Sunday, July 27

Today we woke in our newly-positioned bed and decided to have a lazy day. We didn’t.

AFter breakfast we changed all the bedding and then did some more washing. We washed the actual duvets since it has been too hot to use them, and each one of them filled the washing machine on its own. It is very hot again and the garden is full of colours, both natural and painted.

Yesterday we had forgotten to eat dinner so today we will make sure to remember. In the evening, sitting in the garden having eaten, I will be struck by how much Auo is missing from the scene. The heat and the evening air will send me spiralling back to the afternoon on the beach in Kerala when she was sitting at the table in Leo wiping tears from her face for about fifteen minutes because she was so angry that she had been a complete failure at surfing; that she couldn’t even stand on the board, not once. I remember her cheering up a little when Naa also abandoned the lesson when her legs began to hurt too much from the effort of standing on the board.

Irma will suddenly decide that a tree needs cutting down so that she can get some evening sun. I will take out my saws and start. Fortunately Mika will come past and offer to get his power saw. He will do in four minutes what would have taken me four hours with hand saws.

I will spend the rest of the evening dargging the branches and tree trunk to a place where they can be collected by tractor.