Max said, “Don’t you ever feel inspired to paint the Finnish countryside in summer?”

“It’s all so damned green,” she answered.

Then she told us about the squirrel, the one squirrel which has appeared on the island; and it slept under her neck and tried to collect food there. As the relationship between artist and squirrel developed, the squirrel came to expect a game at four o’ clock in the morning. Tove Jansson had to get out of bed and pretend to be a tree. The squirrel would run up and down her frozen limbs.

Oswell Blakeston, Sun At Midnight (1958)