Monday, July 25

For some reason we both woke up at about 7:30 and leapt out of bed. By the time we decided to have breakfast we had already cleared the open kitchen, swept it, washed the floor, and put everything back.

Afterwards we repainted the floor of the terrace, which took about twenty minutes, before Irma decided to touch up some walls while I sat and read in the morning sun.

We filled the car with rubbish we had cleared from the open kitchen and set off to the bins at the far end of the islands. On the way back Irma asked if we should visit Terttu and I said that was a fine idea.

We have driven down the long windy lane and we are at Terttu’s house and gallery. Irma is chatting with her and I am wandering around. She has painted in a variety of styles over the years and interestingly often returns to the same scene to paint it again. The two boats in this photograph, for example, can be seen in the next room in an earlier, more sharply outlined painting. We spend thirty or forty minutes there.

After a quick and fruitless visit to Jan Englund’s house we will get home and, minutes later, Terttu will arrive on her big motorbike. Irma will give her some of the paper that Tomas made, and Terttu will bike home to begin painting at once.

We will go for a swim in the sea, where the temperature is now 21 degrees and I will wash my hair and prove beyond a doubt that the elastic in my trunks is no longer elastic.

At 16:30 Irma will leave for Borgå to collect Naa who will be arriving from Helsinki by bus.