As we arrived at the lake this afternoon, we spotted a big family group at the picnic area. The women were preparing food while the men sat around. Mirinda joking said it was probably my classmates from SFI. As we walked past the group and exchanged a few “hej hejs” I realised that one of the women was the snorter from Tuesday.
She hadn’t been in class today, which was mostly concerned with grammar and, importantly, sentence construction. There were only three students and one of whom was doing her own thing. That left me and the other one to try and make sense of Swedish written rules.
Our teacher’s patience was sorely tested. Not by me, I hasten to add. The other student was very slow to respond to answers and was even admonished for using her phone. I was pleasantly surprised at that.
As usual, my classmates drifted out of the class early, leaving me and the teacher. She showed me an excellent website called Lexin, and we went through various words and phrases before it was time to leave.
As I was leaving, I ran into Christina’s mother. She asked how it was going, then told me that her colleagues love my energy. While this was obviously a very pleasant thing to hear, I think it’s more an indication of the lack of energy of my fellow classmates.
It wasn’t the only compliment I received today. Harald and Roger told Mirinda how much they love my laugh and the way I say “Shut up Emma!” every time she starts barking. Which, not coincidentally, is every time Emma sees them.
When Mirinda told Nicoline about it, she was not surprised.
We popped over for fika this afternoon. We sat in the sun and chatted, sometimes in Swedish, mostly in English. Apart from the other day at the bus stop, it’s the first time we’ve seen her for ages. She has an awful cough which desperately needs eradicating.
It didn’t stop her from making some amazingly amazing brynt smör ice cream. She also introduced us to these little cups which you use to contain the ice cream. They were like little pixie hats and were perfect as long as you didn’t leave them too long before popping them in your mouth.
I suggested that pixies could use them as little boats but Mirinda said they’d get too soggy and sink. Nicoline asked what a pixie was. I told her but I don’t think she was convinced that they are real.
Speaking of little hats, Mirinda was delighted by the post tops that Harald and Roger attached to the deck today as the final touches to their magnificent handiwork. Harald suggested they’d be perfect for holding glasses of whiskey. Mirinda thought tiny animals would be better.
Adventures in Decking – Day 8
The final day saw Harald standing back and looking at the wonderful structure they’d created over the last eight days. He was rightly proud of it.
After a rather full day, we christened it by having our first meal outside, thanks to Nicoline who loaned us a table. “It’s ugly but it works,” She said in her usual forthright manner.
Life doesn’t get any better than this.
By the way, as we drove away after a delightful visit with Nicoline, we spotted Victor and Ebba working in their front garden. Amazingly, they have started laying out their vegetable patch using the no dig method that Mirinda has just employed in our raised beds. Victor said he’d used the method before and it works really well.
As they wait for their deer proof fence, we await their bumper crop of vegetables.
It turns out the post hats are exactly the right size for snapps glasses.
A lovely day – I finished planting up our first beds, first swim of the season, and garden fika with the security threat