Winter solstice

Today we had a 'midnight feast' in our pyjamas to celebrate the longest night. The tonttu (elf) hat is for tomorrow's school play, but is being worn in.


Our feast included Karelian pies with egg topping, sausages on sticks (we had one lonely sausage left in the fridge which needed putting out of its misery), salad, fruit, haggis rolls (I'm sure they don't have haggis in, but they taste like haggis-flavoured sausage rolls), gherkins, and a selection of leftover doughnuts and biscuits. Well, you have to raid the fridge on these occasions...

Just for the record, we had 4 hours and 54 minutes of 'daylight' today. The sun rose at 9:32, and set at 14:26.

Independence day

Today was Independence Day in Finland - it's 94 years old today. It's a public holiday, so we celebrated by making almond buns, creating a wreath (it's amazing what you can do with some garden twine, newspaper and lots of ribbons), and going for a splodge around in the snow at Lykynlampi.

We had two or three centimetres of snow this morning, so all the trees looked beautiful in the still air. There were no birds to be heard, but we did see a squirrel run across the road on the way there, so there is still some wildlife lurking.