kareina

 Worked from home, so also bsked bread rolls and dod a couple loads of laundry. 

Today I kinda hurt my toes on my right foot when attempting the Acroyoga Mermaid sequence. We have managed one rotation of this before--I can go from hanging from his feet right side up, to rotating over, hanging from his feet upside down, and then forward to balancing with my hips resting on his hands. It isn't easy (especially as he and I are much closer to the same height than are the flyer and base in that video), but that much is doable. However, we have never yet managed the transition back over to hanging right side up from his feet again.

Therefore, as today's acroyoga session was winding to a close we decided to give it a try. We managed the first bits, up to where I am kinda hanging upside down from his feet, but my feet are still in his hands. But somehow I didn't have the power needed to lift my legs out of his hands and rotate them around. Therefore I decided to back up and return to right side up, as I have done before on other times that I had that issue. However, instead of accomplishing that reversal, I somehow slipped, and started falling, slowly, point of elbow first, towards his tummy.

Not wanting to injure him with my elbow I quickly stretched my arms out forward, and managed to catch my fall with my hands on the ground on the far side of his body. Yay, a successful savings throw!

...Then my legs finished their decent, and landed, ends of toes of the right foot first, at a greater speed than I would like.

All three middle toes on that foot protested being suddenly forced to bend upwards whilst colliding with a solid surface. Particularly the one in the middle, which never really forgave me for once having had a heavy, electric handheld drill land on it abruptly some years ago.

It only hurt a little at first, but by the time I arrived at work and had to walk the long corridor to the archives it was hurting more, and the toes on my right food didn't at all like part about waking where they need to bend at the joint.

Therefore I called Swedish National Health Care consultation number (1177), and she entered the info of the injury into their system and recommended that I ice and elevate it and contact my local health center (which is upstairs from where I work).

So I did, and they gave me an appointment for 11:15, so I spent the rest of the morning working (choosing tasks that let me stay at the desk, with a cold pack, that I found in the freezer in the break room, wrapped around my toes. By the time I saw the doc, having been iced all morning, they weren't hurting at all if I didn't try touching them or bending them, but there was some visible bruising at the base of my toenail. There also may have been some swelling, but it is hard to tell, since that middle toe has been bigger than its neighbours ever since that above mentioned injury years ago.

The doc decided that we should x-ray it to see if it is broken (which would also be a chance to find out if the old injury had resulted in broken bones, or if that one was only soft tissue damage). Of course, the local health center I was at doesn't have x-ray equipment, so she sent me to the big hospital at Sunderbyn, not quite a half an hour drive away.

So I grabbed my backpack (with nålbinding project) and told my colleague where I was going, and limped carefully out to the car. I had already determined that going barefoot was better, as it was easier to keep the toes from bending, so I carried my sandals till I got to the outer door of the building.

This was my first time getting x-rays here, and I was impressed with the efficiency. I parked the car, walked into the hospital and asked where to find x-rays, found the right room on my first try, and took a number (73). They were already on 72, so I had a very short wait (just long enough to get out the nålbindning and take a couple of stitches, before I was called over to reception, who only wanted to know my name and personal number. Then she sent me to the next waiting room, where I managed only a few more stitches before I was called in and pictures of my foot taken.

The xray technician had me wait there till the doc had looked at the results, incase they showed anything that required urgent attention. Sadly, they told me that I couldn't see the images yet--that their computer has lots of images, from lots of patients, and therefore none may look at them, but if I ask my doctor I will be able to see them later.

So I spent a half hour working on my nålbindning and chatting on the phone with Keldor, till the technician came told me that there is no fracture and I can go.

So I returned to work and finished out my day before coming home and enjoying the Drachenwald Law Council meeting. I did, however, cancel tomorrow's acroyoga session--I don't think I am ready to balance anyone on my feet quite yet. On the other hand, I just tested it, and there is no problem at all to do a DownDog app yoga session, using the settings "restorative yoga (no standing poses)" and boost = "glute strength".

It hasn't quite been three months since K. visited, and we realized that the love we feel for one another is really, seriously, mutual. In that time we've managed to see one another in person every 5 to 14 days, with visits ranging in length from 12 hours to 4 days. Every time we meet we do acroyoga together, and yesterday evening's visit brought us to 11 hours of acroyoga practice together, and I really pleased with how quickly we are progressing. He'd never tried acroyoga before, so the first time, as one would expect with a beginner, his legs really shook when he tried to base. Yesterday he was so stable I could do the lean forward into bird on his upraised feet without taking hands first. It helps that he has been doing plenty of strength training so it is only balance/technique that he needed to develop. The new trick he found on line, where both people start out lying on the ground, head to head, ears side by side, and then the flyer goes into shoulder stand and the base grabs their hips in hands and their feet with feet, and gently tugs the flyer up and over into bird-in-hands is getting so much easier. I can see that, soon, the flyer won't need to help by using their hands at all for that transition. This is So Much Fun!

His personal situation is still complicated (else we'd see one another in person far more often) and we are doing our best to be patient and hope that he will be able to resolve everything in a good way. In the meantime D. wishes that things work out such that I go move in with K, because then D&C could have this house. The part about living with K has a huge, huge appeal for me, but I really love this house and, more importantly, the huge yard and all the berries that grow in it, so I would love a resolution that involves living here. On the other hand, he has an even bigger property, so bringing berries with me would be an option, if it comes to that.

It is taking time to work things out, and it is totally unclear how things are going to go, other than he and I are both very, very clear that we wish to be together. But in the meantime I am very ok to take time for a resolution to his personals situation. While long-distance isn't ideal, I love what we already have: K and I spend a half an hour every morning talking on the phone as he goes to work, and we meet every night at 21:00 to do yoga over and talk before sleep (often later than we should), and we often talk on his way home from work too (depending on if he sleeps at his dad's house, five minutes from work, or if he drives the half an hour home), plus all of the many sweet messages we send one another pretty much all day long. I haven't been this head over heels in love with someone in a very long time, and to have it so obviously mutual is amazing. This does mean that I am posting far, far less often, since the time I used to post was shortly before heading to bed, but now that time is happily occupied.

In the meantime I got the bad news that I don't get to go to Norway for that amazing summer job carving soapstone at the Lofotr Viking Museum, because Norway is keeping its borders closed to non-essential people through at least August. This is disappointing on several accounts, since it would have been a fun job, would have looked great on my CV, and the pay would have been nice. On the other hand, this means that I will get to see K more often than I would otherwise have done, and that fills me with such joy.

