Flashbacks from the childhood

Today was a day that reminded me very vividly of the winters of my childhood. I didn't even realize how long it has been since I was in Finland when it was really winter!

Nowadays it seems that the winters are mostly only wet and windy without real snowy scenes, at least in the Southern Finland. I do believe in the green house-effect, there really isn't any other explanation for this. Something has changed... I can still recall that in winter '84 it was -30'c in Häme region in Southern Finland for couple of weeks in a row and the kids didn't have to go to school since it was too cold. Cool -literally, doesn't happen anymore. It's been said that the kids don't learn to ski anymore because there is rarely enough snow in the south. It's a pity, -some of my strongest memories relate to skiing-competitions in the school and hot black currant juice afterwards or skating on a frozen lake etc.

Ok, end of sermon... I woke up to a perfect winter day in Helsinki. Sky was crystal clear and sunlight washed all the buildings so blindingly bright it almost hurt my eyes. One could tell already from indoors that it was crisp day and long-johns would be needed =) But, nevertheless, Helsinki was very friendly today, since the weather was calm and dry, no any kind of signs of aggressive windy wetness that this city so ofter delivers to you. Temperature was hovering somewhere around -15'c. I'm so happy that the weather is on it's best behavior so far since I belong to those people who don't like wet toes. I still have another week to stay here and I hope that the weather will also stay the way it is now.

I set out to go to visit my mum in Hämeenlinna around midday. Even in Helsinki there is relatively lots of snow at the moment and it made this crunchy sound when stepping on it.

"Nirsk-narsk-nirsk-narsk...."

This sound of walking on frozen surface reminded me of the daily journeys to the school during the first years of my education. Me and my best friend Leila used to explore all the possible things along the route and arrive very, very late most of the times...

I also remembered the fact that I used to quite like cross-country skiing when I was still able to do it voluntary as a kid (gym-teacher I had when I was fifteen or so managed totally to kill this phenomen in me). I used to set out to the snowy surface of the nearby lake, equipped with a thermos bottle (red one, with Garfield picture printed on the side) of hot chocolate and some sandwiches to return only when it was already getting dark.

Below couple of pictures I took both to entertain you my dear readers, and also to test my cell phone's capabilities.

Blue skies over Linnanmäki.

Hard contrast of light and shadow,
late afternoon in Parola.

Long shadows, low angle light and puffy white pines.
- The real Finnish winter time!

Even the bird-feeding cottage on my mom's
backyard is loaded with snow.