One year, when Tove and Tooti came out to their own summer island – which was further out, at the end of the archipelago – someone had broken into their cottage and used up all the dry firewood by the stove. I get some dry wood from the basket in the sauna and light a fire. The fridge has decided to work, but I realise it would have been no catastrophe if it hadn’t.The air outside is cold enough for the fresh food to last a few days, and even in the cottage it is just five degrees. Now there is no rush, so I make myself a cup of tea.
So did my grandmother, who would disappear into her little backroom for a nap.Īfter many trips back and forth to the jetty, I eventually have everything I need at the cottage. I knew it was time to get out of his way. He was a gentle person and usually very patient, but when a problem arose with an unruly appliance, I could almost see the smoke of a hundred suppressed swear words pouring from his ears. When I was a child, it was naturally my father, Lars, who coaxed all the machines into life each year. A gas fridge is always a little slow to get going, as it takes a while for gas to make its way through the rubber hose. The flame doesn’t want to ignite even though I keep the gas button down and press the lighting switch over and over.
Some years the fridge has just given up, and I am quietly praying it will not be the case now. I keep my fingers crossed the fridge is going to cooperate this year. A bottle is empty and a new one needs to be put in place. It smells a bit stale after winter, of course, but it is nothing that some airing and a couple of fires won’t chase away.įirst, I check the gas bottles for the stove and the fridge. Three old-fashioned windows with small panes face the sea to the south and one faces west, adorning the otherwise grey and weather-beaten walls.The room is always bathed in sunshine and the prevailing winds from the southwest sweep around the house so that the only sheltered spot is by the entrance facing the woods.The key turns awkwardly, and the door needs a little shove to open, but inside the cottage everything is as we left it and the months that have passed since our last visit seem to dissolve as if by magic. We sleep on lofts above the sauna and the kitchen alcove.
It is just one big room, with a sauna and a washroom at the back. Our cottage is right by the shore, facing the open sea to the south.
It is the start of the pandemic, and in order to greet her first and newborn grandchild, she must self-isolate. In the following extract from the essay, Sophia recounts a lone trip to the island, just after the sea ice melts. This week, in celebration of its 50 th Anniversary, Sort of Books republish Tove Jansson’s ‘Summer Book’ with a brand new afterword by Tove’s niece Sophia (on whom the character ‘Sophia’ in the book is based).
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