Thursday, June 20

I was awake half the night thanks to the posse of flies playing games on my face. I got the girls up at 7:30, gave them breakfast, and off they went to the fields. Tomorrow is the midsummer market, and the farm will be selling its produce for the first time. Everyone will spend a very long day getting the produce ready.

After they have gone I write for a bit, or rather I unwrite. It turns out that what I wrote yesterday deserves to be thrown away and rewritten. By the time I finish I will be 500 words further away from completing the thesis than I was twenty four hours ago. I console myself by washing my hair.

The girls went for their midday break with Camilla. I cleaned the house and fed the cat. The girls’ lunch break was unusually long because the sky suddenly darkened and a heavy storm appeared from nowhere. It rained for an hour and then stopped as suddenly as it had started.

Now I am looking out over the field. There is a very large group there picking potatoes and salad. As I am looking AUo appears for a drink and tells me that they will probably be working very late.

Later Naa will bring me two lettuce from the fields to add to the pasta, tomatoes, boiled eggs and mixed vegeatbles which will form the ingredients of our dinner.

Later still Irma will arrive from Helsinki with a car full of goodies for the weekend. We will race to Benita’s to look at the hut that will now be the centre of our Saturday mornings.