Saturday, June 28

We all got up at 7:00, dressed, and drove to the market. Today is the Market’s 30th Anniversdary Celebrations, and the stall that Irma usually uses has been designated as Coffee Making Central. Guess who will be making coffee for 700 people?

We got there by about 7:10 but we were far from the first there. I joined Mikael, Nina and others in putting the roof on the marquee we put up yesterday. Then we set up tables and rubbish bins, and I started to fetch water from the pump while Irma got the coffee machines going. By 9:00 everything was ready and the table in front of the stall had the handmade celebration records.

Now Niina is looking through the book of photographs, showing the market from 1984 till last year. I can spot Anne-Maj, Åke Anderssen, Benita and Marita from thirty years ago, as well as Mikael and Camilla in matching jumpers. I look round and the cake is arriving.

The morning will pass in a blur of fetching water, and other tasks. Naa will empty the rubbish bins and Irma will make coffee in a non-stop flurry of activity. Carl Häglund, the defence minister, will arrive to give a speech and hand out bouquets to all those who have been responsible for keeping the market going. Maj-Brit will get an enormous amount of applause and make a short and clear speech, finishing by offering a thousand, thousand thanks to everyone who has ever been to the market.

At the end Anne-Maj, Camilla, Johanna, and Mona will go round giving roses and Sommartorg t-shirts to everyone who helped during the morning. We will leave proudly holding our roses and shirts.

We will spend the afternoon doing washing. Since the day is the first genuinely hot and sunny day for a week or more this will be fun.

Jutta will phone to say that she and her boyfriend are driving her kleinbus to Pellinki for a vintage car rally. We will wave to them as they pass and they will drop in on the way back to the ferry. The bus is amazing in its newly restored glory.

We will eat Maj-Brit’s fish cakes and new potatoes, drink cider, and go to bed before 22:00, tired and as happy as we get nowadays.