Story #16

Saturday, the ninth day of March, was THE FIRST SUNNY DAY this year. I was still having my first cup of coffee for breakfast when the cell phone rang. I answered and heard a very wide-awake and enthusiastic Clas, four years old:

-Granny, it’s SUMMER outside!

– Oh, is it?

– Yes, check outside! Sun! Is there any strawberries?

I looked out through the bedroom window. My strawberry plot was filled with brown leaves and just one tiny snowdrop was growing next to a minor snowdrift, the last relic of winter. I had to answer no to my eager friend’s question.

– But cucumbers then? They live in a house of their own in the summertime. Can’t we pick some cucumbers, Granny, just you and me?

At the age of one Clas learned how to use scissors. Ever since, we have spent many pleasant hours in my tiny greenhouse. My cucumbers are allowed to wind around freely, and it’s exiting for a little boy to creep around in order to find his prey: The Biggest Cucumber Ever. I looked at my cucumbers, there, on the windowsill; two inches long timid seedlings, that still were living in butter tubs with their friends. It would take quite a time before they could move into the greenhouse.

-No, no cucumbers, but we could go out in search of adventure, just you and me?

And so we did. We were outside the whole day long, crashed a great deal of ice on the frozen puddles, saved some frozen worms from the road, and had an opening ceremony for the sandbox, that actually had melted. And the sun was shining on us. All day long.