I have been making slow, but steady progress on my data processing and meeting with my PhD supervisor every Monday to check in. She and I are both very excited to see my results, and think that this is some serious ground-breaking work that I am doing, and really want to get this first paper ready to publish as soon as possible. We don't yet know if we are going to be able to get funding to do the analyses of the artefacts that is necessary to complete my PhD research as planned. If not we have discussed a couple of options. One would be to downgrade the degree to a Master's in Archaeology (by research), at which point, since I already have a PhD in geology I would qualify for post-doc positions in geoarchaeology, or if I found a fully-funded interesting sounding PhD position in Archaeology, I would be qualified to go that route. Another possible option would be to redesign my current PhD to make it a methodology focused project, rather than my current plan to both develop the technique and then apply it to a suite of artefacts. It will be interesting to see where this goes, too.


Seriously, these days my life is at that point in the story where the reader really wants to know what is going to happen, but I can't just skip a few pages and find out, I really need to keep going through the days one at a time. Luckily, the days are so full of joy that this is easy to do.

This weekend is the Drachenwald Laurels' Sponsored Prize Display event over zoom that I have been organizing. Now that the registration deadline is past I need to finish working out the schedule and let the participants know.

Much to my delight J(J) returned to Luleå last weekend, so we met on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and today to do acroyoga. So much fun! I have missed J, who has spent much of the summer with family. Sadly, tomorrow they will pick him up on their way to an adventure in Jokkmokk, and then I won't see J again for some unknown number of weeks. Shortly before he came back I saw a photo of an acroyoga pose that looked interesting and worth trying. So, of course, we had to try it, and since we can't see if we are doing what is in the photo, we filmed our pitiful attempts: once with me flying, and again with J flying. Since then we have gotten it much closer to working, but haven't gotten new videos up, so you can laugh at those, if you like.

This summer has zipped by rather quickly. When J(L) came back north for a summer job and moved in with me six weeks sounded like a nice long time, but it is already over, and J is heading back to Åland. It has been wonderful sharing my home with J--such good company, and really likes my cooking.

Now I have just over a month before E will arrive, if Migrationverket approves the visa application, which I really, really hope they do.

This is turning out to be a fantastic berry year. I haven't gone out for blueberries yet, but everyone who has has picked lots and shared photos. I thought about going to get blueberries today, but thought first I would check the åkerbär (arctic raspberry) that grow in the swampy forest at the bottom of our property. We have never had very many of them. The last couple of years we didn't get any. The first couple of years we were in this house I found only about 12 berries. Today, on the other hand, was a good year--I lost count after eating 40 of them! However, by that time I was no longer motivated to go looking for blueberries, so that can wait till tomorrow.

I reached out to a friend far away a week or so ago, and got a reply today. Since my reply to him includes a good summary of my last decade, I thought I would share it here, too:

How wonderful to hear from you.  I bet that you are truly beautiful with white whiskers to compliment your eyes!  How have the years been treating you otherwise? What are you up to? How has your life changed, and how is the the same, since last we spoke?

Have you spoken with any physical therapists about the knees? Perhaps there is something you could be doing to make them complain less?  I had a problem with my hips some years back--when I flew to Australia to apply for my permanent resident visa for living in Sweden all those hours of sitting without the option to get up and move meant that my hips (specifically where the leg tendons attach at the front of the hips) started aching, and continued to bother me for weeks afterwards, hurting especially after sleeping a couple of hours (probably due to my life-long habit of curling to sleep, so same deep bend there as when sitting).  So I spoke to a physical therapist and he explained that the problem wasn't with the front of my hips (where the pain was), but with a small muscle in my rump that was under-developed with respect to all of is neighbours. He gave me some exercises to strengthen that muscle (which, at first were pure torture, even though I needed to only hold the pose for 10 seconds), and, sure enough, the pain in the front of my hips went away.  Since then I occasionally go through periods where I am not doing those exercises for a while, and then I start waking up with sore hips again, but when I do them even semi-regularly (they haven't been torture in ages) there is no discomfort at all.  I have no idea if knee complaints can also be helped so simply, but if you haven't looked into it, it might be worth the time to do so. :-)

As it turned out, that session with the physical therapist was the trigger for a pretty serious change in my lifestyle. I have been doing daily yoga since 2003, and got in plenty of walking and dancing, so my physical fitness was really quite reasonable. But when I understood that all of my movement had done nothing all all to exercise that small muscle, I started wondering what other muscles I had which were likewise neglected, and I decided to hire a personal trainer for a year to improve my overall strength and fitness, especially my upper body.  These days I have no problems at all standing on my hands against a wall, and doing partial hand-stand push-ups (while my feet are against the wall), and can even hold the handstand for a second or two in the middle of the room (and practice doing so daily, so that time is likely to keep improving).  Around the same time that I started working out I also became active in one of the on campus student clubs, Phire, a "jester group" (gycklargrupp), which does all sorts of "circus arts" including juggling, staff spinning, fire shows, and, my personal favourite, acroyoga.  You might recall that I never outgrew the "pick me up, carry me" stage of childhood, and now I have friends (half my age, or younger), who not only pick me up, but spin me around on their upraised feet!  Life is wonderful. (If you want to see a few videos of my acroyoga sessions with friends, they are available on line here.

In addition to the acroyoga I keep busy through the SCA (where I try, and sometimes succeed, to convince friends to join me in acroyoga), both at the local level (this is the Shire of Frostheim), and, when the travel budget permits, at the Principality and Kingdom level, and Swedish Folk dance. I really love living in Luleå, and encourage you and your sweetie to come visit me sometime.  Luleå lacks mountains, but it has pretty much everything else I would want for a happy life, and it doesn't take that long to get to Norway from here, which has plenty of mountain.  We are far enough north to have as good of winter as is possible these days (while it does, sadly, warm up above zero multiple times each winter, causing the footpaths and roads to get slippery and the snow pack to shrink and get crusty, the snow doesn't go completely away, and we stil have more than half a meter's worth in our yard as I type) and good northern light viewing opportunities. The city is reasonably small, with lots of forest and lakes within the borders, and the university is located in a suburb at the edge of town, and my house is four km further out from there, just on the other side of a Nature Reserve, giving me a nice walk or bike ride (depending on the season and if it is likely to snow before time to go home--they plow the bike path pretty promptly, but my recumbent trike sits pretty low to the ground, so if there have been more than 10-15 cm I don't want to pedal till I am certain they have gotten to that path).

