Sunday, May 19

I started the day with a long walk, listening to The Art of Noise, and then we had brunch.

In the afternoon we went to Plantagen to buy a lot of plants for windowsills some soil for plants.

As we prepare to leave the house and drive to Kamppi, I wander into the street and look at the bushes at the front of the garden. I can remember planting them when they looked like hopeless twigs and now they have reached fence-hood. I cannot remember their botanical name but they look very nice in the hot sun.

We will leave for Irma’s mother’s apartment to deliver the flowers and put her summer swing-chair out on the balcony. On the way we will briefly discuss the Eurovision song contest which we watched last night. The Netherlands won with a soft-rock ballad, and this year’s “controversial” entry came from Iceland where a BDSM-flavoured performance art unit, Hatari, previously famous for selling the world’s purest bottled water, handcrafted a piece called Hate Will Prevail. Oh, the shock.

For those who care about this sort of thing, Finland did not even make it into the final this year.

We will spend a couple of hours at Kamppi, fixing the flowers and the chair, and drinking tea, before returning home to shower and get ready for Monday.