Sunday, May 7
Garden, 13:26
We got up and, after breakfast, I went for a forty minute walk at breakneck speed. I then painted the floor of the terrace with the terrace oil we bought yesterday.
We collected Naa from work and went to visit Irma’s father. Then we went to Stockmann to buy birthday cake: lemon cheesecake, my favourite, and Auo’s too, in the days when she had favourite cakes.
Irma and Naa walk to Plantagen and I go to check how the terrace has dried. More or less perfectly! A leaf has settled in a casually artistic pose on the planks. I photograph it before seeing if I can remove it. To my surprise I can: apparently it landed there after the paint had more or less dried.
I will take Irma’s bike out of the shed, pump up the tyres, fix the stand and oil the chain. I will then finish washing the outside of the windows.
We will have dinner, and Naa will give me her birthday presents. She has got me the remaining two George Lassalle recipe books so I now have all four. I might not actually make any of the dishes – although I very well may – but the books make very good reading. I know of no other recipe books that read like short stories told by an opinionated old duffer in a bar on a Greek island.
Naa will stay the night. I will have a shower and go to bed after wiping the floors, which I forgot to do yesterday.