Saturday was sunny. I headed out to town for an extended family gathering with my sister, cousins, uncle and godmother. I was a bit early walking toward the restaurant, desperately craving for a cappucino, but had chosen a route without a single proper (on non- for that matter) coffee shop. I detected a souvenirs & coffee sign by a door next to the Helsinki Cathedral and decided to go in for a look, in hopes of some decent coffee.

Oh, they sold coffee all right. In a pump thermos. I dismissed the thought and settled on a peachy sparkling water instead, for I was a bit thirsty to, I noticed. In principal, I don't buy bottled still water in Finland; for a country with nearly endless supplies of drinkable water the bottled water is ridiculously expensive. I mean, you can get cheaper bottled water nearly anywhere in the world, including probably Sahara.

Holding my peachy Novelle, having sated my thirst, I stepped out the long stairway of the Cathedral. It was full of people sitting on the steps, hanging out, wating for the Pride action to begin. I stood there, leaning on a railing, watching people gather up to Senaatintori, the music getting louder, a dance group start their show on the steps, all that, until it was time to cross the Senaatintori to the restaurant on the other side.

We had a nice Saturday brunch, although I must say I was exhausted and it showed. I even got my cappucino for dessert 😉 After the brunch I went is search of a new notebook to make do for a new diary. I have been filling diary after diary since I was ten years old. Number 17 is down to its last leaf, so I needed a new one. Found a nice one in a bookstore, peeked inside a clothes store, and took the bus home.

By the time I was back home my ankle was badly swollen again. It's been fine walking with it, the ankle not hurting much at all, but any time I strain it more, walking too much, it swells up nastily. So I spent the rest of the Saturday mostly off of my feet, right foot propped up one way or the other. Except for our dinner out on the patio. It was one of the rare sunny mellow evenings, so we were sitting out until the evening chill hit us.

The chill rolled in, together with the rain clouds. Again. Sunday dawned as gray as can be. Rainy all day long. Early afternoon we put Meggie in the car crate and piled into the car (well, only the three of us, for oldest and youngest are with their dad, so we're having a one kid only -week) and drove to my sister's, for her daughter's two year birthday party. Meggie was so nicely and calmly there, in a strange place with a bunch of kids. Making mommy proud 😉

Rainy Sunday turned into a rainy night. We went to bed quite early – have I mentioned lately how exhausted I am all the time nowadays? I set my alarm for 7:45 even though it was my first real day of summer vacation. We had an appointment at 9:30 with my daughter's doctor. You know, how you never seem to get morning appointment when you need them bacause of work, and then when you're on vacation it's the only option?

Anyhow, I went to sleep so early that even that would've given me a long enough night sleep. But as it happened, I woke up at 6:22 to the dog trembling against my leg. I thought she might've been having a nightmare like she sometimes has, and pulled her up against me to calm her down. But she just kept shaking. And then when I lifted her a little bit to move her to the other side, she gave a yelp. Or a shriek.

She woudn't stop trembling at all, and became very stiff, like she was hurting if she moved even one muscle. She didn't want to go for a walk, nor walk down the steps. She was being lethargic all morning long. We were getting quite anxious, and when the vet finally opened up and answered their phone, I made an appointment to have Meggie checked up.

So, daughter's doctor in the morning, Meggie's doctor in the afternoon. Meggie actually seemed to miraculously heal right before going to the vet 😀 We went to take her for a short walk before getting into the car, and suddenly she had her usual pep in her step again. The vet checked her all over and could find nothing wrong with her anymore. There didn't seem to be any pain anywhere anymore. A relief! But what a scare she gave us!

When we got home, she asked to go for a walk, again, and so I took her for a little bit longer walk around the fields. She was doing fine, I didn't detect any strangeness whatsoever again, and I was feeling good, relieved. And then I fell. I stepped on a pebble or a small rock or something on a dirt path some 300 meters from home. It was my turn to yelp and shriek. I hunched down in pain, wondering if I could walk home.

Carefully I got up and put some weight on my foot, trying to limp along. But it hurt too much, so I just limped to a rock nearby, sat down and called my husband to come pick us up. I seriously could not walk. He was there for us in a couple minutes and ordered me to make a doctor's appointment for myself, in turn. That I did, and got an appoinment for tonight. Soon to be leaving.

