Sunday, October 7

I removed myself from the house and raked some leaves this morning, because both Irma and Auo were slightly nervous about the adventure that they have committed themselves to. The wind was very obliging and dropped more leaves than strictly necessary.

After breakfast I loaded the cases into the car, and showed Auo how to load some music onto my iPod. Her iPod is stuck in Arcada, where it got left in a bag of mine after we returned from London. Auo is also taking her Nintendo 3DS, and a large Biggles book, and Irma is taking her camera and her new Galaxy 7 inch tablet.

Now all four of us have driven to the airport and the travellers have unloaded their bags and are walking to check in. They have a nine hour flight to New York, a four hour layover in Terminal 8 of JFK, and a ten hour flight to Santiago. After that the adventure will begin.

Naa and I will drive home, and both start tidying rooms. Naa will do it because she wants to, and I will do it because my first task is to paint the bedroom white to cover the old and unhappy wallpaper that has been driving Irma nuts. I will carefully photograph everything before moving it, so that I can be sure to rehang the pictures correctly. I will move as much as possible into Auo’s room to clear some space for me, a ladder, a large paint pot, and some possible splashing.

I will stop at 17:30 to go and get a surprisingly acceptable Iso Tuplasalami pizza, after which I will start the actual painting. Later I will break off to take Naa to Itäkeskus, because she is spending the night at Kamppi, before returning to complete the first coat and one wall of the second coat.

At 23:00 I will stop and go to sleep in Naa’s room, which is the only one still usable.