Olof left earlier this evening to go to Malta for work. He’ll be gone for eight days and anyone who’s read my blog for any length of time knows how I feel about that. I think the eight months we were apart before I moved to Sweden were separation enough to last us a lifetime (some may want to point out that we weren’t precisely a couple for those eight months, having never met in person, but I’ll counter by saying that in some fundamental way Olof and I were a couple from the first time we chatted).

I’m especially out of sorts about this particular trip because it’s been only a month since the last time he was away, and this is his fourth extended trip in less than a year. Up until now he’s had only one trip per year and maybe an overnight or two to Stockholm, which suits both of us much better.

When he was boarding the plane at the Skellefteå airport tonight, I was at Lydia’s school for the annual parents’ meeting. The meetings are basically the same every year, so they can get a bit tiresome. It’s good, though, that the school is so interested in fostering good communication between the parents and the school personnel. It’s also good that they had a lost-and-found clothes table set up because I was able to recover Lydia’s gym bag, towel, and the brand-new swimming suit that I’ve been searching for in vain since last spring.