This morning we woke bright and early. Start how you mean to go on I
say, so I cut up cucumber to put on my poor 31 year old eyes. I then
applied my new eye cream which scandalised Daniel by costing €15 (it
was half price). This, and wanting a shower every 4 days means Daniel
thinks I'm a high maintenance woman!
I've requested a bottle of wine for my birthday so somewhere on
today's To Do list is finding a beautifully named Alko which is a
Finnish government owned liquor store.
We started the day with breakfast, overlookimg the small marina where
we'd parked last night, then we checked out the town of Pietarsaari -
Jakobstad.
This part of the Finnish west coast is bilingual and everything is in
both Finnish and Swedish. Culturally it is known as parallelverige
(parallel Sweden) and the Swedes consider it to be populated by lost
brethren.
We stopped for gas and as there was a resident mechanic there, we
popped the hood to investigate a recent problem with the power
steering. Eagle eyed Daniel noted a crooked steering belt, further
investigation revealed a missing bolt and a cracked bracket. Easy
peasy to fix, €5 for the bolt, €5 for the mechanic's beer. We'll just
have to keep an eye on that bolt until a more permanent solution is
installed.
After a much delayed lunch and another snooze, we headed into the
forest for a 2 hour walk which started and ended at a beautiful sandy
beach. So now I have clean hair again; though Daniel was too chicken
to swim in the rain.
We then left the coast and went inland, changing our planned route via
the coastal Vaasa, and headed for Tampere.
We parked up for the night on a lake stopbank 10 mins east of
Seinajoki. As we eat dinner and enjoy Lindauer with strawberries we
can hear the drone of boats' engines as they zigzag on the lake,
trawling for fish.
I had a very nice birthday. Thank you for all my emails and texts:-) Unfortunately our phone does not seem to be working in Finland for those that tried to call.
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