Dear all,
I’ve finally made it to Finland – my favourite country to spend the summer in. Imagine the beautiful landscape, green forests, lakes, quietness, nature, sauna and swimming in clean soft water. All the summer berries and mushrooms to pick.
Well, it’s an idyll, but by the time I reached it, it was dry and cold. All those months of +30′C degrees in Berlin and England I had been waiting to chill out in the Finnish lakes, and sure – with nights as cold as +9′C and days that dwell between +12-16′C, I did chill. Ironically, the weather had been really warm here too, before I arrived.
There’s been enough sun nevertheless, and I also got enough sun during the three days on the lakes. And a red nose – from something else than beer (the Finnish national drink, next to milk).
Also, the lack of rain in Finland over the last months means that the water in the lake Saimaa – where our summer cottage is – is extremely low. We do still manage to make our way with the boat from the mainland to our island. We even made it fishing – and caught a pike last night! Poor thing, it hadn’t eaten much lately. Mom argued that the fact that we caught it saved many perches and small fish by catching it…
The lack of rain means that the planned trips to the forests to pick berries and mushrooms have to be postponed – perhaps even until next year… Hopefully we get some rain soon to make the mushrooms spring up!
Politically speaking: it’s really interesting that in Finland people have started to think about the possibilities of lack of water, now that in many places wells are empty.
There are some pictures from the lakes in my Finnish blog.
