Day 1: Arrival, and improvements!

The living room, late this evening.

It's wonderful to say we're back here once again, in this truly fabulous place, next to Lake Palvajarvi!

And it's great to say that this year, it's really pleasing to have seen so many improvements, even on day 1.

Firstly, we had a direct flight, with Finnair, straight to Helsinki which made things so much easier. Then, although the weather has been rubbish, which is very strange as we have been exceptionally lucky over the past 10 years on our trips to Finland, once we arrived here to the cottage we saw a number of changes since our last visit in July 2015.

Rushing straight down to the jetty and lakeside sauna, we immediately admired the new wooden landing about eight or nine metres out from the jetty, which itself has seen improvements. There are steps to climb onto and then dive straight into the lake from. Then, by the sauna Timo has made lots of improvements, including repainting and a new sauna door inside. It wasn't long before I had the sauna lit and heated up, and we all enjoyed a quick dip and heat up, as it was getting late - approaching 11pm when we all came inside from the rain!

Inside, a new table and superb quality benches, a new sofa, and the TV having swapped places to the window, and then, a great new addition, superfast wifi! There are probably plenty other improvements too, but as it's been raining, and it's almost dark, and very late now, I haven't yet spotted them. I'll take some pictures over the next fortnight to illustrate all of them though :-)

So, it's already midnight, and we're so happy to be here again. What a place!