects, though not a suitable cabinet for the upstairs loo, which we had hoped to find. The day’s acquisitions included:

a black velor couch pillow

a shirt and a pair of trousers for me, and a pair of jeans for him

a couple of lamps for the upstairs room

a cookie jar

two bentwood boxes

Once we were home I started working on a new project I am calling Charlemange’s camera, and stayed up till 01:00, oops

comments

lots of posts

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 19:17:37 GMT

It has been a while since I had time to copy my blog posts over here, so here are links to them, for anyone who may want to know what I have been up to. Many of these have photos, some more than others.

2026-03-04 beginning to add some colour
2026-03-05 a day on the ice
2026-03-06 loveable art
2026-03-07 errands accomplished, only a week late
2026-03-08 lots of progress
2026-03-09 slipping through the day
2026-03-10 a productive morning
2026-03-11 stumbled upon a choir, might keep it
2026-03-12 usch!
2026-03-13 JMBards day 1
2026-03-14 JMBards day 2
2026-03-15 JMBards clean up
2026-03-16 a Monday after an event
2026-03-17 a date at a museum

comments

yay for customer service that really helps

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 19:10:03 GMT

While on the bus home today the shop called—they have now fixed the car. Since I was mostly home, there was no possibility to get there to pick it up today, so it will have to be tomorrow. Since it broke the day before we were to do our annual inspection (which we obviously cancelled), the first thing we have to do upon picking it up is to get it inspected. I opted to use the station closest to my house, in Ånäset (since it is legal to drive to the inspection place if you have time booked and paid for). They are part of a national chain, but I got to their web page from clicking on their entry on Google Maps. When the page opened, it clearly stated on the first page that it was Opus Ånäset. I wrote by licence plate number in the box, pressed “Inspection” chose a suitable time tomorrow, paid, and started copying information into the calendar. When I went to copy the address it looked strange. Looked closer. It turns out that the web page changed the location when I wasn’t looking, and I was booked to a workshop in Stockholm! So I found their customer service number, called them straight away and she re-booked me to Ånäset for tomorrow, and I got a new email straight away showing the new time. It arrived even before we hung up the phone. Yay for real customer service that can solve a problem so easily!

Now I just need to take my normal bus in in the morning, then catch the bus to the other side of Umeå, and drive to Ånäset.

In other news, it was a very pleasant day at work. The electrician finally had time to come do wiring in the attic, so I caught a later bus than usual, so I could show him all the places we want outlets etc up there. This meant that I arrived at work at 09:20. Fika is normally 09:30, but I thought, nah, I will do some work before the Archaeology Subject meeting at 10:00. But first I needed to re-fill my water bottle, so I grabbed the bottle, locked my office door, and started walking towards the stairs. Ran into a handful of our PhD students, who were on their way to fika, so I joined them.

We had a pleasant chat, and then went to the meeting, where we had cake, to celebrate a handful of published papers by a couple of people in the department.

Between both fika and the meeting, I got lots of embroidery done on the Keldor copper trim tunic. The meeting ended in time for lunch, so I joined colleagues for lunch, and had a pleasant time explaining to Sofie about the SCA and the embroidery on Keldor’s kaftan. Then I returned to my office to work, realised that I had left my water bottle in the fika room (having set it down before washing my dishes), so I went back for it, and got into another conversation with another colleague, largely about medieval stone churches in Sweden.

I had never really thought about the fact that there was no pre-existing stone building tradition in this region, so when it became necessary for all of the Swedish churches to suddenly build in stone, they needed to import lots of expertise, and, up here, they even had to import the lime to make the mortar, as there is none. All this meant that it was after 13:00 before I finally started working, and had only till time to leave to catch the 14:30 bus for work in my office. I did keep working on the bus, of course, till the shop called to say that the car was ready, so I called Keldor to let him know, and chatted till I was nearly home.

He stayed late to work on some projects for the house, one of which was making a cover extension for the laundry room threshold, which meant we could swap the places of the washer and drying on their shelf, so now their doors open out away from one another, so it will be much easier to transfer stuff from one to the other. Then we replaced the old, short hose with a new, longer one, which we ran up against the threshold, with the new cover extension over it, so that no one will trip on the hose.

Then we checked the attic and the progress up there. Yay! Now we have a light switch also at the top of the stairs, there is a small wall mounted electric heater in the bathroom, there is a working outlet just outside the bathroom by the door, and one on the other side of the bathroom in the cold side of the attic, so we can have light over there, too. The electrician has also drawn wires and set in the plastic boxes where the outlets will be in the walls we haven’t finished building, so now we can finish putting up the last of the insulation and make the walls themselves. The Create an attic bedroom and Create extra bathrooms projects are really moving forward!

comments

Spring in the north

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 10:38:46 GMT

Spring is certainly already here—when I got on the bus this morning, the entire front window upstairs was covered in a thick sheet of ice, from melting snow hitting the window and freezing again, as temps were just under freezing.

