kareina

Our snow is pretty much gone. Just a few little lingering thin layers of ice here and there where there had been snow dunes or piles where we had shovelled snow. Each morning this week, as I hop onto my trike to pedal to the Archives for another day sitting alone in the library sorting through piles of papers so that I can enter into the database what we have before putting them into boxes on the shelf, I have been looking at the piles of leaves that had collected last autumn against the rocks at the entrance to our walkway, and wishing I were working from home, so that I could rake them up during a lunch break. However, most of the week, by the time I got home from the afternoon half time job, doing analyses in the lab at the uni, I was really to tired to even think about it.

In fact, on Wednesday evening I was so tired that I got home just after 18:00, did my yoga straight away, and was in bed by 19:30 and slept for nine hours (5 to 7 is more normal for me). This meant that I had enough energy, and enough time, before work to try making some yeast-based naan, after years of making it with baking powder. I shared photos of it to my new Instagram account*, which cross-posts to FB, where one of my friends asked for the recipe, so I typed up what I did.
( Naan filled with Nettle almond butter, and a photo thereof )

Note that this was my first attempt at making Naan with yeast. Normally I just do it with baking powder, having learned that from a newspaper article back in the 1980's.


When I got home from the lab that evening I had some energy left (nine hours of sleep when you are accustomed to 5 to 7 will have that effect), so I did a bit of that raking I had been wanting to do. Whilst in the yard I noticed that the first of the nettles are starting to grow (good thing, I am running low on dried nettles), and that the poor strawberry patch has become quite completely infested with grass.

Therefore, this evening I took the time to dig out the strawberry patch, extracting large blocks of dirt/grass/berry plants and setting them aside. Tomorrow I will go through the squares and attempt to extract the berry plants from the grass, and re-plant them in the patch. Hopefully they will survive the process (they survived being transplanted from the field to this location the summer after we bought the house, so I suspect that they will be fine.

I must admit, when I read post from my friends who are in serious quarantine because they don't dare get sick, or because they live in countries with much stronger restrictions than Sweden has, I feel vaguely guilty that I am still going to work and occasionally get to see people. Plus I am benefiting from the quarantine conditions elsewhere, as I get to join in zoom meetings, and make progress on sewing projects and mending. So while things are hard on so many other people, my life is still pretty darn good. I mean yah, it would be even nicer if we could go to events, and there was someone to cuddle with, but given the global situation, I have it good.

Yesterday I dropped by my friend Wilhelm's for a short visit, and he took a decent portrait of me. This is the first one I have had done since 2008, so it was kinda time to update the icon of "me". What do you think?

After that I went over to Eva's house and we figured out how to correctly attach the sleeves to her dress in the style of 1795. We'd made the pattern some time back, and and I gave her some striped linen for it. Since then she has used her sewing machine to do red embroidery up some of the stripes, which used up an entire kilometer of red thread! At the time we did the pattern I marked where I thought the sleeve seam should intersect with the arm hole based on where mine does. However, her pattern was just different enough from mine, since we are shaped differently, that we needed to rotate the sleeve nearly two cm around, and then it fit nicely.

Today, despite having nine UFO's on my project list (plus however many more languishing in the cupboard without yet having a card on that list), I started a a new project. A sleeveless under tunic from my final large scrap of the yummy white herringbone linen twill, with hopes to have it done before Hostdansen in 12 days. This project brought to life by the inspiration that strikes when one inventories one's fabric stash and discovers that one didn't use up all of the really good stuff on the last undertunic.

Tonight David made it to folk dance, for the first time in ages. It was fun to dance with him again, and fun to dance with everyone else, too.

But as fun as all of that was, the highlight of the weekend has to have been Friday evening, when my friend Villiam called to say "are you inside right now? Yes? Go outside, the northern lights are amazing". And they were, too! We spent several minutes together (about 4 km apart) admiring the heavens dancing and showing off for us. I love living far enough north to get to see such displays now and then. Now, if I remembered to keep my eye on the aurora forecast I could see them more often. One of the guys in our shire posts photos of them regularly to FB, because he loves doing photography, so he checks the forecast often, and it out there pretty much every night they are visible.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On Saturday was the annual spelträff (music-playing gathering) at the home of Birger and Siv. They live on a beautiful old Norrbotten farm on the south bank of the Luleå river, and they know ever so many musicians, having been active in the folk music and dance societies forever. Most years we spend the whole day out there, but this year we are trying to finish up modifications to our sunshade, so we opted to work in the morning and not head out till after Ellinor’s exam was done at 15:00, so that she could ride out there with David, Caroline, and I. We managed to get this far along on the sunshade modifications—just one more seam to sew (one can see the loose flap of fabric in the middle), so there should be no problem getting it done before the two upcoming SCA events we want it for.



Even though we didn’t head out till late afternoon, the spelträff was still delightful, with much music, good food, and plenty of progress on my sewing (I am now up to the seam embroidery on my replacement viking cloak in progress).

