It was a rather quiet holiday. Early Christmas Eve I drove to the summerhouse, where my mother and her boyfriend were staying. We kept a distance and were careful with hygiene. There was great food in the seasonal style, like Janson's Temptation, meatballs and sausages. I got some very nice presents: a sheepskin to have on the car seat, several types of lotion and soap, a wall calendar, a Christmas kitchen towel, a small led light to have outdoors when it's dark, a Christmas tin containing assorted nuts and a small decorative dog with a Santa hat. My sister gave us a jigsaw puzzle with 1000 pieces. The image was the Titanic, so a large part of the ship was black, the sky was dark and also the ocean. It took over a week to get it done. It was a nice break from the TV watching and the crosswords.
After the four days off I worked three days and then it was time for the New Year's. The same routine, I drove early on the 31st to the summerhouse. My mother suggested that I should cook a three-course meal for that evening. She helped, also. We had shrimp salad toast, baked salmon with almonds and potato gratin, and dessert was chocolate mousse (made from scratch). It was very tasty. At midnight we stood on the beach looking at the fireworks both to the south and north.
Monday the 4th we were two people working in the stacks. I was really surprised to see the amount of requests. It seems like many students experienced a sudden urge for books over New Year's. We just barely managed to retrieve everything before noon (when the library opened). It slowed down the next day, thankfully. Wednesday was also a holiday (Twelfth Day), which I spent at home. My father came to visit, primarily I think because he doesn't have a TV and wanted to watch winter sports. We also went out for pizza.
Today most of the staff members in the stacks were on site to handle the relatively large amount of requests. The semester starts soon and there will be lots to do the next few weeks, even though we have limited the number of studying spaces and closed off parts of the house. The feared virus is increasing here and we try to limit people's presence in the library as much as possible.
