Tuesday, June 23

This morning disaster struck, or not. Irma left at 8:30 and I didn’t hear. I carried on having very odd dreams until 9:30 when I suddenly woke up.

After Weetabix, I looked outside for Sunshine. The weather was warm and sunny and so, unsurprisingly, he was nowhere to be seen. I logged in to check the summer course, which seemed to be in no need of my intervention. Arcada’s servers are down for planned maintenance this morning, so I looked at the news and then went to sit outside to carry on proof-reading my thesis.

I am sitting in the chair looking at the blue ball that Irma brought back from Sundö. It is reflecting the house and I photograph it. However, the right light is crucial for capturing the reflection and I cannot get an image as good as the one I took yesterday evening. Although I can see the reflection clearly the iPad doesn’t capture it because the ball itself is too bright.

In this image from early yesterday evening Irma is holding her hands in the air to see if they will show up above the roof.

They will.

At 13:00 I will eat a cheese sandwich and a cup of herbal tea-stuff for lunch, and I will eat them outside with my shirt off. Once I am bronzed I will go and weed the stones at the front of the garden, before settling down again to proofread my thesis.

When Irma arrives home I will go for an end-of-afternoon walk, and at 18:00, right on cue, it will start raining. It will be a light summer rain until a few minutes after I get home when it will turn into a darker, heavier storm.

Naa will arrive home on her cycle soaking wet, and decide to go by bus tomorrow. We will eat some deliciously spicy chicken soup that Irma has made, just right for the late autumn downpour that is still going on outside, and Naa will warm up.

At 21:00 Irma and I will watch one of the laziest episodes of Criminal Minds I could imagine. The story begins with a totally unbelievable premise and builds to a series of unlikely coincidences and decisions and then fizzles out in a karaoke bar with the investigators singing Billy Joel’s Piano Man to celebrate the closing down of one of their favourite bars. It will have all the realism and complexity of an episode of The A-Team without the amusement value.

After that I will feel a need to go to bed and sleep it off.