Tuesday, July 12

This morning I got up as Irma left, with Naa already gone. I had breakfast and began writing. The sky was dark and later in the morning it began to rain very hard. Irma had asked me to prepare Sunshine for the autumn routine, so he went out when Irma got up, came back in for breakfast, and then stayed indoors until he slept. He woke up at about 11:45, wanting more food. Then at 11:55 he left the house to explore Vartiokylä.

Naa came home from school and I cycled to Alepa to buy a perunalaatikko for my lunch.

I did a bit more writing and then had a shower. The weather had cleared and I carried on painting the window frames. The masking tape appeared to have been baked by the sun on one set of windows, which added a level of complecity that should not have been there. The sunbaked tape pulled off quite a lot of paint with it, so I had to retouch almost all the frames with a small brush, and then use a Stanley knife to even up the freehand blobs.

Irma came home and then went out to see Jana. I carried on painting.

I decided to do the sides of the house as well, leaving the back for next summer. Now it is 20:30 and I have just finished painting the door to the attic white. There was no way to attach a pot of paint to anything near the door, so the paint stayed at ground level. Therefore this has involved climbing the fixed ladder one-handed while holding a brush loaded with as much paint as I dared put on it. My left arm hurts.

Naa will be asleep and I will be preparing to go to bed when Irma arrives back.