Tuesday, August 11

I got up at 9:15, with noticeably tired legs. I think I walked ten or more kilometres yesterday evening.

Naa got up at 10:00 and I cycled to Alepa to buy milk while she had breakfast. When I returned I went to unlock the front door.

I am noticing the Buddha by the door, and the arrangement of objects on the ledge next to him.

When Naa leaves I will restart work on the slides for my doctoral defence. I will, of course, get less done than I intended because I will do more rethinking than I expected. Maybe this is all for the good, maybe not.

At 12:30 I will stop to collect today’s dropped flowers from the garden, and then I will sit in the hot sunlight eating the lunch that Irma left for me. Last night she made a tuna pie, and left a quarter for Naa to take to work. She left another quarter for my lunch, and I will have it with tomatoes and cucumber, with a cup of lemon tea.

I will spend the afternoon picking more redcurrants, until Irma arrives home and suggests we go car shopping. She will arrive just as I have stepped in a mass of stonging nettles. I will be glad to stop.

We will go to Herttoniemi and look, and then to Konola where we will both test drive a Jeep Compass and find it very dull.

Back at home I will go for a walk in search of the end of the path I have been following, find it, and end up walking 6.3 kilometres – according to the app I downloaded this morning.

Later, when Irma has collected Naa, we will agree that it might be better to get our current 2003 X-Trail fixed and keep driving that.