Short vacation

The week at work was a little straining. I still have back problems but after a second visit to the chiropractor it's better. We were three or four people in the stacks this past week and I didn't have to work as hard as the previous week. We have already now noticed that the new students have acquired their reading lists for the upcoming semester. There are several repairs going on in the building and it's causing some distress. The main elevator is being cleaned and painted so we can't use it. One morning our computers were out after the power was broken by electricians doing some rewiring. It was difficult to get everything started again and one computer (which almost never gets shut off) took a long time to get running again - it had to install 23 000 updates first.

Saturday morning I took the train to Hässleholm and was met by my second cousin and his wife. It's a tradition that we meet over a weekend once a year. My mother also arrived by train half an hour later and we all went to a flea market outside of town, arranged by a sports club. It was outdoors and pretty big. My mother was the only one shopping, she got a top very cheaply. We had a meal at a newly opened cafe in the countryside. It had a theme that my second cousin favors - old American cars. It was a very nice place with decor from old gas stations and a large display of model cars. After taking the scenic route we arrived at their summer residence in the woods. It's her family farm and they have been remodeling it since they got it some years ago. The old farm fields have been planted with birches and spruce trees. Today we also toured the troll forests (high spruce trees and green moss make up a mystic setting, where the trolls lived according to the folk beliefs). We drove on the back roads and it was really nice to see something else than the highway. Returning to Hässleholm, we went for yet another flea market where we got some small things. We had discovered that there were massive train problems due to a power failure, so we decided to stay and wait until it was sorted out. We had lunch and then went to the local park. The ice-cream was good and the weather was great. Sunny and about 24 centigrades. We just relaxed and enjoyed the ambience. Three of us then managed to get onboard more or less the intended trains in separate directions. I went south, my mother east and my second cousin's wife went north (she had to go back to work). The visit was very nice, it was the first proper vacation for me.