Day 2 at Saari Residence near Mynämäki.

Woken by an archeologist removing soggy yellow leaves from the house gutters after a long night of strange sleep (an imagined mouse, pitch black & restless looping dreams. Listened to New Yorker’s Writer’s Voice podcast – Douglas Stuart reads The Englishman – at 3 a.m., yesterday’s gale still blowing.)

The yellow manor house is being renovated, layers of the past excavated, floors dug open. They’re archeologists not builders, says one of the residency staff.

Quarantining in half a house. (A dancer/choreographer couple in the other half. They wave and grin from the path.) It’s bigger than my flat in Berlin, the rooms laid out in a circle. When I got here, I chased through the rooms like a dog after its own tail.

First negative corona test result arrived today, next test on Thursday. Residence Hostess I. threw a box of black tea bags up to me from the path. She sounds like my father’s ex-wife when she laughs, infectiously.

Writing punctuated by walks. Lucky quarantining on the border of nature reserve. Found two bird observation towers looking out over the wetlands, Mietoistenlahti. Watched the sunset from Silakkari, marked on map as a site of exceptional natural beauty.