Tuesday, May 1

Sundö, 14:50

Late yesterday evening Max, the farm cat, appeared for the first time and came into the house in search of food. It stayed to sleep, and I got up at 2:42 to let it out when it pushed the inner door open and started pushing and shoving at the outer door.

This morning Auo and I have been clearing up sticks, which bored and irritated her to the extent that she downed tools and marched off to the sauna house to read Donald Duck comics.

Now we are clearing the river (or probably more accurately, the ditch) that runs down one side of the land. Years of disuse has meant that it is full of old branches and bits of rubbish. The water goes nowhere, scum covers the surface, and in summer the mosquitoes love it. We have been working for an hour or more already and by the time we are finished the water will not only be flowing from one end of the land to the other, it will be making a satisfying babbling sound as if passes out of the land and under the road.

When we have finished this we will drive home, only to be distracted by a Vappu Fair in Porvoo. We will stop and I will buy a handmade basket for Irma as an early Mother’s Day present.