Our property is 2.5 hectares, and came with lots of wild strawberries and many, many black currant bushes (a former owner put them in during the 1970's as a cash crop, but by the time we bought the house the patch had been neglected for at least a decade. We have tried, but even with the help of friends we have never managed to harvest all of the black currants, but we keep lots of berries in the freezer, dry lots to add to my muesli, and make jam, jelly, and some years "saft" (I don't know a good English translation--it is what you get when you run steam through the berries (+/- sugar) and collect the concentrated juice thus formed, to later mix with water or sparkling water to drink), and more nettles than I can eat (I dry lots of them, so I can keep adding them to things I cook all winter long).  I have also learned to do a bit of gardening in addition to harvesting what grows here on its own, and am enjoying it.

Relationship wise I still own a house with David (Kjartan is his SCA name), who was the reason I moved here in the first place, back in January of 2011.  However, these days his primary romantic relationship is with Caroline, a delightful lady who lives in an apartment very near the university, where David works, for the IT department. He lives primarily at her apartment, in part because it is easier to walk to work from there, but mostly because that is where she is sleeping and he prefers to sleep by her side, but he spends time at the house to work on projects here, sometimes with me, and sometimes on his own.  They first met many years ago, when she rented our guest room for a month. She had posted to the Frostheim FB group that she had a short term job in Luleå, but wasn't having any luck finding an apartment for rent, and did anyone have a room she could rent for one month.  We had only that week finished fixing up the basement guest room (it had some serious issues when we moved in, including a raised floor with mould under it, which we took away), so we said she could stay with us, and that worked out very well. By the end of that month she and he had gotten together. Then she returned to Göteborg to finish up her degree (biology), and they did the long-distance thing for a few years. 

Eventually she graduated and moved in with us, but after a year or so she realised that she would rather have her own space. She prefers to go out for her social activity, and have home be a quiet refuge, or, perhaps, occasionally, invite a couple close friends over now and then, with the menu planned out for the occasion well in advance. I, on the other hand, prefer to have people drop by randomly and uninvited, any time of the day or night. This contrast might have been easier to balance, but this is a small house built in 1966, and there is no where in the house where she can be where she can't clearly hear what is happening in all other parts of the house.  So now they mostly live at the apartment, and when she feels for entertaining, sometimes she invites people to the house, and I am happy because the house is full, and she is happy because afterwards she can go back to her nice, quiet apartment.  

I have had an occasional few other lovers myself in the years I have been in Sweden, but none that have blossomed into a more serious long term connection.  In fact, the friends I have fallen for most seriously have been ones who care for me deeply as friends, but are not at all romantically interested in me, causing me to refer to them as "my unrequited loves", a connection that is delightful, but I do confess that it would be nice if one of them (or someone else I could fall for) were interested in an even closer connection. 

The other physical change in my life that I am both most happy with, and which is so natural/normal that I often forget it was ever different than it is now, is that a year ago I finally got my breasts removed. I have only wanted them gone since they first started growing, when I was around 13 or so, but in the US I couldn't afford it.  I did ask google when I first moved to Sweden about breast removal, but the only web page I found at that time was for a private medical practice here in Luleå that offered "breast reduction" surgery for 50,000 SEK (just over $5,000 at today's exchange rate), and didn't have the cash at that time, so continued to think of it as a "would be nice, but still isn't possible" thing for a number of years. Then one year one of my SCA friends in Germany was posting about her struggles to get puberty blockers for her daughter so that when the daughter grew up the surgery needed to finish her transition to have her body's gender match her actual gender would be easier, and I couldn't help but wish that I had known about puberty blockers when I was little--how much better life would have been if I had never grown the breasts (or had to deal with menstruation) in the first place.  But in my case, I wouldn't have wanted them to make it easier to become a man, but only because I didn't wish to be a woman--I am totally ok with being a little girl.  
Around the same time one of my SCA friends in California posted photos to FB about his mastectomy, and how happy he was to have them gone so that he looks more like the man he is.  So I emailed him and asked how he was able to afford that surgery, given that he is a student?  He replied that his dad's insurance covered it, as part of changing his gender.  This conversation inspired me to call the Swedish National Health line phone number and ask "I understand that Sweden's medical care will help one change gender. What about those of us who never wanted a gender in the first place?"  They replied that I would need to call my local health clinic and do an initial screening interview, and if they thought it was appropriate they would refer me to a psychologist, who could then refer me to a surgeon.  So I hung up the phone, and promptly called the local health clinic. I started by telling them only that the national number told me to call them, they opened my file on the computer, read what had already been entered in there from the national number, and replied "We have an appointment available next Tuesday, is that ok".  

I met with the nurse there, explained how I have always felt about it, and pointed out that since I didn't want to be a man either, and that time was already solving the problems associated with having a uterus, that it would be pretty easy--only the breasts would need to go.  At the end of that appointment she sent her recommendation off to the psychologist's office.  A week or three later I got a letter from them saying "you aren't depressed, you don't need our help, we will refer you directly to the surgeon".  Another few months later and I met with the surgeon, who asked important questions about exactly what I wanted, and confirming that I understood that this was a permanent change, and there is no going back.  Then my name was entered into the queue, behind everyone who needed a mastectomy for health reasons (e.g. cancer), and another year or so later it was my turn.  The surgery was done as an outpatient thing--check in at 06:30, and home and sleeping in my own bed by 10:00. I, of course, went to an indoor SCA event that weekend (surgery was on a Thursday). Some people there asked "shouldn't you be at home?", to which I replied "I am home, but here I have lots of friends to fetch and carry for me and make certain I don't over do it".  They did, too.  

So, there you have it, a (not so short) summary of my life in Sweden.  There are changes on the horizon, as my current job as a laboratory manage winds to a close as we outsource the lab (for budget reasons), but it is much too soon to say what will happen next. There have been job applications locally and abroad, but I have till December before this job ends, so I am not too stressed about it, something fun will come up, of that I am certain.

Do please write back and let me know how you are doing. I may be crap at keeping in touch, but I do think of you often, and fondly.

This morning I did my workout (the third time of doing the Day 1 routine for the 1.1 version of the workout (which has only a Day 1 and a day 2--I will do one more Day 1 and one more Day 2 before moving on to workout 1.2), ran a load of laundry, then borrowed the Blue Car to head to town--I have been procrastinating going to the fabric store for months now--ever since I ran out of the white bias tape I was using to finish the seams of the purple linen sweater I half altered to fit me, back in early March. I have been wearing it anyway, but it would be even more comfortable if I were to take in the right side, too. However, the only fabric store in Luleå doesn't carry white bias tape (which is what I used before). I did pick up some dark blue, and some off-white. I will decide later if I will try to find the white on line somewhere, use one of the other colours, or just never get around to finishing the project. I did, however, also pick up some more thread, some ribbon to decorate the bonnet for my 1795 costume, and some hooks and eyes for the underdress for that costume.

