The lovely Erica at Little Mummy has organised a group of bloggers to do guest posts on each other’s blog. I am lucky enough to have swapped with Heather from Notes From Lapland, who writes a HUGE and wonderful blog from Finland, where she writes about her life in that strange and beguiling land, her struggles to come to terms with some of the culture and any other nonsence that comes into her head.:-
“-51C was our coldest day,’ my husband says, smiling fondly at the memory.
I look out of the window at the -25C weather and my jaw drops trying to imagine it another 25 degrees colder.
-25C is the kind of weather that freezes your nose hairs within seconds of stepping outside, that makes your eyes water, eyelashes frost up and your tears freeze against your face. The sort of temperature where your thigh muscles begin to scream in pain 30 seconds after leaving the warmth of the house and your lungs feel as though you are breathing in jagged glass if you take anything more than shallow breaths.
-51C sounds like a whole new level of hell.
As I pull faces trying to imagine it, my husband talks about how the water pipes froze and the family had to walk to the lake and cut a hole through the meter thick ice. How they had to light a fire underneath the tractor to warm the engine and pour alcohol into the fuel tank to stop it freezing. ’Feeding the cattle was almost impossible,’ he says with a sad shake of his head. ‘It was all we could do just to keep them alive.’ He sits quietly for a while, lost in thought and then looks up with a grin. ’It was so cold they even had to close the schools.’
How the Brits deal with snow and cold is a constant source of ammusement to him. How can a few sub zero degrees and a little snow bring an entire country to it’s knees? Whilst January brought school closures and countrywide melt down in the UK, it was -35C here in Lapland and everything, busses, schools, shops, business, still ran as normal.
Just 60 miles south of the Arctic Circle with temperatures between -15C and -30C for 120 days of the year, the cold is just a part of life. You either learn to live with it or you leave. Originally from Rochdale, Lancashire, I am in no way used to it or the rest of Finnish culutre yet, as my blog details in humourous and graphic detail, but waking up to see the thermomter showing – 25C or colder doesn’t fill me with the same dread anymore. Perhaps I am finally aclimatising after 5 years.
The winter isn’t all doom and gloom though.
Sure we may have to plug our cars in via a little electric plug they have on the front to heat the engine oil, 2 hours before we can even start them, use studded tyres on our cars, shovel snow off our rooves to stop buildings colapsing and dress our children up like Michelin men before we can go out, but the winter brings some magical things with it too.
The silence you experince standing on our snow blanketed farm is like nothing on earth -your ears actually start to ring for lack of things to hear. The sun sparkling off the snow and in the dry frozen air like diamonds makes you feel as though you have been transported to Narnia. Catching sight of a reindeer making it’s way along the bottom of your garden. The northern lights, which we are lucky enough to witness often over the lake at the bottom of our farm, are the most amazing display in the star studded night sky that they really take your breath away.
And those stars. Wow, who knew there were so many?
There is one thing, however. Something more chilling than the cold, more worrying than the midwives advice to put babies outside to sleep down to -10C, more disturbing than hearing the neighbours sheep are being eaten by bears, that may put you off this frozen winter wonderland.
Something dark and sinister lurking in the Finnish countryside
Naked people of all shapes and sizes, running, jumping, rolling in snow and throwing themselves into holes cut into the ice covered lakes can be found the length and breadth of the country.
The Finnish sauna experience is just that, an experience, and an eye opening one for sure. It may seem ridiculous to us Brits and our relatively prude ways, but most Finnish get togethers involve climbing naked into a hot wooden cupboard with friends and quite often running around in the garden afterwards without even a fig leaf for discretion.
Like many visitors to the country, I couldn’t help feeling as though I was being conned somehow the first time I was instructed to take my clothes off and climb into that hot cupboard with a group of people I barely knew, but that is a whole other story.
The naked people, aside, there isn’t anywhere else I would rather be. After all, where else can you say you’re on first name terms with Santa’s daughter or buy a vibrator from the supermarket?”
