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I was sitting, watching an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, thinking about going to bed when my phone rang. Since changing my ringtone to the sound of a fax machine, I tend to wonder what the electronic noise is but, I realised tonight that I now recognise it as coming from my phone. Anyway, it was Mirinda. I paused Larry and answered the call.
We started chatting when things suddenly went somewhat awry.
First up, my phone signal went silent mid-sentence. I looked at my phone to make sure we were still connected (we were) then continued with plaintive unanswered cries of “Hello?“
Suddenly, the fax machine started up again. It was KSP. I answered at about the same time as Emma started making it known that someone was outside. She was in her usual spot, guarding the house from her rocking chair. In between yells for her to shut up, I heard KSP ask if I was awake and ready for visitors.
As the house began to fill up with two Canadians and a Swede, Emma jumped on top of me and Mirinda’s voice once more came from the phone saying she’d go because I sounded busy.
And, to be fair, the nighttime ruckus was a continuation of the morning when KSP texted me as I was leaving the ICA to say that she was coming round for coffee before picking up Avery and Ella for their day in Stockholm. The day was so beautiful that we took full advantage of the sun and sat on the deck.
Very soon Avery joined us and told us how Ella’s cowardly boyfriend had dumped her by text last night. I thought this would precede the news that she was a ball of misery that hadn’t slept. Boy, was I wrong.
Ella (sometimes called Emma by her father) was defiant and told him, among other things that he was a coward who couldn’t wait for her return to tell her face to face. Dumping by text is definitely a coward’s choice, particularly when she was around 6,538.56 kilometres away, and she totally called him out on it. She’s pretty feisty, emotionally mature and, clearly not someone to mess with.
(This could have been such a perfect photo had the dogs decided to join in and face me. Mind you, I think Emma may be giving Ella admiring glances because of her skills. Being only a twin letter apart, she feels a natural bond.)
Anyway, after a delightful coffee liberally sprinkled with peels of explosive laughter, they all headed into Stockholm to walk 10,000 steps and see parades, police and cherry blossom. Today, Stockholm was at its best.
Here, in Trosa, it was a lot quieter. While I spent a lot of it on admin in my study, there was the obligatory tramp up two thirds of Mount Trosa (I’m being ironic, Avery) for the three of us.
Today we didn’t see anyone else. No joggers, no workers, no fellow old men to help me groan about the world. It was heaven on a hill.
I refuse to ever tire of this view.
An all round excellent day, capped off with a lovely surprise nighttime visit with a hydrangea – thank you.
Also, Freya continues to improve, which makes me very happy indeed.
