Wednesday, July 9

It is market day, and so Naa and I got up at 7:30 so she could start work at 8:00. I noticed that today is predicted to be the hottest day of the year so far.

I started the morning by washing my hair and body in the sauna house, and then refilling the water. Then I started writing. I seemed to have run into a tricky bit again, and so I spent most of my writing time thinking through what I was planning; and then rearranging some elements to fit better.

Now the sun is out and I have taken a short break. The sun is shining on the new toilet and I make another attempt to photograph it. This time works better than yesterday, when the shadows prevented me getting any detail of the inside. The poster is one that we took from the exhibition we saw in Kiasma in the Spring. It is a phrase appropriated from Ansel Adams by Alfredo Jaar.

After ten minutes wandering the garden I will return to try to write more. Irma will get up at 10:50 and I will bring my writing to a close for the day.

In the afternoon we will cut big branches and drag them to the back, move the electric fence for the sheep to guard the eagle wings, and I will clean some of the ditch. This will make me so dirty that I will decide to get washed in the sea. Mikael will see me and ask how cold the water is. It will turn out that I am the first person on the farm to jump in the sea this summer.

The answer is: the water is quite warm and washing in it was very comfortable.

Today is the midweek market and Naa will help in Mikael and Camilla’s stall while Irma and I have fun with three women who have reserved the stall Irma is in but never turned up before. It will resemble a lengthy Three Stooges routine. Eventually Åke Anderssen will save the day. He will make it clear that he is coming on Saturday and the three women, eventually realising that there is nothing they can do to stop him, will decide that they couldn’t bear to be in the same stall as a load of fish.

Saturday morning then will be the event we have been waiting all summer for: Åke and Irma in one stall: swapping yarns, buying drinks, and selling fish and decorations. I am glad I will be there to watch it!

I had suddenly missed Auo when I jumped in the water, because she was always the first one there, and she used to delight in jumping off the jetty noisily while making huge splashes. While the Three Stooges act is in progress, I will notice wild strawberries growing behind the hut, and suddenly miss her again. She would always pick them as soon as she saw them, and now they are there in abundance and nobody has even noticed them. Seeing them there, I will refrain from picking them out of a completely barmy sense of respect.

Or, more likely, I will leave them because in previous years the joy has been in the fun of finding them and in the competition to find the last few hidden ones. This year they are just stawberries. I could take as many as I want without anyone seeing or caring, and so I will not bother to take any.