Eivind woke early on the morning of the twenty-first. He lay in bed for a while, listening to the birds outside in the cherry trees he'd had planted around the house only last week. The breeze blowing in through the curtains was warm, and carried with it the faint scent of the blossoms on the trees and the flowers coming up in the beds around the patio and the path leading to the front door. He breathed deeply and sighed. Then rolled out of bed and stretched. There was a lot to do today.
Ten minutes later he was dressed and downstairs; tea and scone in hand as he stepped out onto the patio on the side of the house and sat down in the rocking chair he had set out there the previous week.
He mentally ran through the list of things he'd planned to do in the garden that day. Water the beds around the house. Plant the herbs in the kitchen garden. Spray the rosebushes so they don't grow fungus. Mulch the beds around the patio. Rake and mow the grass. Turn the compost heaps. Put out the birdhouses. Get the window-boxes out of the shed and clean them. And I need to go to the hardware store and get some azaleas and rhododendrons to plant around the drive.
He scribbled all these things down on a pad he had in his pocket, and took a sip of earl grey, trying to remember whether there was anything else he'd been meaning to do. He'd checked the soil around the roots of the trees for compaction yesterday, and they were doing fine...
He was interrupted from his reverie by a voice coming from the front of the house. He frowned slightly, puzzled. He wasn't expecting anyone today. Wondering who it could be, he set his mug down on the ground next to his chair and started off around the corner of the house.