Then I relaxed a bit (including a nap on David's lap), checked email, and went to Phrie practice, where Johan and I did acroyoga. It is so nice having him back in town so that we can do acroyoga daily again for a while. I will miss him when he heads back to Storuman. After Phire I picked leaves from the black currant bushes and set them drying (and made one pot of tea from fresh leaves, because why not?). Then I curled up with the computer, and a friend commented on my photo from the other day of the fireweed and spruce tips that went into lunch that one can also make a syrup out of spruce tips. So I put down the computer, went out, and picked about 700 ml of them. They are soaking now, and I will boil them tomorrow. The recipe she had uses far more of them, but as a trial to see if I even like the syrup, this should do. As I was harvesting them I couldn't help but wonder if the syrup would make good ice cream.

Tomorrow Johan and I will do acroyoga at 08:00, and in the afternoon I will head to Stenudden for a small Spelträff (gathering of folk musicians)

Sunday morning Carola and I went for another walk along the trail at Borgardalsbadet, where we had camped, and then drove in to Uppsala to Morgaine’s house. Morgaine cooked us breakfast (my second for the day), Carola took a shower, and then she got back on the road to head home. I took the time to re-pack, take a shower, and enjoy some time with Morgaine, and then we walked into the city centre and went to one of the museums on campus (the one with the fossils, rocks, and minerals. Then we were both hungry, so rather than walking the 45 minutes back to the apartment we went to an Indian restaurant and shared some spinach panner, a 3-bean dhal, rice, and some naan bread. Then we went back to the apartment, to hang our for the rest of the evening, and I also helped with Morgaine’s weekly cleaning (the five house-mates have a rotation of duties each week—this week it was M’s turn to vacuum and mop the floors, so I did the vacuuming while M. Mopped). Around 22:00 Morgaine walked me to the bus stop so I could catch the bus to the train station, and then went home to get some sleep before work the next day (M works at a pre-school, being the extra adult in the class to help one of the children who needs extra help/attention, but since it is a brand-new school, there are many additional things that need doing just now over and above focusing on the kids).

My train wasn’t due to depart till 23:35, so I used the extra time to take out my nålbinding project, figure out what my past self must have been thinking when she started the project, and then worked happily on it till the train arrived. This is an unusual project, I decided I wanted to try doing a shawl that pulls on over the head, so my past self had started by using some lovely dark blue “baby wool” to make a circle in two rows of Dalarna stitch just big enough to go over my head and sit comfortably on my shoulders. Then I started the next row in York stitch, and the project got set aside to make that hat for Villiam (which he wears daily, and not just with his jester costume). So while waiting for the train I finished the lap of York stitch and went back to Dalarna stitch, this time attaching two Dalarna stitches to every one York stitch, which allowed for a very quick increase in diameter, but also introduces a ripple effect.

When I boarded the train everyone else in my cabin was already laying down for the night, so I got my stuff situated and the sheets on my bunk (and my own pillows out of the suitcase to supplement the one the train provides) as quietly as possible. I was disappointed to note that while I had requested an upper bunk when I did the booking, they gave me the middle bunk instead. However, I sleep fairly well on a train when I get to lay down and cover myself with the nice clean sheets they provide, so I can’t really complain.

Not only did the others in my car board the train before I did, they also got off the train at earlier stops, so by the time I woke up at 07:00 there was only one other passenger left in my cabin (six bunks to a cabin at this price class), which meant I was free to toss the used bedding onto the top bunk, fold my bunk back against the wall and sit down and continue nålbindning. I managed to complete that row of two-Dalarna to one York stitches on the train, and started the nice, no-thinking-required next lap of one Dalarna stitch attached to one Dalarna stitch. This is good, as this means it is now a good project to take with me to choir, seminars, and meetings as I can fidget and still pay full attention to what I am listening to. I am now on the third circuit of Dalarna stitches since the circuit of York stitches, and expect I will do a few more, till that bit gets wide enough that outer edge of the fabric soon won’t be able to sit flat if I don’t increase, and then I can do another row of York stitch, followed by another row of the 2-1 attachments. In theory doing it this way should give only a slight ruffle at each place the number of stitches around doubles. Given how open York stitch is, I suspect that if I were to iron the project that the ruffle would disappear, but I haven’t tested this theory yet.

Monday Ellinor picked me up from the train station (using David’s car). I had considered going first to Uni to drop off rocks at my office and let Ellinor go straight back to studying, but David needed his car at the apartment when he got home from work so that he could go to Nyckleharpa night, but I was planning on taking Villiam to the first session of the beginning Swedish Folk Dance class, so the logistics would have been difficult to have both David’s car and mine at the house. So instead Ellinor dropped me off at home, took the car back to its parking place at Caroline’s apartment, and then returned to her normal Monday activities.

I spent the hours between getting home and heading out for dance to unpack and put everything away, cook some food, do the vacuuming, change the water filter, clean the bathroom, and all the other things that need doing after one has been gone for a week. The dance session was fun and interesting. There were 18 students, the teacher and his wife, and four of us from Danskul (the advanced folk dance group I dance with) to serve as experienced dancers to help and dance with the students. I have never before attended such a “down to the basics” session of Swedish folk dance. I moved to Sweden in January of 2011, and they always teach the complete intro course in the autumn, and the “continuing beginning” course in January, so I started with the “continuing” course at the same time as I also joined Danskul, and found them both easy enough to just jump into. The year David and I taught the intro course (2012) there were only three students signed up, so we were able to race quickly through the very basics and jump straight to the actual dances. Monday’s course, on the other hand, had enough new people in it, some of whom have clearly not danced at all, so we needed to start with just walking in a circle to the music for long enough for everyone to get used to actually stepping in time to the music. Then he had us add a hint of a bounce to the step, and let the knees bend a bit, and so on, gradually working us towards actually doing the basic walking steps with a partner. Most folk caught on reasonably quickly, but there was one poor guy in a pink shirt who really couldn’t get the basic steps. He told me when I was “dancing with him” that “I am always the slowest”. I hope he had fun anyway.

