Tuesday, June 11

This morning I woke about 6:00, listening to heavy rain and wind. Outside, the garden and porch were flooded. Inside it was freezing cold. The cat was still in the box under the bed.

Camilla sent a text message to Naa saying that it was too cold and wet to do any farm work today. I sat and read. It was too cold to sit in the sauna house writing and too cold, wet nd windy to continue painting the outside kitchen.

The thermometer outside the kitchen said the temperature was 8 degrees.

Now it is 13:00 and the wind has died down a bit, and some blue has appeared in the sky. I am on the floor playing with the cat and looking at the kitchen. Sunshine has been very perturbed this morning. It has kept wanting to go out, and then kept racing back into the house when it saw what the outside was actually like. It then made noises at me as if petitioning me to do something about the conditions.

It finally left the house about fifteen minutes ago, so things are looking up. I am about to try painting a second coat on the inside walls of the summer kitchen.

The second coat will take me four and a half hours, and I will run out of paint just before the fourth wall is finished. Mikael will arrive and promise some more paint for tomorrow, so I can complete the half-finished fourth wall and then do the roof.

There will be forty minutes of heavy downpour just starting as I finish. The wind will still be making everything feel colder than the thermometer reads.

The farming girl and I will eat sausages and mash. Today’s sausages will claim to be garlic and blue cheese flavoured and Naa will point out that they taste of neither.

The rain and the cold will ensure that we go to bed early. Not even Sunshine will protest about this.