Sunday, August 7

I am in the garden drying my hair. The weather is sunny and windy so this makes some sense. I notice one of the school-made broom handles against the wall of the house. I ask Irma and she says that Auo’s teacher Juho made this one, and uniquely stylish it is too. The one that Auo made is in the other verandah apparently. It is the one carefully painted in green and white stripes: an example of Auo in rare, painstakingly careful mode.

We will race to meet Naa at the hospital where she is working and then all drive to see Irma’s father. We will find him gone to visit Irma’s mother so we will drive home.

Naa is worried about her forthcoming exam for Metropolia. There is a maths test and she has always hated maths. We will look at a sample paper and then Irma will sit with her and work out a plan for the next year that (more or less) guarantees her a study place by this time next year doing something she wants to do.

I will go for a sixty minute walk and come back to discover that our doctor neighbour is in intensive care after a car accident. We used to talk at the bus stop most mornings until I started cycling.