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Friday, June 27, 2014

Summerhouse visit


The train strike is over, they were able to agree the day before one of the busiest travel weekends in the country, Midsummer. I made it to the summerhouse by two trains and a bus. We celebrated the Midsummer Eve rather quietly, with boiled eggs and pickled herring. There was also a group of folkdancers entertaining at the local community park. Saturday we went (by bus + train) to visit my mother’s friend for some pretty good homebaked cookies. Sunday evening we attended a concert themed “In the rosegarden” at the local church. Very high quality soprano singers.

The visit at the summerhouse was nice, but it was somewhat darkened by the number of machines that broke down, or had already broken down. It started with the brand new TV, which, after many discussions, was exchanged with the help of a neighbor who brought it to town (we don’t have a car). We got a new one of the same brand and it works better. Then one morning the opening mechanism to the microwave oven broke, so that the door couldn’t be opened. I had to use a lot of force to get my mother’s porridge out… Amazing. The fan above the stove is also broken and the weather station lost the connection to the main receiver, and wouldn’t start again even after the batteries were exchanged. My mother said “What’s next!?” and we were both thinking of the fridge, which has been repaired three times in recent years. They don’t make durable household machines anymore, that’s for sure.

My mother has been busy writing her life story. A few years ago she was given a book in which to write down her family information, and this book will be given to her first grandchild. She hasn’t had the opportunity to do anything about this until now, and we have spent quite some time talking about the questions in this book. She needed documentation and I went home yesterday, partly to get family photos copied for this. Now she also got one more book for the second grandchild, so she will be very busy with this project.

During my visit we also went swimming in the small indoor pool at Furuboda (too cold in the ocean) and visited the local historical museum (for the first time ever and we have lived in the area since the mid 80’s).

I’m back home now, also to water my plants. One didn’t make it, but it’s ok. During my absence a painter has been here to fix the damages from the window exchange earlier. It looks good, the damages are not visible anymore. The entire building has also been painted now, in the same color as before, dark yellow.

I have one more week of vacation and I haven’t decided what to do really, but I’m returning to the summerhouse tomorrow. Today I was at work, and the first thing I see in the lunchroom is a newspaper article about the dangers of working during your vacation. Many people answer e-mails and phonecalls even though they shouldn’t, and I am of course one of them. There hasn’t been that much to attend to, I have mostly sent the messages on to my colleagues. Today I got two work-related questions and had to send documents to a colleague. I try to go there late afternoons and hide in the stacks to do my research, but they spot me anyway.

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