After mowing, weeding and driving kids around there was no time to do anything else. My in-laws are away on a trip so we instead went to their house in the evening and watched television. They have two, so our youngest daughter watched cartoons downstairs while my wife and I watched trash upstairs. For dinner I drove to McDonald’s and brought some stuff home. The young and fairly attractive woman at the window where you make your orders and pay flirted with me, I am fairly sure. Either that or I am losing my mind. When it got late, we went out onto the balcony (they live halfway up a big hill) and watched Midsummer bonfires blazing around the countryside. The kid wanted to go to one, but we were reluctant – she was already so tired she was nearly hysterical, and I personally was afraid of ending up at the wrong bonfire, one attended by neonazis, say, rather than normal people.

It’s pretty – dark night, orange bonfires dotting the countryside. We counted the ones we saw on our way home, to distract the kid. Six or so. Maybe more. More orange glows, anyway, beyond the crests of hills. They’ve done this here, I think, since they discovered fire. And they do it at midwinter too.