This little piece is my dear friend Marie's fault. Or mine -- I happened to tell her about the curious and ancient eating habits that we had back when my family went to old little Dalsland during the summers, where time stood graciously still. And like the Mad Tea Party, the meals -- with quaint names that wouldn't translate even into modern Swedish -- tended to drag into each other. A sort of First breakfast crashed into Second breakfast. Seconds tended to saunter into some kind of pre-brunch, rolling on relentlessly into brunchlunch. This was all served in a lulling marinade of cheerful nonsense from my dear Granny, who was never able to stand a table conversation more radical than the weather yesterday, provided that it didn't rain too excitingly much. Attempts at resurrecting actual exchange of ideas were forcibly -- that is, cheerfully -- interrupted with some fine reminiscence of what my very same Grandmother did or heard once as a child, not very far from here, on that hill over there, or something in the same social but slightly anaemic vein. You had to run and hide early in the morning; I preferred to go out painting in this wonderful landscape (no breakfast but shake sugaree, provided that I got away...) this maze of small but very round hills clinging on the top of each other and covered all over with pines; interspersed with innumerable tarns and lakes, like deep and dark eyes, a realm of elks and yarns. It is quite dark and sad in this little piece; reflecting, like one of those murky creeks, my present mood. Not much one can do about it...
...to the best of my knowledge, they still have "dinner" at two p.m. And 'round something like three or four in the afternoon one might get invited to a large party, merry, hearty but nonetheless Ordeal that starts with coffee and sandwiches followed by coffee and cinnamon buns and then coffee and seven different kinds of cookies and you got to have one of each and when you're prepared to die -- dying 's bad table manners but there's not much one can do about it -- there comes the cream cake. And, nota bene, coffee. Then there's ordinary dinner (disguised as something else, for it is quite ruined now) and at last some kind of evening meal and... yes, now we were back at my Grandmother's place, not very far from where she was born and also near the place where she found a toad recently, id est, reheated Marinade d'Monologue.
So; Marie, who found this amusing, urged me to do some kind of rendering. Now let's see. There are fish swimming through the air -- one looked like this when I was working on it, the background came later...
...and elves dancing -- my friend's suggestion, as there are enough things dancing in the back of my mind already and they sort of had to be spirited away without digressing -- thus a little misty and fleeting -- and last but not least, coffee. Have some more coffee.
Time for dessert. This sketch I did on the spot, many years ago, escaping. You see the house up there, on the other side of a tarn.