My life. It could be a bit easier, you know, I wouldn't complain at all. But I don't really have any other choices than to live the one I've got. Hardships come and they go, and lately I've been in the middle of a damned hurricane sending cows and trees and whatnot flying my way, rain and lighting and storm winds. I would sure hope it would pass soon, preferably without leaving a total disaster zone behind.

[P.S. No bones broken, but ligaments yes, and they gave me an ankle support telling me to use it for two weeks “or else…”]

Our summer, if you can even call it summer, has so far been one of the coldest in our weather history. After one of the warmest winters ever, the temperature difference is a mere few degrees. For the most part of the winter our temperature was somewhere between +5 and +10 Cescius, and now it is varying between +10 and +16 C. Our tomatoes are toast. So is probably most of the other stuff in our garden too. Hel has frozen over, once again.

Still, we have reached the peak of the year, the longest day of the year here. Our day between sunrise and sunset is 19 hours, which gives us roughly a couple hours of almost full darkness. Up north, the sun doesn’t go down at all all summer long. Midsummer is still hardly midsummer, really. In Finnish we call mid-July midsummer, but then again, our Juhannus, the festival of the longest day of the year, is Midsummer in English. Go figure.

Our summerplace is about 65km from Helsinki where we live, so not more than a 45min. drive. It is a cabin, but it is also my grandma’s summer home. Basically this means, that we cannot just go there and spend time whenever we want; we go there for visits once or twice every summer. Due to the coldness of this summer, and a couple of other factors, the cabin had not yet been put into summer condition after everything had been put away for the winter, so we could not stay for the night. My grandma (yes, she is old already, 89, but she’s a supergranny 😉 ) had moved there only the day before.

So, yesterday morning, we packed some warm clothes and ourselves in the car and set off to spend the Midsummer Eve at the cabin. Our dog was traveling in her travel cage for the first time and crying and whining most of the way. But it was worth it, for her too, for she got to be free for most of the day, running and hopping and bouncing and digging all day long in the surroundings of the cabin. No leash needed, only a bit of looking after, so that she didn’t dart off too deep into the forest.

We spent the day grilling, fishing (well, two of the girls did, anyway), running with the dog, rowing the boat, idling inside when it rained, eating well, climbing on the roof of the cabin, pulling the flag up at six (traditionally) and all that stuff. My husband took the oldest daughter for her first car driving on the private dirt road leading to the cabin. I walked around taking a million photos. My dad cut down some young birches for the traditional birch trees next to all doors and the “saunavihdat”, those birch branches we slap each other with in the sauna. Nope, it’s not S&M for the forest people, it actually feels excellent!

I was doing fine with my sprained ankle, as long as I walked along slowly. But when I went to dip in the +15C (on the surface) lake from sauna, I had a true note to self moment: “do NOT attempt swimming with a sprained ankle”. I didn’t really even swim (or try to), I was holding on to the steps with one hand, my other foot on a step deep under the water, trying to just get myself wet, and leave my winter coat in the lake, as we say in Finnish. Really, looking at the weather forecast for the next ten days, I probably should’ve just kept the coat. Daily highs of +11 to +15C at best don’t really make you laugh in June.

By the time everyone was done with sauna (contrary to the common belief, all Finns do not go to sauna together; we e.g. did it like we usually do it: first went my dad, then me and my husband, then my grandma with one girl, then when grandma came out, the rest of the girls joined the one) the sun was already hugging the horizon, getting ready to dip below for those few hours. My dad had prepared the place we call “Kokkokallio” (because that’s where we have the “kokko”, the bonfire always) for the big bonfire. So we all joined him there.

In the day time, the wind had been quite nasty, which is actually not uncommon for Midsummer Eve at all, but as always, it had calmed down quite a bit by the time of the bonifre. Clouds had parted a bit, making the horizon look like it was in flames too. We sat there enjoying the evening, holding the tired dog, grilling some sausages in the bonfire, eating some karjalanpiirakat (Carelian pies) and having a glass of wine until it was time for us to pack our stuff and head back home.

