And now home base is Kullo, Finland

It has been quite a hectic time, this moving back home. A bit like growing old, not for weaklings. 

We did mess it all up a bit in the beginning, so part of it is really our own fault. Walking into the empty house when we came back in the middle of July I suddenly realised it would be really nice to have to floors repainted. Not that they were horrible, but worn down here and there. So I suggested it to Filip, who immediatedly grabbed his phone and called our trusted painter. This was, mind you, a Saturday in Mid July, best holiday season in Finland when basically nobody is available to do anything! Least of all come and paint your house. But surprisingly, our painter answered the phone and said, well, I do have something we need to do next week, but we haven’t really agreed on the exact date, so we could come Monday morning! How about that?! After a few sobering thoughts we realised that the moving van with all our stuff – 50 m3 – was also arriving Monday morning, and that the combination – painting the floors – carrying in all our furniture wasn’t optimal. So in the end the painters came Wednesday, and we filled every single spot we could think of with our things on Monday – verandas, garages, upstairs – to keep the downstairs floors free for painting. And paint they did, while we fled to Träskholmen, leaving the mess behind. Since then can you guess what we have been doing? Yes, quite right, trying to sort it all out. Not that easy, and there is still LOADS to do. We have found most things, and there are only a few boxes left to unpack. We miss some things. Like our snorkling equipment? Mysteriously gone??! And some other small items are also missing, but we are quite confident they will turn up eventually. Every day there are new revelations! Look what I found……. As for the mess, we have invited guests for the end of September, which is usually a very good way to force us to clean up whatever we have left unsorted.

Apart from all these practical matters it does feel good to be back. In spite of all the gloom surrounding Finland at the moment. Our economy is presently the only one in the EU not growing, and this causes endless political discussions and endless articles, analysing the problem, or the problems, trying to come up with solutions. Unemployment is growing, the True Finns (what a silly name!) are continuing to stir up hatred and fear of anything and anyone who is slightly different, regardless of whether the difference is about language, race, skin colour, religion……… And the reactions against these sentiments are equally strong, fortunately, but there is of course the risk we will have a very confrontational society. Very un-Finnish – we are used to consensus. However, as the true optimist I have always been, I find it hard to believe we will not find a way out of this situation also. After all, we are Finns, and Finns have sisu!