However, by the time we were in Umeå, and hour and a half later, the temps were above freezing, and the action of the windshield wipers had taken away all of the slush so I could see out the window again.

comments

A new banner started

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 20:54:49 GMT

After work today we started a banner for Camp Northern Lights. We already have the entrance banner, which says "Camp Northern Lights, Everyone Always Welcome", and this time Keldor wanted to communicate that without any text. This might do it: A Sea Reindeer, sharing a drink with a Unicorn, followed by a trumpet-playing rabbit serenading a dragon, with the help of a bagpipe playing cat, followed by a flaming fox-duck chasing a snail, wearing a sombrero. The Unicorn's rainbow tail will continue behind the rest of the creatures, and, overhead, a dark blue sky with Northern Lights. It will be interesting to see if we can pull this off.

comments

fighter training and travel booking

Sun, 01 Mar 2026 20:26:36 GMT

I started a new project this morning. I am sewing myself some yoga blocks. Yes, this is a sewing project!

I didn’t have yoga blocks when living with David, so we cut a couple of pieces of thick wood that, while no where near as thick as a normal yoga block, was better than nothing. This morning I did a strength and flexibility hip stretching video that suggested holding a yoga block between the knees and squeezing hard. I cannot recommend doing this with a solid block of wood instead of a yoga block.

So I decided to take some of the adhesive foam Keldor has and add padding to the sides of the blocks, which made them as thick as a yoga block.

But that texture wouldn’t be pleasant to touch, so I took some of the scrap leather from the couch that came with the couch and cover the blocks. This adds some stability to the foam, but I could see that they wouldn’t stand well on end, so I cut even more foam for the ends, and that seems to help, though now they are longer than a traditional yoga block.

I managed to get that project well started before Aeirin arrived, and then made some good progress sewing on it while we talked and before armouring up. My first time in armour in weeks!

We took Aeirin’s armour home after Coronet two weeks ago, as she was travelling by train, and while it is possible to take the armour that way, it isn’t pleasant. We had planed to do a fighter practice last weekend weekend she came to pick it up, but she came down with a cold, so we rescheduled to today.

I learned that yes, my armour would have been ok to fight in the tournament, while it has plenty of problems that need upgrading for comfort, there are no broken bits that would have failed inspection.

I learned that when I feel stressed and afraid the my opponent might hit me I forget everything I know about stance and footwork, and lean away from them.

I learned that I really need more time in armour for conditioning training. I was the first of us to give up, with the (true) excuse that I was super hungry, but I was also just plain out of energy.

Now I am (over) fed and should go pack my armour, which is scattered all over the entry area, and not nicely in its box.

Hours later… I have attended Nordmark’s annual meeting over zoom, updated my food logs, and just as I was about to leave the computer, Keldor said, “let’s look at flights to Strawberry Raid”, and then bought us tickets, with a week before the event there, where we will (hopefully, if the timing still works for her), visit Tania and Mike. So now I have updated the calendar with all of the flights, and updated my financial records for the bookings, an now I really will go pack that armour and get ready for bed…

comments

Not the adventure we had hoped for

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 22:03:56 GMT

We slept in this morning. I woke a bit before 07:00 to pee, and grabbed a small clementine to eat with my morning vitamin, and went right back to bed and slept for another hour, by which time my hips were aching, so I got up and did some pliaties.

We played a game of Qwirkle over breakfast, and Keldor proposed a plan for the day. He wanted to head to Umeå and pick up some fish for his aquarium, and whilst there we could do other errands. Second hand store, swing by my office to print a few thing, stock up on stuff at the grocery store. It was a good plan.

We left the house just after 12:30, a bright sunny day, with temperatures at + 3C, the first day this calendar year above freezing, but the new snow we had this week meant that it was a beautiful drive.

An hour later we approaced the roundabout at the north end of the city, discussing which order made the most sense. University first, or second had store first.

The car choose for us. It entered the roundabout, must have liked it, because we heard a loud clunking noise from the engine, and the car ceased its forward momentum. Keldor was able to pull right up to the centre of the roundabout before he lost the last of the glide.

From these symptoms, we assume we no longer have a functioning drive shaft, so I went through the insurance web page and ordered a tow truck, and we waited as traffic circled around us.

One car driving by paused to ask if we needed help. That was nice of them. Eventually the tow truck cane and took the car to the shop, and a taxi took us to the University, but with only enough time to drop off a couple of things to leave in the office and use the loo before heading to the bus stop. I considered trying to do the printing, but decided I didn't want to risk missing the bus, as the next wouldn't be there for another hour.

So, no errands for us today. The shop isn't open till Monday, so I won't know anything about prognosis before then.

The project I took with me is a bit of mending, fixing sleeves on my blue sweater with the worn out cuffs, using 3 nålbindning stitches to one cuff rib.

Between stitching as we travelled and then curling up on the couch at home, I managed to finish one cuff, and make a good start on the next.

comments