Saturday, May 7

The weather is even hotter than yesterday and so we decide to go to Sundö to open the summer house.

We arrive to see the garden disguised as a building site. The new shed and bedroom has been built but not yet finished. It is on stilts and it is surrounded by holes in the ground and a pile of soil. The trees that have been cut down are in logs, and some of the logs are in boxes. Everything that was stored in the old building has been piled into the sauna house and summer kitchen.

To begin with we are shocked in the sense that we don’t know what to do and where to begin doing it. We cannot put things back into the shed until we know when Svante will arrive to finish it. We cannot use the place without clearing the sauna house and kitchen. We spot a conundrum!

The shed itself though is very impressive and a fine building. It needs painting and as Camilla says, when she pops by, I will have a lot of painting to do this summer. If it is warm and not windy, I like painting. If we have a good summer this year I will smile while doing it!

We will begin by weeding the garden, plucing up the bamboo shoots before they get any time to take hold, and mowing the lawn. This will involve going to Benita’s to get gas. We will also stop there for coffee and sandwiches, and meet a few people. Before we do that, though, we will fill the car with some of the stuff from the old shed that we know we do not want, and take that to the recycling bins.

By the time we get back from Benita’s the situation will seem less daunting and altogether jollier. The shed was full of stuff we inherited and now that it has been moved and piled we can see what we want and what we don’t. We can easily fill the car once more with things we don’t need, many of which are broken or worn out. Once we have done that, and found out Svante’s plans, we can move stuff into the new building temporarily. I can then paint the new building and we can start a normal summer.

Later we will learn that the shed part of the building is in fact ready, and that nothing will happen to the bedroom part until late autumn or early spring. So we have a plan.

We will drive home happy in the bright summer dusk.