Midwinter calling, day 22

Olafr

It's afternoon when Caecilia informs me that very unexpectedly, Olafr have arrived. The first thing he does is say 'Yes' to my wedding invitation and congratulate me with a back breaking happy slap, but I have to inform him that Iselin is still away on a journey. I update Olafr that my ship is picking up guests from Borgarsandr, but leaves very early two days before, and there is space for him if he doesn't want to travel here by his own way. I give Olafr a tour of the mansion, while they prepare a meal for him and his other apprentice Bruinn. Olafr will stay in the small guest room, while the apprentice will stay in the wings attic. Olafr is looking forward to trying a hot shower, but he'd like to show off the finished weapons first. So we go to the meeting room to look at his creations.

Olafr is proud when he shows the finished hunting rifles and musket. He has completely finished the first three weapons. They are fully engraved, the stocks have been modified and decorating. Scope bases have been made, and open sights changed as I desired. He's even had padded carrying cases and leather weapon straps made, and of course I should expect the craftsmanship on those to be fine with embossed decorations to match the weapons. His work is more than worth the gold he wants, and he gets a nice bonus.

Olafr has started work on the other weapons, and he has made the separate flintlock that he doesn't know are for the cannon. But Ketill had talked a lot about how the weapons sound, the smoke, and how they split wood at a long distance and the force against the shoulder etc, so Olafr was so terribly eager to experience it himself, and then Ketill has talked a lot about the mansion. Just seeing such a beautiful copper roof was worth the trip here. Metal on a roof. Forging on a roof. Even though it's not his kind of craft or metal, Olafr loves it. It's very masculine. I fill in that I did promised him a hunt and it's almost winter, and Olafr is very pleased that I haven't forgotten about it. I'm gonna send Hrappr to prepare new targets and the range for tomorrows firing tests and we'll just have to hope it doesn't rain.

I explain to Olafr that it will be one to two days of preparation before we can hunt, as the test and sight setting need to be done before then. So while Olafr and his apprentice showers and rests, I fix a couple of small details on the weapon's sight, adjust weapon straps and check which stock length is most suitable and fix it in place. I choose a slightly shorter stock on the musket shotgun as Olafr and Alith are shorter people and probably prefer it, and I myself prefer a shorter stock to one that is too long. I'll also prepare the scope and trying to finish it in time, but I can't spend too much time on that.

Since Olafr is here, I want to be a good host, and in the evening I teach Olafr to play Chess and Risk, and he thinks both are quite fun, but prefer Chess as dice have never been his friends. However, Olafr likes to see a bit of the table top miniatures being played.

I have a lot to update in my diary log tonight. Although Caecilia isn't that good at writing Norse, she have apparently spent a lot of time the last month practising since they all know both me and Jane consider writing important, and Caecilia have taken it upon herself to improve and loves when I let her write down my thoughts and other things, and she keeps a journal of what happened during the day, so that I don't have to spend time on it. Which is nice, but I still have to write my own log since it is faster, and I too have to practice Norse and I can add technical doodles and so on. And honestly, I still use mostly Swedish.

-------

Ciara is happy when we go to bed, and have been since I ask if she wants to sleep in my bed tonight. I spend quite a bit of time just hugging, kissing and holding my cuddly fanatic under the duvet before we try to fall asleep. It's nice that Ciara doesn't equal sleeping with sex like Caecilia do, and truthfully, I do love Ciara now, and especially when Iselin isn't around, it feels nice to know that Ciara is always near. Iselin and Ciara are the two most important people to me, but Kari is third.

Ciara is mostly just content as long as she knows I'm nearby and safe, but doesn't need to be in the same room at all as she doesn't want to disturb, as long as she knows she can visit me whenever she wants, and as long as she knows that I only go somewhere on the island and have at least one guard along. Preferably two. Or three. It is sadly not unusual that Ciara occasionally peek in or walks by, smile, and return to what she was doing. Or I hear her knock, we say hello and I get a kiss, followed by her asking what I'm doing and then she leaves. It's a good thing I don't have a normal job in Midgård and don't come home until the evening, because I think Ciara would have had a hard time with that. Not knowing where I am or what I'm doing during the day. It would have probably been a hell of a lot of text messages, and certainly been a lot more difficult and annoying for me. I don't think she would have been satisfied with a tracking app, because I could leave my phone and be indoors where the GPS doesn't work. But there are psychologists in Midgård. The big question is: Am I helping or doing it worse by letting her keep tabs on me?