14/3 2020, Gärdesta, Sweden nearly home

was too tired upset and lonely yesterday to write my promised daily blog. I am so near my home and yet I must stay here for my own mental welfare and to be able to look in other people’s eyes. I AM ON QUARANTINE IN MY MOTHER IN LAW’S COUNTRY HOUSE

My trip yesterday was wired. Started with sun and a beautiful trollish landscape, with forests and glass factories, to go on with an incredible snow storm that messed up the motorway with 10 cm fresh snow, to end at my mother in low’s cozy “stuga” without heating, a bathroom and hot water. Just a little too much for my vulnerable self to handle – especially together with the worries regarding our precious guests waiting for a sign from us – are we to pay back for their by Covid 19 cancelled trips?

The cabin, where my children have spent a sum of sorrow less summers together with their incredibly tolerant and card-playing-bad-looser grandma, is in urgent need of cleaning and refreshing. None has been around with an eye for order and harmony for the past 10 years – I believe. So I start my quarantine with an efficient and merciless purge. Luckily I have all the stuff I need in these days when cleaning and disinfecting is an honor. It is therapeutic positive to clean, when you are on the edge of mental break down. I am thankful for this character issue.

In spite of my acting out, I cant stop thinking what I should do with my poor guests wandering what they can do to get their money back for cancelled trips to Italy the last few weeks. What can I tell them? I am so sorry but we cannot pay back all this money, or we must close. And what is it worth if we close? Other tour operators are in exactly the same situation as we are. THIS IS AN UNPRECEDENTED SCENARIO FOR ALL OF US! Still I want to talk to my guests and tell them I care and I would like just to help them now.

I am near my family now, only 100 km from my house. I will stay here for one more week to be sure I am not a virus bearer for all. I don’t see any people, I am in silence. I go out and today I was in a magic place in the woods at a lake, where my children have fished and swam as small kids. Now they are grown up, but for me it is no difference when I want to see them: all the time. They are well and I am happy that they are, in these days when you never know.