The Cellar

We, my children and I are still in Sweden. Lucia just happened yesterday and I thought people would be interested in hearing about it. But there is another reason I was so happy to diverge from our daily life in Viken.

My mother. She still had problems with me. She loved the children and she was a wonderful grandmother. With me it was another story. I will give you one example and then try to forget it.

Sunday we had dinner, all six of us. And I tried to have a Sunday dinner like the ones we had when I was growing up. I bought a beautiful veal roast. With that we had boiled potatoes and string-beans. I forget what we had for dessert.

An aside before I go on. There was no running water in the kitchen. There was no refrigerator.

We ate and all went well. I had hot water ready for washing dishes and after the children had cleared the table I told them they could go out and play, while I washed the dishes. Mother said she was going to visit a friend. Before I could wash the dishes I had to decide how to preserve the leftovers. I decided to cover the serving dishes with foil and to put them down in the cellar. We had enough for a good supper the following day. When I opened the cellar door, I thought there were too many spider-webs down there.

Well, next evening when I went to get our leftovers, the cellar door was nailed shut. That meant the food would sit there and rot and the serving dishes were lost for us for the duration. It wasn't just a little brad used by my mother, those were huge nails pounded in totally. The people who bought the house many years later must have been surprised when they tore the kitchen down to modernize it. Two beautiful dishes with green stuff growing under the foil. There was some sort of adventure like this for me on a daily basis.

I will try to tell you about the fun times we had.