Day 5: Quiet day by the house

A family of swans on the opposite side of the lake this morning.

I'm beginning to lose faith in the weather forecasting abilities of the Finnish Meteorological Society. For several days now, they have been saying that the following day will be bright and sunny, and when we get to the late evening on the day before, the forecast suddenly changes to show that it will continue grey, damp and cool. For today, they said it would be sunny, right up to last night. Then they claimed it would be sunny from noon, then from 3pm, 4pm, and finally at 4pm they said it'd be sunny from 6pm. It's now nearly 7pm and they are still saying it's to be sunny this evening, but the grey, completely cloudy conditions continue. At least it has stopped raining and got very slightly warmer, but at 15C, it's hardly what you'd call summery weather.

It's all a bit of a depressing state. Never, in all our visits, have we seen anything like this. I've been telling myself it's bound to be better each day, but it simply refuses to improve much. As my friend Jyrki in Varkaus said a couple of days ago, "The only hot place at the moment is the sauna!" And he's right.

Today, we simply rested after our long trip to Savonlinna and back yesterday. Anna, Olga and I shopped at the S-market supermarket this morning in Vaajakoski. It never ceases to amaze me what an incredible selection of things they stock, compared to supermarkets in the UK. We're talking about a supermarket (one of several) that serves a population smaller than Dunbar where we live, yet it has literally hundreds of cheeses, including Scottish cheddar, massive long aisles of yoghurts, an array of different fish that no supermarket I have ever seen in the UK stocking, and indeed, it's the same with almost every product they have. The meat selection is simply amazing, and we bought some fantastic salmon earlier in the week, and today some superb marinated chicken and pork. I have to say that the big supermarket giants in Britain really do treat their customers very poorly, as it's a real pleasure shopping here, browsing so many wonderful products. Perhaps I'll take some photos later in the stay to illustrate what I'm saying. Can you imagine if I showed them to the management in Asda or Tesco where we live? They care so little they'd simply shrug their shoulders!

Planning their leaps from the diving boards!

I only just caught Sandy!

A better capture of Olivia in the air!

That's easy, isn't it?

View of the diving board structure.

This afternoon, Sandy, Olivia and Keith went with me to the diving board lake along the road about 5 minutes from where we are. Both Sandy and Olivia did some jumping from the boards, then we came back and I heated the sauna, where everyone spent a couple of hours late afternoon before dinner this evening. It's quite surprising how the water temperature in the lake here is holding up - despite the terrible air temperatures, it's still not unpleasant to swim in! How long that can continue without sunshine to heat the water though remains to be seen...

A bit blurred, but that's Sandy from the top board!

This evening after 9pm, Anna and I went for a walk, up the road towards the top end of the lake and doubled back along the far side of it. These are gravel roads, and as we walked, we could see the clouds finally clearing and the air felt quite a bit warmer. We discovered countless houses hidden away in the woods and around the far side of the lake, along with a couple of small farms. We must have walked a good couple of miles before doubling back. What a peaceful and pleasant stroll it was!

I've  been in touch with the local karting centre, and I'm taking Sandy and Olivia there at 12.00 noon tomorrow for some racing sessions. No doubt the whole crew will go along to spectate and shout us on!