Tuesday, June 28

After breakfast I decide to cycle rather than walk, and I decide to cycle to Puotila Beach. I get there to discover other people have got there first It seems like a local version of the riviera. People have already spread their blankets on the sand and lie there with their clothes off and their suntan oil on.

I sit for twenty minutes on a beach with my shirt off, reading Terry Eagleton’s take on the meaning of life: a very short introduction that manages to go off on a lot of interesting diversions.

In the evening we will go to Pilvilahti in Sippo which Minna recommended to us. This will prove more crowded and remind me of beaches on the south coast of England. The wind will rise but people will determinedly insist that it doesn’t bother them or diminish their pleasure at crowding into a little cove at all.

We too will like it, but not necessarily as a place to bathe.