Friday, August 4

 

 

I had a strange dream just before I woke up in which I found myself in an old country town in England. For some reason someone had paid for me to stay in the Railway Hotel, which looked exactly like rural hotel from the 1950s. In the lounge I sat with a man who looked like a bank manager I. He showed me small sets of documents from a much bigger piles o documents. My job required me to confirm that these did, in fact, constitute documents. What they said didn’t concern me in this task: only that I could fairly describe them as documents. Every time I picked one up the bank manager asked me nervously, “And would you describe this one as a document?”

Eventually I asked what else I could conceivably expect to find in a pile of documents if not documents. “Filthy lithographs from nineteenth century Paris, such as would make a lady blush”, the bank manager replied, as I woke up.

We both wake at the same time and get up to find Sundö curtained by three stars of rain: a full-on monsoon. The garden has deep puddles that threaten to become small lakes. The torrential rain continues through breakfast. I photograph the view from the dining table as best I can.

After we have finished eating Naa will decide to go and help Lilly and Johan picking potatoes. She will leave the house dressed for an Arctic winter, with rubber boots, a rubber coat and a waterproof hat that hides most of her head.

I will work in the sauna for two hours catching up on my writing which has fallen behind in the last few days. I will work at full-speed and get a lot done.

In the early afternoon the rain will stop suddenly and the sun will come out. Irma and I will drive to Ann-Maj’s nursery to get tomatoes. As we leave the wind will come back.

At 16:20 Naa will come back, exhausted but very happy to have had a chance to join in as she usually does. She and Irma will decide to go swimming and I will have the task of photographing Naa diving into the water for Instagram. I will take my very first boomerang.

At 19:08, after washing in the sauna, I will practise drying my hair in the wind which has now returned with gusto.