It was a wonderful day, despite the coolness of the weather and occasional rain. It’s not the weather that makes the day, it’s the family and spending time together, everyone being in a good mood. And the place. I love our summerplace 🙂 I used to spend all my summers there as a kid. It’s full of pleasant, dear memories. And old stuff 😀 My dad is a hamster, never throwing anything away, and what better place to store it all than the summerplace?

Bottom right corner cabin is the smaller of the two that we have at the summerplace; the pic taken while sitting on the roof of the bigger one 😉

It so happens, that life has thrown the dice again, and everything on top of each other has turned my past days and immediate future into a rather stressful time. Still, we make the best out what we have and so we have been prodding along, doing things at home and outside.

As it went, I had to take the oldest daughter to see the doctor on Friday, and the doctor looked and heard me too, and wrote the rest of the day off for me. I was at the end of my rope. Now I’m a bit better after a few days of rest. Tired, emotionally exhausted, but a bit better than Friday. Enough to go to work again tomorrow.

We made some nice plans for Friday afternoon. To get some dirt, eat some lunch, go buy some new bikinis for the girls and go down to this lake for the sunny late afternoon. Husband went for that dirt, but didn’t find any in the garden store closest to us. We got the bikinis, but as we were driving back home from the shopping center, the clouds rolled in. So much for the outing at the lake. Besides, dogs aren’t aloud on the beach.

The girls then watched Transformers from Netflix all evening long, while my husband and I went to get four big bags of dirt from a different store. We got some oregano too, and a few other things, and by the time we returned home, the rain had stopped. We spent the rest of the evening in our garden putting our tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis etc. in the ground and planting some oreagano and thyme.

Yesterday was stable day for oldest daughter. I took her to the stables in shorts and a string top, thinking that summer had come. Friday had been so warm again. I was cold. The wind was so cold. And while the kids and the horses were out riding, a thunderstorm passed. Not very close, not even close enough to rain on them, but enough for the horses to become a bit restless.

We had checked the weather forecast and planned our lake trip for Saturday after riding class, but had to cancel it again. The sky was heavy with rain clouds all around. A little later the skies started to clear a bit though, so finally we did pack our backpack and head to the Nuuksio national park for a little outing and sausage grilling.

We let the dog loose on the field, where she was having fun running around, hopping like a cangaroo in the long grass and playing with the oldest daughter while the rest of us were throwing a frisbee. Up until she felt the call of the sheep grazing in a near-by area, loosely fenced with something that definately holds sheep but not our little terrier. Through she went and had to be leashed again.

We did a little walk through the forest and returned to the camping area where some other family had already started a fire in the fire place. We joined in and grilled our sausages in the camp fire while they grilled their meat sqewers and some marshmallows. On our way home we stopped at Munkkiniemi beach for some ice creams as the sun was already hanging low.

It was a rather nice evening after all, even though the girls had put on such a fight over needing to move their butts and go out.

Today we got them moving a whole lot more easily, and after I had returned from my sister’s (we went through the rest of mom’s stuff, everything that she had left in my sister’s storage room upon moving back to Las Palmas) we made some lunch, packed some sandwitches and other snacks into a backpack and headed to this island dog park Rajasaari for a few hours.

It’s a very nice place! Practically the whole island for dogs, fenced with a sufficient high fence on the side that is reserved for some boats. Rocks, forest, sandy beaches, all for dogs and their owners. No worrying about dogs running away (when the sea is ice-free 😉 ). A whole lot of dogs swimming there, but not our wee Meggie. Meggie dislikes water seriously.

We spent at least a couple hours there, walking around, sitting on the rocks, eating our snacks, letting our furry friend roam free around us. Sometimes she just explored the surroundings by herself, sometimes with the youngest daughter, and sometimes engaging in some play with other dogs.

We came home with the sun still high. Youngest daughter went out to the field to try out our boomerang with step-dad, while the oldest one stayed home to read a book and I fiddled with my blog posts. Nothing seemed to work for me today. Or during the past days. The middle daughter is with her mom.

Weekend is almost over. It has been a quite good one, all in all and after all. Tomorrow it’s back to work again.