Friday, July 8

The cat arrived home at about 8:00 this morning, while Irma was getting ready for work. It was looking for breakfast and, once it had eaten, it wanted to go out again. It was covered in mud, so we suspected that it had found somewhere to shelter during the storm and stayed there all night.

Irma decided that it should stay in all day today, because it has got into summer habits at Sundö, roaming the farm, and these will not work here.

I spent the morning doing things that are hopefully advancing my thesis. This morning I didn’t write much, except notes to myself. Instead I read and researched. I found material I had assembled a couple of years ago, and then put aside, which now seems extremely necessary to the concluding section. Now it is lunchtime, and I am eating a cheese and salad sandwich while drinking ice-cold water. The cat has been asleep all morning, and has now asked to be let into the cupboard where it sleeps and hides at the same time.

I am about to put my books aside and start repainting some windows, and so I have sneaked out to the shed. Outside it is breezy but hot, and I have the doors shut to keep the cat in. The sky is bright blue again with the kind of little fluffy clouds that would have excited The Orb twenty years ago.

Irma will arrive home and point out that, while it is possibly nice that I am repainting the inside of the front windows, it is actually the outsides that I promised to paint. I will take my paint outside and carry on, while Irma and Naa go to Prisma to get some milk.

They will return with the milk and a fridge to put it in. Hours of fun will begin as we manoeurve one fridge out and another one in of the room behind the kitchen, swapping food from one to the other via the table.

We will then sit in the garden, where the sun is still blazing hot, to relax. Finally, in the middle of the night, I will decide to march to Itäkeskus and back wearing a heavy rucksack. At the time this will seem like a sensible conclusion to the evening.