“We have finally Internet! Don’t expect to see us this weekend“, we write jokingly into our village WhatsApp group.

The fun actually lasts 20 minutes. I have just filled our soup bowls for tonight‘s dinner when – swoosh – all the lights go off. A quick check out of the window shows us that it’s not just us. Our friends’ house is dark as well. How dark does get up here, you wonder? Pitch black. 

I can see few stars in the sky which is still clouded by today’s storm. The moon is in its waning phase and won’t help us until later that evening.

Bridget quickly lights some candles and we return to our dinner. It’s quiet. No streaming playlist on the speakers. No buzzing from the fridge or humming from the electric heaters. It’s one of these houses from a time and mindset when everything went electric. Cooking, cooling, heating. Even the water supply from our plot’s well. I guess the dishes will have to wait. 

We’re glad that it’s an unusual warm week above freezing right now. The inside thermometer shows 17° C the outside just above 0° C. Last week it would have been around -20° C.

I wonder how long the house will keep the heat.

We fill up some empty yogurt containers with snow and stick them into the fridge and freezer. It’s ironic that we have to get the cold from outside into the warm house to keep our frozen or fresh goods cool. It’s ironic that this place comes without a root cellar or any aspiration to be more self-sufficient (yet), here, far out and close to “wilderness”.

“Ironic” is on my mind and I learn that I can actually remember the full song from front to end as I burst out into it while putting things away in this dark Swedish house.

“The mobile service is now out as well”, Bridget calls from the candle lit kitchen while I’m sitting at a small desk in our living-working-sleeping-room, writing these lines next to another candle. I can’t help but smile. We’re now truly offline. Time to start a list of things we notice and especially miss.

The moon is slowly rising over the forest out east to start its way across the night sky. I can feel the cold coming in through the old windows. 

It’s 20:48. I guess it’s a good time to go to bed.
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