Tuesday, July, 15

Yesterday evening Naa looked at the stickers on some Juissi packs we had, and then logged into the Juissi Live web site. She discovered that the stickers she had been ignoring for a year could win her all sorts of prizes including concert tickets. Each sticker has a security code, and she didn’t quite have enough codes to enter. She was very amused and amusing about the whole process though.

This morning was grey and overcast, and so we decided to go to Borgå to get some more Juissi. In fact we decided that we may as well spend the whole afternoon there. We started with our annual visit to the Old Town. In the traditional manner, Calle has decided to close Riverside Records for the day, on the very day we are in town. We therefore walk up Jokikatu, looking in the crafts and antique shops. I am looking at a Morris Minor 1000 in astonishingly good condition. It appears to be used as a working car, since someone has just leaped out with deliveries for a shop.

In an hour, after a short rain shower, we will end up at Brunberg, makers of Finland’s best chocolates. In previous years this has been a stop that has always taken between twenty and forty minutes, and has always involved sampling all the available samples several times. This year we will know what we want, go in and get them, and leave less than five minutes after we enter, despite the fact that the shop is full of tourists. The difference will be that one member of the gang is missing, and it was always Auo who led the foray, and who wanted to see if they had anything new, and to compare the different tryffeli. It is at moments like this that I notice how our habits are adjusting, and that I miss her sharply.

We will then stop at Hanna-Maria, the lunch restaurant we always eat in, just before they close. When we walk in we will realise how hungry we are. I will have moussaka, and the others will have a sort of meatloaf steak. We will all have creamed potatoes and lots of bread and salad. I will have kotikalja and, obviously, the others will not. Nobody will finch though because, unlike piima which both Irma and Naa regard as disgusting, they find the choice of kotikalja as merely eccentric.

After this we will visit Mikrokulma, Robin Hood and Lidl in quick succession, leaving with a car-full of Juissi. We will finish the day at the Sokos sale, before driving home to sit up talking until the middle of the night.