Thursday, September 16

After breakfast I go for a walk. In the last few days the temperature has dropped a lot and I have abandoned my indoor shorts for some winter jogging pants.

I walk down to the sea and photograph the muted autumn colours and reflections. I huddle within my thick waterproof jacket.

Yesterday I learned that YLE had something to say about the sudden cold weather.

Over one centimetre of snowfall was measured in Lapland before 9am on Tuesday morning, meeting the required criteria to be declared this winter’s ‘first snow’.

Finland’s first snow of this winter officially fell on Tuesday morning, 14 September, as the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) measured over one centimetre of the white stuff before 9am – thereby meeting the required criteria.

“In Salla, on the Värriötunturi Fells, we had one centimetre of snow in the morning. This means that the first snow to be recorded has officially arrived,” FMI meteorologist Ville Siiskonen said.

Snow flurries had covered the village of Näkkälä in Enontekiö, northwest Lapland, on Monday but because they fell after 10am, they did not qualify as the first snow of the winter season.

I listen to Darlingside for the first time in some time as I walk. I find that I still like them. I also find that their latest album, Fish Pond Fish, has started to sound better than it did at first.

Or I have started to get used to it.