It’s the middle of the summer, with mountains of work to do and no relief from the heat. My Metro car was offloaded before 7 a.m. to fill the platform at Ballston with even more perspiring bodies clinging valiantly to some semblance of morning cool.

It’s time for . . . a virtual vacation.  What will be, I imagine, the first in a series.

My brother- and sister-in-law are visiting Tom’s cousin Dan and his wife, Ann-Katrin, in Sweden now. So I’m taking myself there today, to their lakeside bungalow with the terraced yard and the charming little guest house in blue and red. To the back porch with the deck chairs and lake view, to the pansies and the pumpkin plants, and, in the distance, the cuckoo bird — the real thing, not our loud clock replica — sounding faintly, faithfully, through the woods.

On a walk from their house the first day there we came across these two boats moored companionably next to each other. I snapped a shot. It’s still one of my favorite pictures.