Tuesday was a long day. I got up at 06:15, made it to the office by 08:00 (took the trike, even though I had a big bag of rocks to carry) and worked till Phire practice started at 17:00. I was smart enough to do my yoga for the day as a warm up, so I wouldn’t need to do it later, and then I did acroyoga with Helena, one of the new exchange students. Phire is officially over at 18:30, but everyone continued to hang out in the room after fika (this week was a home-made “Princess Cake” <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/princess_cake> and some Afghani Sherpera* that I found on my desk along with a thank you note from Zmar, the PhD student who defended on the Friday I went south) till time for choir. A few of the exchange students who have joined Phire stay for choir, and we have at least 20 attending choir on the weeks I have been there, which is really a nice change after a couple of years ago when it almost died from apathy. This year we are thriving so much that we are doing little mini-concerts to raise awareness of us on campus, and one was scheduled for Thursday during lunch, so I put it on my calendar, and agreed to book us a room to do a quick last-minute warm-up and rehearsal.

After choir I spent an hour and a half coping the posts I did while on the filed trip into Scrivener and catching up a bit reading email and FB, and didn’t get to bed till just after midnight, even though yoga had already been done for the day.

Wednesday I still made it to work before 08:00, in part because it was raining just enough that I wasn’t motivated to take the trike, so instead I loaded up the car with the recycling that needed to go out and drove in. I worked till the lunch time acroyoga session with Ellinor, and then worked till time to head to the Wednesday Phire parkour etc. session at 17:00 (dropping the recycling off on my way there). Two hours of mixed parkour, aerial silks and acroyoga with some of the exchange students is a great way to recover from a day sitting at a desk! Then I went home and, even though it was already after 19:00, I felt hungry enough to curl up with a book and a bowl of popcorn, nutritional yeast, spinach, tomato, and cucumber for the better part of an hour before doing another hour and a half of post-field trip paperwork sorts of tasks, followed by yoga and getting to bed just after midnight.

Thursday it was only barely raining, and I was more motivated, so I took the trike in again (and the rain was so gentle that my rain pants, which are getting kinda old, was enough to keep my jeans dry). My plan for the day had been to cut all of the rock samples I collected last week into small blocks so that we could mount them in epoxy on Friday morning. I managed to get all of them cut and into labelled bags before time for that lunch time choir performance (which Villiam was nice enough to record for us), and then, even though I could have gone home, spent the afternoon in the office working, and didn’t head home till 17:30, where I spent a nice evening reading, doing useful things around the house, and getting slightly caught up on email and FB.

I didn’t go to bed till 01:00 Thursday night/Friday morning, and thus slept in till almost 07:30, when David arrived to gather stuff to take to his parent’s place for the weekend. He will start the new job at the Uni in December, but in the meanwhile he will be using up some of his banked vacation at the old job by taking most (if not all) Fridays off. His plan for this weekend was to head out to his dad’s forest and cut down some trees on Friday, then cut them into boards on Saturday and Sunday to fix our sheds—the east facing wall of the bicycle shed in particular is in bad shape—it needs a new base beam and most of the wall boards replaced. It is the sort of weekend that I would have enjoyed accompanying him, but I couldn’t spare the time—too much to do here. They don’t actually need my help, either, they are both quite good at those sorts of tasks, and I have never cut down a tree nor used a saw mill.

Friday morning I met one of the professors in Minerals Processing who helped me mount most of my samples into epoxy (three to six samples per epoxy plug). Then we ran out of molds, so the rest will have to be done on Monday. I finished up in good time for my 12:00 skype meeting with one of my advisors in Durham, but not early enough to trike home before the meeting, so I just stayed in the office (never mind that the sound quality on that computer isn’t good, and it won’t talk to my bluetooth adaptor for my hearing aids, so I am forced to use the built in computer speakers). I had thought to head home directly afterwards, but just wanted to finish up a couple of “little things”, and the next thing I knew it was already 14:20. So I went home then, curled up on the couch with a book (and popcorn and salad) for a while, and then got a message from one of the exchange students wondering if we would have the aerial silks at practice that afternoon/evening. We exchanged messages and convinced one another that it would be worth getting up and heading in for practice, and I arrived just on time to meet the guys at the storage room to get the silks before some of them headed to Skellefteå for a fire performance and I went over to the gym for practice.

It was a good session, where I played a tiny bit on the slack line (actually managed to let go of the hand I held to get up there and walk a couple of steps before slipping/jumping off), played a bit on the silks, and worked with some of the new students to learn acroyoga. Ellinor joined us for that after she had done enough poi practice to have sore arms, after which it became easier for the others to learn, as having both a really talented and experienced base and an experienced flier to demonstrate things really helps. I had heard that there were plans to do a bbq and outdoor practice session with fire staffs and poi, but hadn’t planned on attending, as I knew I wouldn’t be hungry, and it is getting cold. However, as the practice wound to a close they announced that after the bbq people would head to Ellinor’s apartment to work on sewing projects and other crafts. This sounded fun, so while the others walked to the grocery store next door to get stuff for the bbq I went home to get my sewing (and did my yoga while there, since I figured that it could be a late night).

I arrived back at the bbq around 20:00 and hung out for a while, then some of us left the fire to go to the soccer field to play with the fire toys, but after a while I was feeling cold (I had worn my normal long wool winter coat, but it is better for walking in than standing still, and I hadn’t bothered with my winter boots, as it was only -1 C). I checked in with Ellinor and she wasn’t ready to head back to the apartment for crafts as people were still playing with fire toys, so I opted to head home at 21:15, take a hot shower, and head to bed around 22:00.

This morning I have cooked up a yummy green sauce with spaghetti squash and broccoli, and cooked some rice with the left over steaming water and the almond milk that didn’t go into the green sauce (I had made two cups of almond milk last night, but today’s green sauce needed only one cup of it) along with some sunflower seeds, nettles, an an egg. Now I really need to see if I can make some progress on those grant proposals that are looming before Villiam and/or Julia comes over after the archery practice (which I am skipping in hopes of being useful at home).


*( recipe )

This weekend was the fourth Smoldering Arrow SCA event, which, while I had never heard of it before, appears from context to be a Drachenwald archery event that rotates to different parts of the Kingdom, and is always a four day event, even when it doesn't fall on a holiday weekend. It was held in Reengarda this time, only a 1 hr 45 minute drive south of me, so, of course, I went, even though I am not doing any archery, and, given that one needs to go out and stand in the sun in order to do it, I am not likely to.

