Summer cottage

The truth about this trip is difficult to ascertain; nobody knows exactly what happened. There are, however, rumours that Henry was involved in the persuasion process and it had something to do with fishing. Anyway, at the end of the summer, Tiina booked a summer cottage for Elk's Street.

The cottage was about 40km from Elk's Street HQ. The location, as can be seen from the photos below, was very nice.

The cottage.

The 'little house'.

The sun setting over the lake. The sunsets were very spectacular, courtesy of the massive forest fires in Russa.


The morning sun.


H-M doing her morning meditation on the jetty.


Henry chopping wood for the sauna.


Lilli and Tiina relaxing with the newspaper.


A simple meal.


Lilli enjoying her meal.


The head chef.


The head chef relaxing.


Fishing off the jetty.


H-M swimming.

Like mother, like son! Henry meditating.

You may wonder where Thomas is. Well, he's a real summer cottage person; he spent most of the time in the lake, going from sauna to water and back, and was consequently without clothes for about 3 days - hence the lack of photos.

Butterflies

The summer in Finland was a so-called 'summer of the century'. It was very dry and hot - global warming according to some, normal weather fluctuations according to others. Your correspondent was not complaining much, although the dry weather did have a rather bad effect on the garden.

One positive effect was, however, that it was a wonderful summer for butterflies. For your enjoyment, a few photos.

Butterfly 1


Butterfly 1 again


Butterfly 2


Butterfly 2 again

Not having any Lepidoptera experts, Elk's Street has no idea what butterflies these are but we enjoyed all the butterflies throughout the summer.

Summer Fishing

Professor Wu invited Henry fishing. Also on the trip were Hong and his mysterious 'young lover'. Needless to say, the only person who caught anything was fisherman Henry.

Below a few photos.

A small perch to get started.

Something a little more substantial, a 1.5kg pike-perch.

The fisherman preparing his catch.

The fried fillets were very tasty (cook - Daddy) although Elk's Street head chef was of the opinion that the fish should have been steamed whole.

The fisherman is getting rather ambitious and thinks that Elk's Street should get a boat, preferably a good boat for fishing like the one here. Your correspondent is somewhat sceptical of this idea, although something like the rowing boat here might be possible. The Chairman of the Board, who of course has the final say, thinks this whole boat idea is nuts and is pleased that nothing can happen until the ice melts next spring.


What do the readers of Elk's Street think?

Wedding

As mentioned in the post Stockholm Trip, our return home was to a house containing three best men; this because our neighbour's daughter was getting married. I'm not sure why three best men were needed - was the groom just making triply certain that the ring would be well taken care of, or did the bride want to ensure that enough persuasive power was present should the groom change his mind at the last minute.

Anyway, everything went very well, with the ceremony held in the local Lutheran church and the reception in the Pentecostalist church hall in the town centre.

Below a few photos.

The vow - I (name) take (name) to be...

Three tenors - sorry, best men.


Outside the church.


The happy couple at the wedding reception.

Well done, Maarit and Kimmo!