Her post has brought back fond memories of my week in Finland a few years ago. I want to go out and do it all again….Finland will have to be included on our bloggers gap year travel itinerary for sure.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:45 pm
Love Heather’s description of her new adoptive country, and I am extra jealous that she gets to see the northern lights on a regular basis, something I am longing to see. xx
March 5th, 2010 at 7:01 pm
thank you dear, the northern lights are magnificent! well worth the journey to the frozen north.
And thank you Family Affairs for allowing me to post this on your wonderful blog. Mwah.
March 5th, 2010 at 7:04 pm
A big fan of Heather from Notes from Lapland – a great blogger and a very genuine person from what I have discovered over the last couple of months.
Agree with Very Bored:never seen the Northern Lights. That must be on my to-do list.
Thank you Heather for pointing a new group of potential readers to the enlightening stories on your vibrator post!!
March 6th, 2010 at 9:41 am
Awww, thank you. so sweet of you to say wo. How could i possibly resist brining the vibrator post up, huh?
March 5th, 2010 at 7:33 pm
I love this … we are such snow wusses in this country. We have no idea do we?!
I use Heather’s husband’s ‘-51 degrees and the school closed every time we discuss the snow’
March 6th, 2010 at 9:43 am
it is quite pathetic how the whole cvountry goes into melt down. I remember sitting opened mouthed batching Sky News as they said that one country had used up its several million pound budget on grit already by the end of Jan! how is it even possible to spend that much money on grit? It’s just dirt isn’t it?
March 5th, 2010 at 7:51 pm
Love the sparkly snow, love the reindeer, not so sure I love rolling around naked in snow. I’m a hot weather kind of person…
March 6th, 2010 at 9:43 am
the rolling around naked in the snow never appealed to me much either.
March 5th, 2010 at 7:54 pm
Finland is definitely somewhere I’d like to visit but I don’t think I could ever live there! You have such a wonderful way of telling all these stories with such humour!
March 6th, 2010 at 9:44 am
thank you. It is an amazing place to visit and so different in the summer with hot weather, blue skys and hordes of mosquitoes! Very odd country.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
Had a feeling with the title of the post it had something to do with Finland. Went skiing in -30C once here, never ever again (says she who’s heading up to Levi to ski nxt week). Thanks Heather for the insight, you make the place we’ve made our home sound quite appealing
March 6th, 2010 at 9:45 am
You’re going up to Levi next week? Oh wonderful! i hope the weather is kind to you. It been very sunny the last few days.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:39 pm
I’d like to visit, but actually live there? I think the cold would get to me too much. That said, I wouldn’t want to live anywhere too hot either. Good old Blighty and its four seasons is what I like. Must be a fascinating experience though.
March 6th, 2010 at 9:46 am
It is fascinating, or at least for the first 12 months it is and then once you’ve experienced all the seasons the novelty wears off a bit. thankfully i get to keep my wonder of the place alive my telling you all about it.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:48 pm
It still sounds amazing and some where I would definitely like to visit as well. Thanks for sharing Heather!
March 6th, 2010 at 9:47 am
Come on over! We’ve got a spare room x
March 6th, 2010 at 8:46 am
I can’t imagine -25C! I lived in Iowa and the coldest there was no where this temperature! BRRR that’s why I moved to Colorado. Now I live in sunny Croatia.
Visiting via Heather,
Saludos,
A Mexican chica living in Europe
March 6th, 2010 at 9:48 am
I think before i came here the coldest i’d ever experienced was -5 or something. Arriving on a day when it was -15C was a bit of a shock to the system.
March 6th, 2010 at 5:32 pm
Hi Heather,
Crikey, you get about in the blogosphere. I’ve only just discovered your blog and now you’re getting us hopping hither and thither. Lovely blogpost, as usual, but I don’t think I could hack that cold weather; it’s about 3C here and I think that’s cold!
March 6th, 2010 at 6:34 pm
LOL Heather. How did I just know there was going to be naked people? I really have to stop being such a prude!
March 6th, 2010 at 9:33 pm
you should get a job with the finnish tourist board! It sounds beautiful (if a little chilly).
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It is simple to see that you are well-informed about your writing. Cheers!
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