Christine's Blog

Dear Reader Ten days in Sweden was just what I needed. Maggie and Matti were wonderful hosts and allowed me to balance getting out and about and seeing things in Uppsala with resting. I hadn’t realised how tired I was until I got there. Pneumonia, Christmas, Choir Tour, Finland were all a part of it. So I had the opportunity to have home cooked meals, with a focus on Finnish and Swedish cuisine, long lie ins as well as adventures. Our adventures included walking in the city, catching busses by myself, visiting castles, Cathedral’s, churches, libraries, university, botanical gardens and going out walking in the woods, around lakes and through forests. I will let the photos do the talking.

Dear Reader My journey from Finland to Sweden, Ivalo to Helsinki to Stockholm.   Cxx

Dear Reader There is something beautiful about trees in the snow. My initial feeling was that every photograph looked the same. Tall, straight trees with snow on them. Was there any point in taking more than one? But when I took the time to look more closely I noticed the differences. The beautiful and important differences.  Most of them are straight and tall, but some are not.  Some are bent, some are incomplete, as they have been cut down or damaged by the weather in some way. Yet they remain as a reminder of what has been. I wish I had thought to take more photographs of these. Some are evergreen, which means their strong, ever present branches and leaves bear a heavy weight of snow. I think they are probably pine trees, and they remain constant throughout the year. Some are deciduous, so their branches hold a lighter weight of snow and their twigs are more apparent. They change with the seasons, but return again each year.  And...

Dear Reader I was going to head this post Fearless Adventuring, but that would have been an untruth. There was a certain amount of fear associated with these adventures. But I faced my fears, embraced the opportunities and am rather chuffed with myself. Anxiety about such activities is well founded and makes me appropriately cautious. Yesterday I went on a snowmobile, or skidoo, as the English call them. I had hoped to be a passenger, but this was not a possibility as there was a group of 5 in our party, and one of them rode behind the leader. So I drove a snowmobile. By myself. There was only one hairy moment and this was 100 metres away from our final destination, and this was after 20km of driving. I remembered the instructions and managed to keep the vehicle heading in the right direction. And upright. Driving the snowmobile through was an exhilarating feeling, and I enjoyed the second half of the trip better, once I got the hang of it and could appreciate my surroundings bette...