Fika with Eva & Bengt

Back before Christmas, Mirinda, while out walking the dogs, met Eva. She lives up the road from us. The pair of them started chatting and wound up walking back home together. As they parted ways outside the house, Eva suggested having fika one day. Mirinda agreed but there was no firm date.

Then, yesterday, as I was returning from my walk to the end of the woods, I, too, ran into Eva, and it was once more suggested that we meet up for fika. And, this afternoon, we went.

Before that, though, I cleared a bit of the latest snowfall from my channel (Eva said she liked the way it curved around the car), falling over a few times given my general lack of balance and the unevenness of the ground. While, fortunately, no-one saw me and the snow is still soft, I felt a bit like a giant turtle on its back when it came to getting back up again.

Given the fact that the next BookBusters meeting is on Monday coming, I’ll have a lot more snow clearance to achieve over the weekend in order for the visiting cars to fit in the drive. Hopefully I’ll spend more time on my feet and less on my bum.

So, just before 14:30, we headed up the road.

For the record, the photo is looking back, down the hill, towards our place rather than up it.

Arriving at their house, we met Bengt, Eva’s other half and all sat down for coffee and some delicious buns and cake. Incidentally, the baking was done by Bengt. This seems to be the norm. At least in our sample of two households, anyway. Three, if you count ours, I guess.

Anyway, we discovered just about everything about them both as we sat around the dining table. Most fun is that they love a bit of boating. Bengt even did the boat building thing at Stensund a few years ago. They have a bigger boat than The Bob (it even has a fridge) and enjoy heading out during the warmer months.

All up, we spent a delightful 90 minutes chatting, laughing and basically enjoying each other’s company. We made extremely loose plans to return the fika. Then, we headed home for Mirinda’s first cooking lesson.

At the end of next week, Mirinda is due to spend a month in Stockholm. Contrary to rumour, she will not be attending four weeks of intensive dance classes, relearning ballet or anything similar. No, she has a long series of contiguous uni classes and, given the fact that she has never liked commuting, even when she was paid to do it, she has decided to spend the time in an AirBnB.

Because of this, she wanted me to teach her how to make two of my simplest dishes so she won’t eat out every night. And tonight was the first.

Easily the simplest and quickest thing I cook is my roast salmon and salad. She said she wanted to try that tonight and so, having had a food delivery from ICA, that is what we had for dinner. And I thought she did very well. Of course, she was working on an essay which is due tomorrow so I had to keep yelling the time at her when she had to do things but, eventually, all was plated up and we sat down to eat.

And it was delicious. And well presented, I thought. Though, unfortunately, I forgot to get fresh dill to sprinkle over the top but, then again, that may have been a bit fancy for a first timer.

Apologies for the yellowness of the photograph. It’s because the main, dining lighting is from the Chez Gaz neon sign. Also, full disclosure, I made the salad. But the seasoning and roasting of the fish, was all Mirinda.

Top marks, I say.

Tomorrow she will attempt a Gazzerole.