We had an afternoon gathering today for our extended family in Sweden. (This means half a dozen Berghedens, their kids and significant others, and my mum, since my brother rarely attends such things.) This was sort of a delayed birthday party for Eric, but also a reverse birthday party for the guests since many of them have birthdays in March and April, and we haven’t seen them since. Once Eric had gone through the list, it turned out that only one guest did NOT have a birthday in spring, and for two significant others we weren’t quite sure, so we found small gifts for them as well. (Later we found out that both of the unknowns also had birthdays within a month from now.)

With preparations and cleaning up this really took up all our day. Eric baked bread and two cakes. We cleaned the clutter out of the living room and vacuumed the ground floor, and brought out the garden furniture. Once the guests were here we realized the weather had turned so warm that we could sit outside – yay! – so we moved the party to our small patio. The three kids chose to sit in the sofa in the dim living room and play various electronic games instead.

We also got our strongest guests to help us with moving Ingrid’s fort. It is HEAVY. Our garden is slowly coalescing into “rooms” that each have a function and a certain character – perhaps not so visibly yet but in my mind. The part where the fort used to sit is turning into a kitchen garden, with raised beds for our strawberries etc, and soon a clothes airer. We moved it closer to the swing and the deck-to-be, so that part of the garden will become a “room” for playing and lounging.