I worked a couple of hours Thursday morning, then packed and loaded the car, went to uni and met Johan for one last acroyoga session before he returns to Storuman. Some of the others from Phire were in the room preparing for the fire show they would be doing that evening, so I was able to give Villiam some of the black currant pie crumble that he had helped me pick berries for and make the day before (but didn't get to eat as he ran out of time before he had to go to his gaming session) and he gave me his sleeping gear and jester costume to take along to the event, where he would meet me in a couple of days. Then I picked up my friend Louise at 16:00. This got us to site reasonably soon after site opened, and no one had yet chosen a sleeping spot in the upstairs room, so I grabbed the corner for my mattress and spread out Villiam's camping mat next to my mattress to reserve him a spot and put my sheepskins atop it, which gave me a nice extra area to use the first couple of days.

The first evening I would up talking with one guy, Max, whom I had previously met in passing, but hadn't really gotten a chance to get to know. We were both tired and kept yawning at one another. Eventually I commented that since no one was singing and no one was massaging me, I should just give up and go to bed. To which he replied "well I could massage you", whereupon I promptly moved around the table and sat on the floor at his feet, and got a nice massage. Then he lay down on my sheepskin (which I had brought downstairs to to yoga on earlier), so I gave him a massage. At which point one of the Finnish ladies asked if there was a queue, and so I gave her one too, and then she worked on my shoulders. Then Pól, one of the grand master archers, visiting from Ireland, asked if I would walk on his back, so I did (which pushed all kinds of things audibly back into place), and then he massaged my back (he is really strong!). After that I sat and visited with folk a bit longer, but then decided that three massages in one evening was good enough, and I went up to sleep at about 0:35.

Friday morning I got up a bit after 07:00, which gave me time to do some sit-ups before they served breakfast at 08:00. When everyone else went outside to archery stuff I went upstairs, got out my computer, and spend a couple of hours working. I put the computer down a bit before noon, as that was when lunch was scheduled to be served. However, there being a break in Archery, the Frostheim Bågskyttsmafia” had their juggling toys out, so I joined them for a bit. First I introduced Max to acroyoga—he isn’t flexible enough to lay down and put his feet straight up in the air, but he often tosses around feed bags for his livestock that are nearly as heavy as I am, so he had no problems letting me fly like superman on his shoulder. Then I practiced some hand stands and borrowed some juggling. Lunch was finally served at half past, so we put the toys away and went in to eat. After lunch I got out my dulcimer and played for a bit. Then I went upstairs and tried to work again, but only managed about 15 minutes when I decided that I needed a nap, and slept for about 15 minutes. Then I went downstairs and hung out with folk. They served dinner at just after 17:00, so I was still hungry, and I am glad I was, since it was definitely designed to appeal to me: Rice cooked in too much vegetable broth (or chicken broth for the meat-eaters), and then thickened with lots of almond meal till the rest of the liquid is absorbed, and finally mixed with some quorn (I would also have been happy with the food if they had left out the quron, but I don’t mind eating it, either), or chicken for the meat eaters. It was really yummy. There were only two vegetarians on site, and the cook made more than we needed, so I happily put the left overs in the fridge, and continued eating it when I got hungry for the rest of the event, and even got to take home the last bit, so I know what tomorrow’s lunch will be).

I was tired again fairly early that evening, and did my yoga (with a friend) around 21:20. I would have happily gone to bed directly after yoga, but David and Caroline hadn’t arrived yet, and since I had spent some time rearranging furniture in the upstairs room (moving a table out so we could put Louise’s extra tall air mattress against the wall, thus freeing up space for David and Caroline’s double bed), I wanted to stay up to show them where their sleeping spot was. They finally arrived just after midnight (not only had he worked that evening but the company’s annual Surströmming party was that evening, and, as he has just accepted a job elsewhere, he thought it would be a good idea to attend and get the chance to talk to his co-workers in a social setting one more time before leaving), and as soon as I showed them were to set up I went straight to sleep.

Saturday morning I slept in till nearly 08:00, enjoyed some of that yummy leftover rice and almonds for breakfast. My back was hurting a bit from the mattress I was sleeping on, so I asked Pól if he would be able to work on it again. He said yes, after the morning’s horseback archery demonstration. So I took my sewing project outside and watched the demo, which was quite impressive. The guy has clearly put in lots of hours shooting at things from the back of a galloping horse. After the demo most of the archers (including Pól) wanted to talk with the guy who had done the demo, so I did some yoga (which helped my back a bit), and went upstairs and worked for about 45 minutes, till it was time for lunch. After lunch I did a bit more yoga, some sewing, and then took an hour nap.

Then I helped people decorate the feast hall, a round barn on the property, which has a really tall ceiling, but a couple of solid timber beams that cross the room at about half way up. Max asked me if I would be willing to stand on his shoulders to attach a string of pennants to each of the beams, to make an arch above of/in front of high table. I thought this sounded fun, but since standing on someone’s shoulders is still rather scary to me (I really prefer three points of contact), I needed to do the climbing up there against the wall. The back wall was a bit too lacking in hand-holds for my taste, so I climbed up at the front wall, which had a high window frame I could hold on to as I climbed. Those beams turn out to be at a good height to hold on to above my head as I stand on Max’s shoulders, so he walked slowly across the room, with me standing on him, and moving my hands, one step at a time, along the beam. Eventually we got to the place we wanted the pennants, so Pernilla handed me a hammer and nail, and I attached the first end of the pennant. Then I climbed down Max’s body to the ground. He decided that while he didn’t mind at all my standing on his shoulders while walking across the room, it was a bit much to have me up there while he was standing still, so he went on a quest for another tall, strong, man for me to stand on, and soon returned with Mihal, one of the Irish visitors. Since there were now two tall men it wasn’t necessary to climb up at the wall, but instead I could just climb up right under where we needed to be, and use Max’s hand to hold onto till I was high enough to reach the beam. Shortly after we accomplished that the autocrat came in and told us where we could find a ladder, so the rest of the decorations were put up with that, which was also fun, but not as fun as climbing on people.

After the hall was decorated I went and changed out of tunic and trousers into my bliaut, because a pretty dress, with circlet and veil sounded more appropriate for court. After court I reported to the kitchen. Since I am not hungry in the evenings I volunteered to serve the feast. Since I was wearing my 12th century clothes, I also wore my pattens, which are kind of tall, which, given the length of my skirts, is a good thing. I wondered when I put them on how they would go, since I had twisted my ankle last spring, but for most of the running back and forth from the kitchen to the feast hall, I was fine. There was one time I started to slip off of the patten, but rather than twisting my ankle this time, all that happened was that the leather band holding it to my foot wound up bruising the top left side of my left food, which, while annoying, isn’t near as bothersome as twisting the ankle is.

