It was back to Kåge bright and early this morning, for Lydia’s first belt tryout. The whole affair went quickly enough, and we were back on our way home after just an hour, with Lydia the proud bearer of a diploma certifying that she is no longer a novice. Due to some sort of shipping delay on the part of the belt-manufacturer, no new belts were handed out today, but Lydia’s instructor assured her that she’d have a nice, bright-red belt for her at practice this week. At last she’ll be able to shuffle off that white badge of beginner-hood.

The evaluations were done privately, so I didn’t see the American sensei again today, but I did some checking around online about him last night and it turns out he’s been in Sweden a lot longer than twenty years. He’s been here since 1970, which is somewhat intriguing. There are, after all, certain conclusions one can’t help but leap to when considering young American men who moved to Sweden during that period. No judgments here, of course, but I must admit I’m curious.

In other news, snow has been predicted for today and the chill in the air is such that I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few snowflakes fall. We’ve already seen some pretty thick “rain” this afternoon, and the skies are still looking grey and ominous. I just moved all my geraniums outside last week, when we were having summer-like temperatures, but I guess I’ll be spending some time later bringing them all back in. I think I may need to get a wheeled cart or something so that I can move them to and fro more easily.