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Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Long weekend at the summer house


Wednesday last week I went to visit my mother at the summer house. It was a long weekend (Ascension Day), so my sister and her family also visited. There was lots of work done; we cleared all the roofs of the unavoidable pine needles and moss, had a cracked window exchanged, cleaned all the windows thoroughly, and washed the south house wall with the water hose and a brush. My effort here was not that extensive, I basically held the ladder my sister was standing on while cleaning the wall. We got soaked, but it turned out very well. The wall will be painted later. Other activities included soccer practice, lego building, bubble blowing and other games with the kids. There was time for a short fleamarket round also. Since my sister had the car, my mother also stocked up on groceries.

I returned home Sunday. I didn’t dare to stay longer because there were rumors about a train strike for the limited stop-trains. Unfortunately, it came into effect early Monday morning. This is causing lots of problems for about 80 000 commuters in the entire southern part of Sweden. There are some towns in the northwest that now have no train service at all. At least I can go on the trains that make all local stops, but they are very crowded since all passengers now have to go on them. I definitely can’t go anywhere during rush hours. Those who have cars have the option of using them, of course, and this is noticeable on the roads. Getting from here to Copenhagen is possible, but takes a very long time. It requires a train ride, a bus ride, and a metro ride. Lots of people have missed their flights from Copenhagen Airport because of this. There are news of the strike being extended also, and I’m very unhappy about this, since I am dependent on the trains.

Monday I went to work (by train) to make preparations for a social club activity. I went grocery shopping, using the storage round car. Tuesday I went once again to work, to participate in the actual activity, a barbecue. We had planned on having it in the park outside the library, but it rained, so we moved it to the staff lunch room. Not the actual barbecue, but the eating part. We have an open air deck right by the lunch room, so we grilled the sausages there and ate indoors. It went surprisingly well and we had a very good time.

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