During the feast I finally got Pól to work on my back, and after a bit of massage he rotate my arms a bit and then used his knee as a pressure point while tugging at my shoulders, which caused something in my spine to pop back into place loudly enough to hear it over the din of the conversation. After that I was about 1 cm taller and my back was much happier.

The feast, like many six course meals, wound up having more food than was needed, and by the time the saffranspannkaka* was served, just after 20:00, not so many people were hungry, so there was plenty of that to save for breakfast the next day. However, of course, the whipped cream to go with it, ran out. Therefore I told the cook that I would be happy to buy more cream when I went to town to pick up Villiam later that evening. However, by the time he managed to reach me (for some reason my bluetooth adaptor quit talking to my phone, so I didn’t hear him try to call at 20:50) it was 21:40, and the store was soon closing, so I sent him to the store to buy the cream as I drove in to get him, and we managed to get back to site just as the kitchen served the Princess with a rainbow cake with unicorns and little crown sprinkles (a perfect gift for this Princess). After the feast the Frostheim “Bågskyttsmafia” got out their LED juggling balls and poi, so, of course Villiam got his LED poi out, too. His have a rainbow setting, so, of course, I had to call the Princess out to see it, and we had the fun of seeing him spinning the rainbow poi around while also juggling with three glowing balls (one each red, green, and blue). It was a really pretty effect.

By then we were getting a bit cold, so we returned to the hall and visited with a few folk, before getting too tired to stay up any later, and heading to bed at about 0:50.

Sunday morning I again got up a bit before 08:00 and promptly whipped the cream so that we could eat left over saffranspannkaka with cream and jam for breakfast. They also made waffles, which some people had with cream (I was happy with the saffranspannkaka, so I didn't bother with a waffle, even though I normally like them. Then Villiam and I went outside and did half an hour of acroyoga before going in to pack stuff. I got the car loaded fairly soon thereafter, and then spent the rest of the morning alternating between talking with people hand helping out with cleaning stuff. I also packed up to take home one of the loaves of bread (in addition to everything else she cooked over the weekend, the cook baked fresh sourdough bread for us every day), some saffranspannkaka and some of that yummy rice dish from lunch the day before.

We left site around 12:00, and I dropped Louise off at home just before 14:00. Villiam went back to my place to help me unload the car, and we had lunch relaxed a bit before going out to climb on rocks in the yard and then picking some black currants to eat for dessert. I dropped him off at home at 17:00 and went to the grocery store to pick up a few things. Then I had popcorn and salad for dinner and went to the first session of Folk dance for the autumn, which was ever so much fun. Now it is much later than I want it to be, so I had better do my yoga and get to bed so that I can manage both work and unpacking after the event tomorrow.

*I am not certain what recipe they used this weekend, but here is a typical saffranspannkaka recipe:

Saffranspannkaka

2 dl porridge rice
4 dl water
Dash salt
1 liter milk
2 eggs
0.5 g saffron
1 dl chopped almonds
1 dl sugar

Cook the rice in the salted water for 10 minutes. Add the milk and cook an additional 45 minutes. Let it cool a little and then blend in the egg, almonds, saffron, and sugar. Pour into a cake pan and bake at 200 C for 20 to 30 minutes. Serve with whipped cream and berry jam.

Wednesday I got up at 06:00 so I would have time to pack my last few things, bike to uni, put everything in my office and then walk across campus to D-hus on time to meet Johan at 08:00 for acroyoga. We had a good session, then I got in a a bit of work before the busses arrived to take us to Storforsen. They were due to depart at 12:30, but I was feeling tired at 12:00, so I turned off the computer, grabbed my stuff, went down and got on the bus, lay down, and took a nap. I didn’t wake till the buss was full and about to depart. During the bus ride I worked on nålbindining Villiam’s new hat for his jester costume (I started from the top centre, and it was about 15 cm wide when the trip started) while we had a group discussion on the topic of education (the theme for the whole trip).

When we arrived I was one of the first off the bus, and the very first to go inside to the hotel reception desk, which meant that while the others were getting their room keys (we had three buses worth of people, though not every seat was full) I was able to put my stuff away and go outside for a really quick walk down to the foot bridge over the river and to the far end of the board walk on the other side and back (10 minutes total) before heading upstairs to the conference room for the first meeting/presentation of the afternoon. 3.75 hours later I had time for a quick 40 minute walk before the dinner would be served, so I went all the way up to the rapids, pausing now and then to eat rödvinbär, stenbär, and kråkbär (the text is in Swedish, but there are photos of the various berries).

As I expected would be the case, by the time the hotel dinner was served I was no longer hungry, so I made more progress on the nålbindning while my colleagues ate (for the most part the food didn’t look like anything I would have wanted if I had been hungry, so I can’t really mind the part about not being hungry). The noise level in the restaurant was really high, but I dutifully stayed till after the last of the official announcements/service of desert. However, soon after the even louder (and not very pretty) music started playing I retreated to the peace and quiet of my room and did yoga while enjoying my nice view of the rapids (this makes twice I have been at this hotel for a work gathering and gotten a room on the view side of the building, rather than the parking lot side. I am rather happy about this.)

After yoga I checked messages and was about to pick up my book when my roommate came to the room and said “we are going to take a sauna”. This sounded like an even better idea, so I grabbed a towel and followed her. The sauna was in the woman’s changing room, and it was just me, our newest postdoc (my roommate), and one of our PhD students, and was very nice and relaxing after so much noise over dinner. After the sauna we just went straight back to our room and went to sleep.

When I woke at 06:00 on Thursday my roommate was already looking at her phone, so I did my morning situps before getting up. (I would have skipped them if she had been sleeping, so as not to disturb her, but apparently her small child is always awake by 06:00, so she is used to getting up that early.) I ate a quick serving of the muesli I had brought with me and then went for a walk. Twenty-four minutes taking the pretty path, past the bottom part of the rapid, then across the rocks past the canyon and outdoor theatre to the visitor centre at Storforsen, 9 minutes to eat blåbär (Swedish blueberries), and 17 minutes back by the main trail to the rapids and along the river. Then I went to the restaurant for the hotel breakfast before the meeting. My roommate, on the other hand, chose to do the hotel breakfast first, and went out for her walk after—we passed one another on the bridge as I headed back.

