Monday, July 2

 

 

We woke up this morning at about 10:30, after almost twelve hours sleep. I woke several times in the early morning but went back to sleep again within a minutes or so. I woke a couple of times because I could hear sudden, hard rain. I woke once because I could hear Sunshine at the side of the bed wanting attention.

I went for a walk after we got up and listened to Fairport Convention’s live album from their 50th anniversary concert last year, What We Did on Our Saturday. It had a harder sound than I had expected, and felt far from nostalgic.

After breakfast we started doing things outdoors almost immediately. I painted the trapdoor that I made for the shed before I went to Amsterdam. We had some bright yellow paint, for some reason, and I used that since it will clash nicely with the blue floor. After that I pulled out a whole bunch of two metre weeds called illiko in Finnish. They had huge roots and I pulled as many of those out as I could too. They had tangled themselves in the fruit bushes and I had a mighty tugging match.

At midday I opened the final module of the summer course, and checked through all the discussions, adding some comments where necessary.

That done, I weeded the back of the house where the mower cannot reach because of the line of bikes. At this point the circular washing-line collapsed and I took some time out to rebuild it. While I did all this Irma sat indoor carefully painting a small mirror and drawer with a pot of eggshell blue chalk paint. The end result looked spectacular.

I go back and paint a second coat on the trapdoor and then, when it has dried, I move it back into the shed. I lay the tarpaulin out on the grass to dry, and spot the stepladder. Ah ha, I cry: I have seen photographers use stepladders to photograph art from above. I move the stepladder next to the tarpaulin, climb to the top and photograph the tarpaulin. As I do it becomes art.

Later Irma will take a coffee table out into the garden to paint a delicate blue. She will finish the second coat and leave it to dry. Five minutes later the sky will darken and, before we can do anything, torrential rain will start falling. The top of the table will be ruined in an interesting way.

In the evening we will eat and talk, and Naa will phone to ask me to meet her tomorrow morning at 11:00 for coffee. I will catch up with my writing, and the sky will darken again.

We will prove unable to decide whether to go to Pellinge tomorrow or not.