Monday, April 22

The day began in bright sunshine and the kind of warmth we had been hoping for.

I spent the day in a state of constant busy-ness. Fortunately, by the end of the day I had done everything on the calendar for today, so the non-stop action was worth it. At some level.

Among these many actions were the creation and publishing of the text for the final assignment for the MA students, and a lengthy chat with Reidar about a project we might pursue together. We set up a meeting in May to talk more, and drink coffee.

Now I am home. Irma has gone to a parents’ meeting at Auo’s school after spending a couple of hours planting and weeding. I am carrying the weeds to the woods and fixing the fences around the fruit bushes: the fences that get bent out of shape by the snow every winter.

Later I will help Auo with her homework. She has to find 21 questions about Arctic animals for a board game she is making for a school project. I will finally discover that lemmings live in the Arctic. When Irma returns I will discover that the Finnish for lemming is sopuli, and I will realise that I have known that they live in Lapland for years.

I just never realised they were lemmings in disguise.