Friday, September 25

My morning walk has me listening to Laurie Taylor talking about bunkers, and as I walk through the park where Auo and I used to come in winter with a sledge, a big old dog jumps on me in a friendly but weighty way.

I stroke it while its owner looks relieved. I think he thought I might have reacted badly in one way or another. Twenty years ago I probably would have done. It occurs to me that I have got very used to dogs since we started living in Sundö in the summer. I never used to feel like that.

As I near the main road I come across a large haystack of the kind you learn about in nursery rhymes. I wonder if I should dive in and look for a needle. I notice it either smoking or steaming, and then I notice a smaller stack further down on the other side of the path.

I presume whoever keeps the grass clean has stack up the results of a gargantuan session of mowing. I have never seen stacks like this here, and I have walked along her for years. Either I have missed them in previous autumns, or the procedures have changed.

You can find no end of mysteries anywhere, it would seem.