Friday, July 4

Today was a clear day and while Naa was working in the fields Irma and I went to a jumble sale in Seitlax. It is an annual event in which more or less every house in the village has a yard sale at the same time. We started at one end and worked our way down tothe other. The first garden was the best. It was full of old baskets, magazines, ornaments and tools. We for some of each.

Each house we came to seemed to have less less than the one before, and now we are right at the end where there is almost nothing for sale, except a 1965 orange mini with no rust at all but some suspension issues. The woman in charge does not know how much it is because her husband is in Helsinki for the day. At this very moment I am being saved from an expensive and completely unnecessary hobby.

Soon we will attempt to go to that market-in-a-layby that neither of us know the name of, but will be unable to get in because of what Irma will refer to caustically as aaagh, that country driving. People will be driving in and out from both ends, mostly with an almost total lack of skill. It will feel like a crossroads in Delhi. We will go to Borgå instead to Robin Hood and K-Market, where we will meet Åke.

We will both drive back to Pellinki in an accidental convoy until we both turn into the now deserted market-in-a-layby to buy flowers.

After dinner Naa will make the mistake of asking about the pile of lps we have in a corner. We will sit up laying them until three in the morning. By the time I go to sleep I will have heard Bette Midler singing The Rose more often today than in the entire last thirty years.