Saturday, July 11

As we drove to the market it was sunny and windy. By the time the market opened it was cloudy and windy. By 10:00 the windy was biting, andit was the coldest summer day I could recall. Marina had declared that it (today and this summer in general) was unbelievable.

In the afternoon the sun popped out every now and then, but the wind remained constant.

We went outside to go to Terttu’s to discover everyone on the farm about to herd sheep from one field to another down the road that passes our house. The sheep had escaped in the night and eaten a lot of Camilla’s flowers, and she wanted them somewhere more secure.

We were positioned to stop them turning right or left when they got to side turnings. They only bothered to bother Irma. They turned right where she was standing, leaving her waving her arms and running up and down to startle them back onto the road. Which she did with such amazing effect that even the one that had got past her ran back to join the others.

Now we are at Terttu’s gallery, looking at her paintings, and more specifically at her postcards of her paintings. She is expecting the group of Japanese tourists we saw at the market this morning to arrive at any moment.

The Japanese tourists are members of the Mummin fan club and they are here for the annual guided tour of Kluvoharun, the island where Tove Janssen spent her summers (and where the Mummin books are, in effect, set).

Annika is a liason person between Pellinge and Japan and we will talk with her for fifteen minutes when they arrive and are being shown around. (There are Janssen family connections to here as well.)

Just as we are about to leave, a taxi will arrive with the Japanese woman who missed the Tokyo-Helsinki flight because her plane had mechanical problems at Osaka. She travelled on a later flight and got a taxi from the airport.

The cost of a taxi from Helsinki Airport to the far end of Suur-Pellinki is 145€, in case you are interested.

Late in the evening we will go to Benita’s to see tonight’s troubadour, and to find out what the visiting Swedish chef made for the one-night-only Benita’s Barbecue. We will be too late to see the food but in plenty of time to watch the troubadour.

We will stand with coffee and cakes in hand, watching people in various states of merriment jiving and attempting the twist. Helmer and Marita will dance as though fifty years had suddenly been sliced off their ages.