We moved to this house eight years ago, and while Stockholm isn’t in the Top 10 of the most expensive housing cities in the world, it was and is too expensive for us, so we happily relocated from the south side of town to the north side – and a little farther away from the Old Town.

However, we didn’t want to move all too far and one of the criteria we – or I – had for our new house, when we were hunting for one, was that it had to be a cycling distance from the city. Now, it only took me ten minutes to ride to the south edge of downtown (and twenty back, it was all downhill from us to the bridge that separated us from the main island) but I was prepared to ride a little longer.

It takes me 30 minutes to ride to the northern side of downtown, which is still another 10 minutes from Old Town, but … “30 minutes to town” works for me.

For two or three years, I always took the same route both ways. Then I realized I could ride on the other side of the highway going back. Then I found a nice trail along the water, with a coffee house at the halfway point as a bonus so I started to take that mostly on my way back home.

Last summer, I made a left turn at the tennis courts in town and found a whole new area. This summer, I made the left turn a little later, and discovered another new route through the small park. And about a month ago, instead of making a left turn on my way back, I kept on riding straight ahead all the way to the University and the Museum of Natural History and beyond.

And today, on my way home, trying to decide whether to take a left and ride through the park to the tennis courts and then home along the trail, I realized my show was untied. So I stopped.

And as I looked up, I saw this. It made me smile. Now I will never not see it.