Sunday, was, of course, folk dance, and some of the same musicians as we saw on Saturday joined us at the gillestugan for rehearsals for our upcoming dance performances. Today (Monday) was the last nyckelharpa night of the term, and practice for them for their upcoming performances (at the same events as we are dancing).

Today was also acroyoga (the first time since Friday) and training to use the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM—it is such a fun toy!) at work. Tomorrow is work and more acroyoga and hopefully Durham work too (I am embarrassingly behind on that just now, hopefully admitting that here will inspire progress).

Wednesday is Nationaldag, which means we will gather at the gillestugan in folk costume at 11:00 to talk over the plans for dance, then head over to the church for the parade to Hägnan, where there will be performances of folk music and dance. Then we will head in to town to do more performances at Kulturenshus. Thursday morning we have a meeting at work, followed by more SEM training, and then I pick Thorvald (from Avacal) up at the airport. We have a week to do whatever adventures we feel for (so long as I am in town for dance rehearsal on Sunday), and then it is Spelmansstämman, and a full weekend of folk music and dance. Then we have another week for adventures and it is Midsummer, with more folk music and dance. Then he flies home and I get ready for the Broken Arrow SCA event locally, followed by a week back at work before I head south for Cudgel War in Finland, from which I will travel directly to Durham for a conference, finally returning to “normal” life here on 20 July, which, I hope means I get home before all of the wild strawberries are done ripening.

With many thanks to ‎Johan Åström, who posted it to the Frostheim FB group‎.

I have finally gotten photos off of my phone from this summer's major project, and put them in the FB album which has all of the earth cellar and other yard work photos, but I will share a couple here for those of you who can't be bothered clicking through:

Here they are hard at work, from right to left, the oldest brother (Per), David, and the youngest brother (Gustaf)



This terraced area didn't exist before they dug up all the rocks from behind the shed and relocated them here. It will make a lovely bbq area:

For many weeks now I have had a weird issue with gmail on my home computer--I could open it, but not actually read messages or reply, never mind that it worked just fine on my phone and my office computer. As a result I have been kinda ignoring email unless it was urgent enough to reply from my phone, and many messages have piled up in my inbox. Today, for some reason, without any intervention on my part (though I have been thinking I should try to do something about it for ages), it just started working again. I can even send attachments.

Therefore I am celebrating by going through my inbox and cleaning it up--replying to things that need replies, filing things that should be filed, and deleting stuff that isn't needed. In the process I found an interesting portrait taken by a friend of mine this summer at our Medieval Days at Hägnan event. It turns out that he has also posted it to his photography blog, so go have a look if you like black and white photos (taken on a film camera) containing interesting lights and shadows.

Now to return to cleaning out the in box. I only paused to share the link because I figured that at least Mom would be interested.

My photographer friend returned to Phire practice on Friday, which inspired us to get back on the aerial silks and do lots of acroyoga. He has posted lots of his photos from that evening here and here.

Here is one from a new trick we are learning (you can tell, we actually have a spotter):




This one is just elegant:



The evening was also a great excuse to give a test run to my jester costume, now that I have the under tunic done. Sadly, the linen of that tunic is a bit see-through, so I borrowed C's vest to cover up, since I had no idea how much things would show in the photos, so you can't really see how it came out.

When I decided to make this, it was with the acrobatic performances in mind. Therefore, I needed something fitted and supportive without a bra, yet, very, very comfortable with lots of range of motion for the arms. Therefore I tried adapting the Finnish Eura dress pattern, using techniques from later period fitted patterns (e.g. Greenland finds) for the torso, but sleeves that go from the neck to the wrists for the arms, mostly like the Eura dress interpretation.

However, I opted to do the sleeves so that one edge is the fabric selvage, the other bias cut, and the under arm triangle gores are also one edge straight cut, the other bias cut, so that I could always sew a bias to a straight. I finished the under layer the other day and wore it to practice (along with my Thorsberg trousers)and was really pleased with how much movement and flexibility I have with it. The fabric doesn't mind if I stand on my hands or do any other extreme movement with my arms.

Here is one photo he got that kinda shows the outfit. I look forward to getting the wool over-layer done too. It was cut in the same pattern.

This lovely photo was taken at our recent Frostheim Newcomers Picnic by my friend W., who brought with him a camera so old that it uses film.

I continue to like how my Thorsberg trousers came out using the stripped wool. But I really need to finish the new jester costume, which is fitted enough it won't fall down and cover my head when I am upside down...

When E. and I were doing our acroyoga, we wondered if anyone else noticed. Looking at the photo, I would say that the only one who noticed what we were doing was the photographer. No worries about that though--we do this because it is fun to do, not because we are looking for an audience.

My friend has already processed the film from the photos he took at yesterday's Phire practice. He summarized them into 3 different blog posts: one roll from the first part of the evening, including a cute photo of me and E., my acroyoga partner, talking, one from the fire practice outside, and a third from after he came back into the building, including one of me standing in the aerial silks, and a cool one of E. in the middle of a drop from the silks.