Today marked Mirinda’s final solo trip into Stockholm. She visited the Stockholm Stadshuset and went on a fascinating tour of the various rooms. She came home with lots of interesting and, sometimes, surprising facts. Like the one about the mosaic horse with no head.
In the meanwhilst, I stayed at home with the girls and, after fixing one of the two vacuum cleaners, vac’ed the lounge. I also washed the kitchen floor, something that requires a bit of solo time.
While the house has two vacuum cleaners, it doesn’t have a mop and full size bucket. Not that the floor is that big. A sponge and small bucket are fine. It just takes a bit longer. Being on the floor also helps keep the dogs out.
After washing the whole floor and in order to let it dry unhindered, I took the girls for a walk around the block.
Way back in the depths of 2020, when we first walked around the rather big block here, we noticed a few painted letter boxes outside houses. They were mostly of forest scenes which would have been happily at home in a Disney film. However, one of them was a rather odd depiction of a big, vicious looking mosquito.
I wondered that first time, why on earth someone would have a letterbox with a mosquito on it. Then, today, the penny dropped. And the answer to this intriguing question can be found in last week’s Letter from Sweden podcast. Have a listen here. Go on. It’ll only take five minutes. Really. It’s very short.
The temperature had risen again following yesterday’s drop, so our walk was somewhat filled with sun and the search for the shady bits of the road.
Eventually, Mirinda came home and told us of her adventures. It was while she was gleefully telling us about the various splendid rooms in the stadshuset that I spotted what appeared to be a tiny black seed heading towards Emma.
It was about a millimetre or two long and shiny black. I was going to just flick it off absently but then I noticed it had very tiny legs. I managed to pick it up and drop it on the table for closer examination. It was a pre-blood filled tick.
I crushed the little bastard with a handy beer bottle.
