A look back at late winter - early spring

Time has gone too fast again.. Feels weird looking back at the past winter.
February marked the gradual end of true, cold winter.
Just in time before the upper layer of ice melted beyond our comfort zone, I went out skating on Trekanten lake on the way to work one morning. A beautiful and refreshing 20 min out on the ice.

Enjoying the last of the snow and ice on our island.

We went to the park and to the beach in Bromma in mid-February. There were very nice patches of ice by the playground to slide on.

The lake was actually still quite well frozen, but past the point where we felt secure - there was melted water on top of the ice, the edge by the beach had turned to water, and, from above, we could see giant marks criss-crossing the ice, as if the ice had become a puzzle rather than a whole set. Also, not far beyond there was the open channel for the ferries. We did venture a few meters on the ice, following the lead of other families, but rather quickly went back to shore.

Our island floating over the ice.

A very surreal sight that day - two cyclists happily cruising on the ice through the melted water above the ice.

Eric went out for an ice skating tour with guides on a still well frozen lake, and I took the kids out to explore a lake close to Hellasgården. I thought that we would walk round the lake and go to the café place at Hellasgården - we only covered about a fifth of the distance before back-tracking but had a great time on a lovely meadow, between snow patches and green-green grass peeking out.

 And it was already winter holidays for the kids. They mostly stayed in the forskola / fritids, but we had planned to go for a 4-day trip to a ski resort, 350 km north of Stockholm. The resort, Hassela, had been recommended by friends and is a small but family-friendly place Swedish style - a big hill, 310 m high, with a couple of lifts and slopes, and a great swimming pool.

The vacation did not go as we had hoped for. Eric had meetings keeping him in Stockholm until the Friday afternoon, and Ruben woke up with a high fever on the Thursday morning, as I was about to leave with the kids. With the help of the babysitter, Eric juggled looking after Ruben and attending to his meetings, whilst Alexandre and I went off alone. 

One the one hand, it was great to be on my own with Alexandre. We are rarely if ever just with one kid, and it was really nice. But we did miss Eric and Ruben, and felt very sorry that Ruben missed this ski trip. 

Alexandre was doing great on the skis ! In the mornings, we hit the green and blue slopes for a couple of hours, and then went and spent long afternoons in the pool, where Alexandre discovered the joy of sitting in an outdoor jacuzzi. 

Dear Alexandre whilst usually an happy and active kid, does not know when he is becoming tired or hungry, does absolutely not want to stop an activity he is enjoying, and suddenly turns into an angry, unhappy and floppy kid who will argue that everything is wrong. But, beyond that one wall he seemed to hit everyday, no matter how early we stopped, how many breaks we had or how much I fed him, things went great.

Back in Stockholm, Ruben was slowly mending and started feeling really better on the sunday only. This really came at a bad time for him.

On the bright side, Ruben started taking drum classes soon after this failed vacation. I had finally found a teacher after a long, long time looking and some detective level work. It takes some juggling as we are meeting the teacher downtown on Wednesdays at 5.30 pm, but Ruben really, really loves it.

On Stora Essingen.

Someone had fun with the discarded Christmas trees up the hill.

 I then had to attend a Forum in Cape Verde. As usual, this was a condensed and packed trip, but the organizers of the forum had had the good idea to include a field trip. Very interesting and striking - Praia is so, so dry.

Breathtaking views from the ridge in the middle of the island, with slightly more humidity at that height.

Of course, that Forum was organized around World water day, which is March 22d, which meant that I was away, again, for Ruben's birthday.

We celebrated together when I came back.

Elizabeth was there for a visit / work trip.

At fruktparken.

Ruben celebrating his birthday with his friends !

Enjoying the garden again.

Nice walk / beach outing to Erstaviksbadet with Cecile, Akan and Lisa, Vincent and Hugo. It was cold, beautiful, and the beach was empty  - empty. Probably very different in the summer.

We then went off to Saltsjöbaden for a fika and a bit of sight-seeing. This is a very upscale waterfront place. 

And then off to Cameroon for a work trip, to work with our Central Africa team and meet partners. Luckily, there was time for a nice walk on one of the hills overlooking the city and for grilled fish with my colleague Hycinth.