Summer in the city

Today is Sweden's national day. Being the good citizen that I am, I had to celebrate. And what better way to celebrate than with a run. Off I went after breakfast, letting my legs decide where to take me, with the radio playing rock music in my headphones.

As the temperature slowly rose from warm to ohmygodmyskinisonfire, I happily sang along some cheesy glamour rock under my breath. That is, until I ran straight into a swarm of gnat. My protein intake suddenly skyrocketed. In order to continue being able to call myself a vegetarian, I shut my mouth and tried to breathe through my nose. It wasn't hard. My pace was so low I hardly had to breathe at all.

That was soon to change. I left the paths and roads after about 10 km to enter the woods. Roots and stones, mud and undulating trails forced me to lift my feet, which in turn craved a greater respiratory effort on my part. Good thing the gnats kept away from the forest. Too bad the spiders did not. I wonder if spiderwebs are as nutritious as gnats.

It was an easy 22 kilometres. It had to be. Tomorrow, I plan on doing it all over again.

The day got even better after that. J and I drove out to a lovely riverside cafe on the outskirts of Skellefteå, where an Elvis look-alike happened to be playing under the scorching sun. To our surprise, right after we sat down to eat, a parade of vintage cars started pulling up outside the cafe. Elvis was singing ”Here comes the sun”, my shoulders were slowly burning to a crisp in the summer dress I was wearing, I was sitting opposite the man I love, the summer was everywhere.