Aavasaksanvaara

Finland

We take an early morning walk and stop for coffee at Café Khavipuu.

The morning is chilly, and the coffee is OK.

We head to the top of Finland today for two nights. A five hour drive to Lapland.

The drive is uneventful and we arrive at Aavasaksanvaara around 3.00 pm.

Our cabin is beautiful, a bath we will use and a sauna we won’t. Views from the lounge room and the bedroom of the surrounding forest.

We cross into Sweden to the nearest grocery store for supplies. The first store has no alcohol. The second has no alcohol.

We retreat to Finland and drive ten minutes to another supermarket, which thankfully has alcohol. It also has food, which is convenient.

I make a beef ragu for dinner with some pasta, and we talk the evening away. I use the term evening loosely; we get thirty minutes of darkness at around 2.00 am before it’s bright and sunny the next day.

“Ô, Sunlight! The most precious gold to be found on Earth.”

Roman Payne

One of the best nights’ sleep I have had. I wake from a deep sleep to sunshine. It could be 3.00 am, it could be 10.00 am. It is 8.00 am.

We drink some coffee, book a place to stay in Copenhagen, and our week is planned.

An early morning walk where we encounter a baby reindeer in an uninhabited ski resort nearby, followed by constitutional calisthenics and a hearty breakfast of eggs, tomato and toasted rye. More coffee, and it is 11.00 am.

I spend the morning reading before heading out for more supplies. There is a fire pit outside, and I think my inner neanderthal wants to burn some animal flesh.

“Were the walls of our meat industry to become transparent, literally or even figuratively, we would not long continue to raise, kill, and eat animals the way we do.”

Michael Pollan

The beef is expensive, so we decide on pork. An enormous ham steak with the bone in. It will fit on the grill.

Lunch is grocery salads and bread rolls with ham and cheese on the balcony. Washed down with Amity Pale Ale.

With nothing to do until I light the grill, I sit back and read with a beer.

The fire is no problem.

Shell takes a nap, and I let the flames cook down to hot coals.

I throw in some foil wrapped potatoes, onions, and garlic.

Shell rises from her slumber and takes immediate command of the fire. More wood is added.

“She’s mad, but she’s magic. There’s no lie in her fire.”

Charles Bukowski

Then it rains.

The embers stay hot, and I cook the pork leg steak.

A dinner of success and failure. Success is the pork, absolutely delicious. Failure is the vegetables: black charcoal and inedible.

We have the pork with left over lunch salads and bread. Somehow, Shell manages to cut herself twice while cutting the bread.

We finish the wine, eat our dinner, and look out over the Lapland forest – not a joke.

The wines were fine, but anything tastes good in this setting. A supermarket German Riesling, Austrian Grüner Veltliner, and an Italian Barbera d’Asti.

Sweden tomorrow. I could stay here forever.

If a man speak or act with a good thought, happiness follows him like a shadow that never leaves him.”

Buddha