We had dinner at Boman’s tonight. As usual, we were greeted like old friends by the staff. In fact, the chap who always watches Eurovision with his mum, met us at the front door and greeted us by name. I have no idea how he knew our names. I’ve looked back over our previous Boman’s visits but can’t find any reference to a name exchange. Mirinda asked me what his name was so we could return the greeting properly. I was unable to.
As frustrating as that was, it didn’t spoil a lovely dinner out. Amanda is leaving us tomorrow, airspace problems permitting* so it was a sort of last supper type scenario.
They had spent the day in Trosa.
They had fika with Nicoline, lunch at Punch (everywhere else was closed because the Season has now ended and places are shut on a Monday and Tuesday) and went for a lovely long walk to the island beyond the end of the world.
While they were off gallivanting, and in place of doing anything constructive, I managed to finish the second draft of my novel. I keep forgetting things I’ve changed and, when I rechange them, find myself having to then change the new changes because the old changes supersede things.
It’s a bit irritating, and shows the need for time consistency when writing. When I originally wrote it, back in 2020-21, I devoted an hour or two every day, up in the spare room at Vendelsö. This draft, on the other hand, has been dipped into at irregular intervals ever since. It will clearly require a third draft.
When I told her I’d finished the second draft, Mirinda said I should ‘scatter a few crimes through it’ in order to make it a popular, cozy crime type novel. That could be difficult, I suggested, given the plot. I’m going to have a good, long think about how I can do the scattering, so the third draft may be a long time in the making.
There was none of that at Boman’s. We all had delicious meals, a couple of drinks and lots of laughs. Then I took a somewhat blurry photo outside before we went home to the girls.
It occurred to me that, while it feels like we’ve already lived in Trosa for ages, we haven’t been in the Red House for a month, yet.
* There was an air traffic control problem in the UK today which required the entire country to be inaccessible by air. This meant all planes were grounded or redirected if already in the air. The news came late in the day and Amanda was suddenly concerned she’d not be able to get home. Whatever the problem was, it was resolved quite quickly, so her flight should be fine. Though, as we said, the guest house is empty if she has to stay.
