Saturday, August 15

To our joint surprise Irma and I both woke up early and went to the market for breakfast. This was probably the result of going to bed tired at 22:30. We were both asleep by about 22:33.

We had the traditional coffee and egg and anchovy sandwiches From Benita’s. I also had one of Maj-Britt’s fishcakes.

The market was much fuller than we expected and it turned out that there was to be traditional dancing. At 10:30 they started. This year the Pellinki dancers, who always appear on these occasions, were joined by troupes from Estonia and Germany.

We are now watching the Estonian men performing a beer-drinking dance that is half traditional folk dancing and half musical pantomime. Their approach is entertaining and amusing. If I was a critic I might remark that they seemed to be invigorating the tradition in a welcome way.

When we leave we will leave with fish, vegetables, cabbage rolls and pies. We will stop at Gunnel’s kiosk for jams and syrups, and some canterelli that Irma had especially asked for.

We will spend the afternoon beginning the process of closing the summer house. This will be infuriating in some ways because we will be doing it in one of the hottest days this year. It will feel as though we are packing up just as summer is starting.

This feeling will be confirmed later when Mikael shows us the local paper where the weather forecast predicts hot cloudless days for the next week.

Sunshine Kelly, the cat, will be waiting for us when we get back to Helsinki. Once we have unpacked Irma will leave to collect Nas from work, and then deliver Pellinki potatoes and eggs to her mother.