Pekka says this is a healthy house where all the basics are in order. I’m not quite sure what the basics are. He also says the house hasn’t been ruined by makeovers, though from the way he talks I get the impression there was always some building project or other on the go. I could certainly tell there’d been no cleaning done round here for the last three years, because when the evening sun hit the windows, you couldn’t see out of them. There were streaks of green pollen all over the glass. And thin spiderwebs everywhere – between the windowpanes, on the light switch, in every corner, and also in funny places like the washbasin, between the toaster and the kitchen roll, all over the rocking chair…The cobwebs were so fine you could only see them because of the dust sticking to the thin threads.

Dead flies on the sills. A buzzing sound somewhere. A wasp flew out of the wood stove. Later that day, I heard the chimney sweep telling Pekka that the easiest way to destroy a wasps’ nest was by dropping stones into the chimney. Pekka snapped at him, said we didn’t drop anything on top of anyone here. He nearly threw the chimney sweep out there and then.

Pekka was so excited when he brought me to the house for the first time. He told me how he had planned to extend the sauna and build a patio at the edge of the front garden, and he described the kinds of new heating systems we could consider. The yellow wall of the house glowed in the afternoon sun. I thought: three years ago, I couldn’t have imagined that I would be standing now in this warmth with a man who wanted to consider heating systems with me.

It’s hard to figure the garden out because it’s so over-grown. Pekka was talking like there was a lawn, a vegetable patch and a flower bed. But I really couldn’t tell at what point the hedge bordering the garden became the forest. Tree seedlings stuck out here and there from the grass at the front. The flower bed was apparently the thing that was buried under a massive rose bush. The string keeping the bush under control had given way, so the rose had fallen forward and started growing along the ground.

A dirty, crooked swing was tangled in a tree; sandpit toys peeped out from among greenery; the berry bushes had been choked by long grass.

But the glass veranda was warm and light. I imagined sitting there in a small, white wicker chair. And I pictured geraniums and stones polished by the sea on the windowsill. And I thought, this is what makes for happiness. That there’s a veranda, that there’s light, that you can dream of wicker chairs.