Friday Focus

On a sunlit Friday morning, after wrapping up a meeting about the arcane mechanics of conjoint analysis and the importance of the Q3 campaign for greater mankind, you find yourself staring out of your office window into the living room of an apartment next to a bridge, where a lady is arranging flowers into a vase. Unhurriedly.

You switch back for 10 seconds to an article on your screen by an ex-London consultant on the evolution of the television business, who now works for a venture capital fund in California, predicting trends and analysing the uptake of wearable technology.

And then you switch back and notice that the lady has picked up a toddler who is missing a mitten. Why is s/he wearing a mitten indoors... why aren't they outside in the sun running around in circles next to the water. What makes them choose this vector of life and not any other. Why, you wonder, have you chosen this life, this woman, this home, this country and not any other... why these purposeful or accidental conflagration of choices that have placed you this instant in time on this Swedish chair, of all the infinite matrices of the universe.

Focus, you tell yourself, does your life, your work, your sanity depend on it?
Focus, you tell yourself, but sometimes you musn't and you don't.

Home.Stock.Holm

Intense cardio session at Frisky and Sweaty gym at Fridhelmsplan. Elliptical-check. Treadmill-check. On rowing machine. At 35 calories on a target of 70. Woman calls. Wonder if everything is ok with sprocket. And with her. Wonder if we've lost in our first attempt at Sweden's arcane house buying/ bidding process and therefore the chance to buy the only decent house we've seen in all the viewings we've had.

W: "Hi, hon, how are you getting on"
M: "Not too bad, babe, at the gym... will wrap up soon and be home. How was your day?"
W: "All right, a bit tired, about to cook dinner"
M: "Sounds lovely, I'll be home soon"
W: "Sure... oh and by the way, we won the bidding"

Says my understated Welsh woman. And just like that, on a cold Stockholm evening, with sweat pouring off my forehead, amidst huffing and puffing Swedes of all sizes, shapes and ages, with a little yelp-grunt of delight, we're home owners.