Saturday February 13

Mark:

After the initial rush, it’s onto details today, mostly getting the covid nitty gritty stuff sorted out. Which means knowing exactly how to go about everything, especially as we’re looking at, bizarrely, this Friday probably being the day this will all happen.

I just want to make sure she knows the room might not be ready if she arrives on that day as Elvin has really started prevaricating; his plans are changing almost by the minute. I’m even starting to get worried that he might actually not leave on the 19th so I make it clear to him that he’s given us his intentions and that someone has now already made plans to be here on that day. He says he understands and he’ll make sure to leave the house on that day even if he has to stay somewhere else before leaving the country like he’s intending. OK. But I still tell Maja that she might want to postpone until at least Saturday to give me a chance to clear the room out and have it ready for her. She’s not phased by that in the slightest. No need to have the room ready, she insists. She’ll help clear it out and clean it if needed. And if he’s still there when she arrives, she’s cool to chill until he’s disappeared. OK. As long as she knows and is fine with it. Her reasoning is that if she comes almost any other day after Friday next week, she’ll be looking at two flights, meaning possible covid planning for any transit country as well. Basically, it could all start to get messy and complicated, not to mention more expensive. OK, so Friday it still most likely is then.

Now to book the covid travel test, which will happen on Tuesday with the plan to have a negative result returned from a test time no more than 72 hours before flying. Which means Wednesday and Thursday could well be spent worrying about a possible positive result. Nothing to be done about that. Take the test and wait and see is all you can do.

Ten PM and she tells me the flight is booked, and the corona test is also in for Tuesday. This really is motoring now. Next up is the passenger locator form and ordering the test kits which she now knows are to be used and posted for analysis on the second and eighth days after arrival. Unless subsequently told otherwise, you are then free to go out and about on day 11.

Now we start to look forwards and Maja asks if she can send me a shopping list for things she would like me to get from here. So I’m now acting as a sort of a one man advance party, making sure everything is ready on the ground for a new arrival. We’re talking toiletries and bedding stuff. Nothing major, but still very preferable to have available from minute dot.

Now, beyond actual practicalities, we get to talk about fun stuff. First item on the agenda: What bass will she buy when she gets here? She’ll be traveling without any of the three that she currently owns, which will all be left in Sweden, along with amps and anything else bulky. So I get to help her shop online, which means I am now vicariously buying a bass. Cool. I guess that’s a level or two above window shopping. It’s fair to say we spend a lot of time looking at this and a lot of basses get chosen and then rejected. The main issue is doubt over really committing to making a purchase this big for something you can’t even try out. I know you can return within a reasonable period, but it’s bad enough to have to think about this with buying clothes online, let alone a new bass. But really, this is a very nice problem to have after some of the other stuff contained in the minutes so far.

The bottom line for today is that tickets have been booked and practicalities, as far as they can be, have been sorted. Now she has the wonderful prospect of Friday to look forward to when she can leave the stresses of Sweden behind and head off to a new adventure in London, which of course starts with the mandatory 10 day period of quarantine or, more accurately in her case, a kind of legally enforced rest. I get the feeling it is being very highly anticipated as she says, during one exchange of a three hour skype chat that goes way past midnight, ‘I feel I could sleep for a week.’ But maybe just a thought or two of being active as well as she says, ‘I’m not usually a runner, but when I get there I wanna run just a little bit. Just from the joy of freedom.’

Maja: 

Today is about preparation. And about getting along. We have a chat and he acts supportively towards the idea of me going to London. He knows that I’ve been serious about music lately and it makes sense that I want to do something that breaks the depressiveness we’ve had at home lately. He really isn’t happy about it, but accepts it, which is a relief for me. So for today, we decide to go on a date. I prepare some details regarding travel with Mark, and pack up a bag with Tommy’s necessities. We decided to go on an outing to the forest with Tommy. It is sunny and it is beautiful outside. Minus 10 degrees C, so we need to have warm clothing on. All three of us. We have two layers of trousers, winter jackets and of course Tommy is dressed in his winter jacket as well. Tommy is a Chinese Crested Hairy Hairless Puppy, around five months old. This breed is known for being very cold sensitive, which is why it is important that we dress him appropriately. And since it is so cold, I usually let him sit in my jacket as well. He is tiny, so it is OK. He fits nice and snugly under my big winter jacket. 

We drive to McDonalds to have a little lunch in the drive through before our outing. We order food, and park in a place with a beautiful view over a snowclad highway, where we eat our hamburgers and talk. We talk about my trip to London. About what I am going to do there. He is of the belief that if you’re going to do something a bit crazy, you might as well get it over with while you’re still young. I couldn’t agree more, but that’s not really what this is about. I keep that thought to myself. But I am hugely appreciative that he is supportive of my decision to do this. Even though I know he doesn’t want me to go. He is acting tough handling the reality he doesn’t want to accept. I’m having a hard time being cheerful. I feel like a traitor. But I do my best, as always. We finish up, and I am embarrassed by the amount I have to throw away. I can’t possibly stomach a whole burger. I somewhat manage a third. I drive us to the national park 30 minutes from where we live. We’ve been there once before, it is a beautiful place with cows, pigs and ducks and other farm animals. But we seem to have put a different part of the enormous park into our GPS, so we end up at a place we’ve never been before instead. The forest we drive through is absolutely stunning, with about 10 centimetres of snow on the tree branches. The branches of the oak trees are heavily weighed down by the snow, and it glistens in the sun. When the wind blows we can see huge amounts of snow fall down from some branches, which then shoot back up from the released tension. The ground is covered by about 50 cm to a meter of untouched snow, painting the landscapes in white. It is probably the most stunningly beautiful winter landscape I’ve seen in my entire life. 

We park in a little parking lot in the forest, get out of the car and take a walk on a hiking trail in the forest. The trail goes over a little stream that amazingly is not frozen yet. The little stream pourls as we walk on a bridge a couple of meters over it. It feels a little scary to look down, I think as I lean closer to the edge to take some photographs. The sun is shining, and everywhere I look it sparkles and glistens. The wind is coldly kissing my cheeks, that get red and a little bit sore. We walk onto a little frozen lake, talking about the forest and how amazing it is that we can actually walk on top of a frozen lake without the slightest fear of the ice breaking. The ice is too thick to break, it’s been minus degrees for weeks by now. After a while I take Tommy up in my jacket and carry him so he can warm up. 

It is the ideal winter date, of a seemingly happy young family with a dog and a bright future. 

Our last date.