Sunday, June 21

This morning was hot and summery as promised. We got up, I vacuum-cleaned, Irma made brunch, and we ate it in the garden while Sunshine played nearby. The garden was full of flowers and there were birds everywhere. Overhead a small plane flew in a long arc making a sound that mingled happily with the lawnmowers.

Now I am walking through the woods in shorts, looking at the stones and lichen. I will walk for forty minutes and then return to do some gardening.

Irma will cut hedges and Naa will weed. I will remove the resulting vegetation into a secret part of the woods. Later I will sit in a garden chair reading and getting sunburned.

In the late afternoon we will eat fish from Pellinki with new potatoes. It will seem a shame that we are not doing this in Sundö but, in the circumstance, it will feel as though we made the right choice. We have had the only good day of weather working and sitting in one place with no packing or travelling to do

We will then will watch an overlong One Direction concert movie in which they will never tire of telling their Italian fans how happy they are, individually and collectively, to be in Milan. For those of you who can’t guess, the answer is: very happy indeed.