Saturday, August 8

This morning I cleaned the apartment once Irma and Naa had left it with Sunshine. We then set off for the tennis club. We sat there with Jokke until Cata arrived. Then we said goodbye and just as we left the girls arrived on their Jopo bikes.

Almost everyone in Hanko has a Jopo bike, which stops being surprising when you discover that they are made in a little factory just outside the city.

Now we are leaving and I am thinking about the little cinema that we saw yesterday when we were exploring in the centre. It is the first time I have seen a cinema like that since the seventies. We went in to look and the interior is perfectly preserved, with a round wooden ticket booth in the centre of the foyer, and an old man selling popcorn to one side. It is showing three different films every day, and apparently it is busy all summer.

Hanko is an extraordinary place. I have never been before but I will certainly come again; maybe next August, and maybe for longer.

It will take us about two hours to drive home and mysteriously we will find ourselves coming a different way from the one we intended, even though we didn’t turn anywhere.

Sunshine will be relieved to get home.

Naa will go out for the night about 17:30. She is going to help Emilia celebrate her birthday. Once Naa has left, Irma and I will decide to eat porridge and go to bed early. We are still full of Hanko barbecues.