Today’s extreme sports – walking and snow shooing

31.1.24

A bit of a lie in today, 8.15am alarm, but I woke at 7.30am and finished yesterday’s blog as we ran out of time with all the northern lights camera settings palaver.

The porridge chef was back on duty. Yum. I think you should have either or, but a full English and toast and marmalade had to be done.

Todays walk was a trip to the supermarket. Past the school and Drs surgery and on for a few more minutes.

The prices were horrendous!

I asked the cashier and they are in Swedish Krona. 11 Krona are 1 euro. I was glad to find out I wasn’t the first to ask!

Just past the hardware shop I met a lady putting her rubbish out and we had a laugh about her outfit. She assures me it’s not cold! She wasn’t rushing back to her house, she was off somewhere else.

Friendly lady proudly explained the locality,- cafeteria and toilet was all I understood.

We ventured in and had coffees. The machine had latte and mocha coffee, although they looked exactly the same.

The people running the cafe and shop are Phillipino.

So far we’ve met people working here from Romania, New Zealand, Australia, France, Spain, Italy, Poland, Ireland, South Africa, now Phillipines. We’ve spoken to 2 Swedish people and seen 4 others walking their dogs.

No tall blue eyed blonde Swedes for Carol. She’s mildly disappointed.

We saw a crazy jumping husky and a huge reindeer herd on the way back. The reindeer were walking down a hill, when they spotted us they stood like statues.

As soon as we turned away they began walking again. It was like red light green light in Squid Game.

We’ve learnt the art of getting undressed quickly, a useful skill when you need the loo. This is not attire to wear if your pelvic floor is slack. Happy to report ours are in fine fettle.

Lunch had just started, spicy chicken wings, fine sliced fried potato chips, coleslaw and fabulous sweet chilli sauce.

Lemon cake and black cherry choc log.

Really enjoyed our stroll, I don’t think the skies and views would ever be boring. Some of the lakes are huge, bet it’s stunning in summer.

Norwegian Fjords are now on our bucket lists.

It was soon togging up time for our snow shoe induction. The activity we fancied the least.

It turned out to be one of the best.

After a while we were challenged to a running race to the line of trees. It looked really easy. It wasn’t and, I couldn’t get up again after falling in very deep snow!! Carol also fell. It happens a lot apparently.

The winner got a free drink, it was nice that it was the Turkish mans young daughter who won.

The guide was our favourite, I’m sad that I can’t remember his name. Unbelievably knowledgeable about the history, the Finnish roles in wars, their current army, the wildlife, the Sami peoples culture and the people in the area.

We were in a Boreal forest.

https://unece.org/forests/boreal-forests

Wildlife in size order..

Tiny mice, lemmings squirrels, arctic hares, red and arctic foxes, wolverines, rarely seen.
reindeer, moose, big and grumpy and
1 Bear who is a bit nuts!! He comes out when it gets warmer. He leaves circular lines where he looks for food.

Arctic foxes change colour in the winter.

Not many birds usually, but a few this year because of huge fluctuations in temperatures. 47 degrees 3 weeks ago, above freezing the last couple of days.

Further info about Sami beliefs and culture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A1mi_shamanism

We walked for well over an hour, the snow shoes are great once you get used to them, felt so secure against slipping, but going backwards was a challenge and the same result as flip flops if you step sideways.

It felt really weird when we took them off, we had got quite cosy in them.

Back to the hotel, chill time, Carol was reading, trying to finish her humongous book of 5 Agatha Christie stories and me blogging and reading more about the Boreal forests etc.

Dinner was chicken wrapped in bacon with mozarella. It sounded better than the reality, but still nice. There were baby carrots, mixed veg and baby roast potatoes. The tomato and pepper soup was lovely. No lemon cake, a lemon curd sponge and apple pie.

Carol’s been waiting for 2 days for the fruit delivery, they said it would be today, we thought we spotted the lorry, but seems it was just cheese.

An evening chilling before falling asleep.

The last night in this gorgeous soft bed and lovely long pillow.