Tuesday, July 5

We left Sundö shortly after midday, having said goodbye to Mika, Camilla and Juhan. Everything had gone remarkably smoothly: the cat hadn’t managed to run away and everything got cleaned and packed very smoothly.

We got home about 15:00 and we set up flowers and plants in the garden. Irma has gone to buy some food and milk from Prisma. Naa and I are weeding in the garden, where the pig-dog-thing is looking a little worse for wear, after being outside for a couple of winters. It is currently on duty, guarding some plants Irma brought back from Pellinki.

Later we will all sit in the garden chairs, and talk about how strange it is that moving from one place to another, or stopping one thing and starting another, always brings Auo to the front of our minds. We left Sundö, got to Helsinki, and look: there she isn’t.

Later still we will watch television for the first time in two months; alternating between a film starring Clint Eastwood, and another film not starring him. The former later turned out to be called True Crime, while the latter seems (wisely) not to feature in the filmography of Penelope Cruz (who was definitely in it).

I will notice that I don’t miss television at all. I could quite happily live for another two months without one. All summer we have sat in chairs in the garden, more or less facing each other and talking or not talking. Now we will sit in a row again, in a holding pattern, while the tv does whatever it does and we switch channels restlessly searching for the least worst option.