The morning meetings/workshops were supposed to go till 11:45, and then the schedule said “Time for a walk in the area”, followed by lunch at 12:30. Sadly, the workshops ran late, and the guy who did the presentation after the workshops ran even later. At 12:45, when he still hadn’t wrapped up what he was saying, I stood up and left the room to go to the restaurant—the smells of lunch had been going on for quite a while, and I was hungry. A bunch of my colleagues joined me pretty much straight away. I have no idea if the presenter finished just after I left, or if others just followed my lead, and I didn’t care, either. I finished eating at 13:00, and the buses weren’t scheduled to leave till 13:30, so three of us (one of whom had never been to Storforsen before, as he is new to Sweden) went for a walk. Since I knew from that morning that I could get back to the hotel from the visitor centre in 17 minutes I kept an eye on the time, and turned back at 13:05, since I knew that I would also want to grab my pack from the hotel and pee before boarding the bus. I timed it just perfectly, as I was the last person to board the last of the three busses (two were driving away as I came out from the building with my stuff).

I did yet more nålbindning on the bus ride home, getting the hat fairly close to done, and as we were getting close I checked in to see if Johan still wanted to meet for acroyoga. He did, so I put my stuff on my trike, pedalled over to D-hus, and enjoyed a an hour of acroyoga before heading home. Ideally I should have done some Durham work that evening, but instead Villiam followed me home from acroyoga (some of the Phire folk had been doing some practising between the buildings on campus, in hopes of catching the attention of some of the new students as potential new members, and we putting the toys into the closet as we were finishing acroyoga in the normal Phire practice room) to try on the hat (confirming my guess that it needed to be about 2.5 cm longer), discuss the ideas I had for embroidering the top of it, and have dinner before he needed to head out to his evening time commitment. After he left I talked on the phone with David, who was able to report encouraging news he had had after Tuesday’s job interview, and then curled up with the computer for a bit catching up on FB and DW before going to bed at 21:30.

Friday morning I got up at 06:00 and put away the trip stuff I hadn’t bothered with the night before, and then went in to meet Johan for acroyoga at 08:00. We were both running a little late (my body decided just when I was ready to head out the door that it was time to go to the loo), and, much to my delight, Ellinor managed to get up early enough to join us, so we did acroyoga for 2.25 hours! Since there were three of us we were able to try harder things, since there was a spotter available, and, at the end we played a game: Two bases pass a flier back and forth between them for as long as possible, with the flier never touching the ground. So Much Fun! Strongly recommend! (They let me be the flier!) The lead-in to the game was trying a three-person pose, and then wondering where we could go from there. We made a short filmshowing a short series we came up with, but then we just had fun playing and didn’t film any more.

After acroyoga I went to my office and worked (kinda sorta) till 15:00, when it was time for the “Thesis Spiking” by the PhD student in the next office. It is tradition in Sweden to nail (or “spika” in Swedish) one’s newly completed thesis to a post in the library a couple of weeks before doing one’s formal thesis defense. This is usually a bit of a party, with the student providing beverages plus or minus a snack. This student’s family originally came from an Arabia, so he made and brought Afghani Sherpera, a traditional candy that involved pistachios. It was quite tasty, and I took two pieces. Some of my colleagues went from there to the campus pub to have a beer and further celebrate the spiking, but I was feeling tired (and going to a pub never sounds interesting anyway), so I opted to pedal home in the rain (rather than hanging out on campus for another 40 minutes till Phire practice would begin, as I had previously considered doing).

After changing into dry clothes and spending some time with a bowl of popcorn and a book I was feeling a bit recovered, but still not up for sitting at the computer and working, so I decided to drive in for Phire practice and then head to the grocery store. However, I had forgotten that they were planing on doing a fire show outside the campus pub that evening, again in hopes of drawing the attention of the new students and perhaps gaining some potential members. Therefore, rather than ending at 19:00 they kept going till 19:20, and then decided that they would go hangout at Jonaton’s apartment. After a bit of discussion we decided to put the stuff needed for the fire show into my car, three of us would drive to the grocery store, then join the others at the apartment till later in the evening, when would do the show, and I would go home. This plan worked out well, and I enjoyed their company till 22:20, then I went home checked messages and FB and did yoga (while on a video call with Thorvald in Avacal) and went to bed around midnight.

Saturday (today) I slept in till 08:15, did my morning situps, and then did a couple of hours of thesis work. Then I took a break to make some broccoli pie and Villiam came over to help me eat some. Then we picked some black currants and mixed up a pie. He needed to head to a Phire board meeting before the pie came out of the oven. I returned to the computer and did some more work, reaching a breaking point at 17:00. I remembered that he had said that several of them would be painting the new sandwich board style sign for Phire at 16:30 ish, so I called and found out that they hadn’t started painting yet, so I grabbed the car and drove over to help. We at the pie (well much of it) in between the first and second coat of paint. Then I drove Villiam to the store to buy more lamp oil for tonight’s fire show. He had a bit of time to kill before the show, so we came back here and made a pot of soup (I wasn’t hungry any more by then, but soup is always better the next day, anyway). Then I drove him (and the lamp oil) back to uni and returned home hoping to be useful. Instead I checked messages, DW, and FB and typed this up, and it is already midnight. Oops. Perhaps I should do my yoga…

Yesterday evening Ellinor sent me a message suggesting that if I were going to work late today we could meet for acroyoga at 16:00 when she finished her meeting with her advisor. I am a bit behind on hours because of not working when it was hot earlier this summer, so I thought that sounded like a good idea.

She made it to my office just before 16:00, which meant that we were at the gym and changed and started warming up by 16:11. 1 hr and 18 minutes later we had to quit because the teacher for the exercise class that would start at 18:00 was setting up the the stations, and we thought it would be nice to get out of the way. So we went downstairs and lifted weights a bit before I pedaled home. All in all a good exercise day.

During acroyoga we were doing a bit of experimenting. First we started with our normal Bird to throne sequence, then wondered, where else we could go from there, and thought we would try doing the throne on her hands instead of her feet. From there we wondered if one could go to whale, and from there it seemed natural to go into bridge, and up into handstand-splits. Then we filmed the sequence. It is still a bit wobbly and rough, but it has potential.

After that we experimented a bit more. This time we went to the Sugar Cube, and wondered what one could possibly do from there (it has always been a stand-alone pose for us), and realized that one could go from there to kneeling on the other's toes in a pose that neither of us has ever seen before, but we have decided to call "Kneeling on the Peak". From there we realized that one can go back into throne on the hands (but facing the other way this time), then up to backwards bird, and back to the sugar cube. We filmed this one too, and call it the Mountain Climber series This sequence is even more wobbly (and required a re-start during the first try), but I think it has potential, too.

I really like this kneeling on the peak thing: