Happy Midsummer!

Tomorrow all over the Nordic countries people will be celebrating Midsummer Eve.

In Finland this means that good food and drink will be consumed, there'll be some dancing, and fires will be lit to mark the night when the sun never sets.

In Sweden, and in Åland, people will be picking wild flowers to wear in their hair, while drinking schnapps and dancing around a maypole (or Midsummerstång).

Midsummer Eve is always a Friday closest to the summer solstice and heralds the long summer holidays which all the Nordic countries enjoy. Many people, fortunate enough to have a country cottage, leave town and start their often 4 or 5 weeks long summer hibernations.

Anyone doing business with the Nordic countries will know the Midsummer weekend as the worst time time to get hold of anyone important, and often the weeks afterwards the countries may as well have closed down.

If you are lucky to be in a Nordic country over Midsummer, you will experience the wonderful long evenings and nights, when the sun barely dips into the horizon just to rise again only moments later. If, however, you try to spend Midsummer in a city you might be disappointed; everything is closed and you may as well be holidaying in a ghost town.

Having just watched England lose their second World Cup football match, I think a Nordic city like Helsinki or Stockholm even on Midsummer Eve when everyone has left town would be preferable to tomorrow's disappointed, crowded, humid London...Oh, well.

Have a wonderful Midsummer wherever you are...and to my Finnish readers, sitting on a sauna porch somewhere by a lake (you know who you are!), I'll quote Randy Crawford, 'You lucky, lucky thing!' 

Hauskaa Juhannusta!

Design from Åland: Ego Collection by Minna Rundberg

I discovered the simple designs by Åland born designer Minna Rundberg last summer when I was looking for a present for a friend's significant birthday. Then Minna had her products set out in a small corner of a shop and was just planning an internet site.

I bought a pair of Prisma schnapps glasses decorated with gold leaf and sighed at the thought of not being able to purchase any of the other items because my suitcase (as usual) was already bursting at the seams.

This year Minna had moved into larger premises, although even these were temporary ones. Next autumn there'll be a permanent site across the road in central Mariehamn.

The bright designs with the simple lines of her organic cotton fabrics immediately appealed to my Nordic sense of style, as did the various trays, tables and glassware in her collection.

Minna Rundberg

Prisma table

Director's chair in Blueberry organic cotton

Prisma schnapps glasses in black

I think this is a designer worth keeping an eye on. Her online shop, which has free shipping until 31st August, is here.  

A crayfish party for two

'I've never had a crafish in such polite society,' said husband as the friendly waitress tied our bibs on and asked if we wished to order some schnapps. We looked at each other and smiled. 'Of course,' he said.

We were sitting at a window table in a restaurant called von Knorring in Mariehamn's East Harbour. We'd picked out one of the few days it rained on Åland during our holiday to go out to dinner a deux. The town was deserted, partly because the season was coming to an end and the tourists were leaving, partly because of the weather, and partly because the islands' most famous philanthropist and business mogul was hosting a concert in his acres of prime coast-line in Järsö. Some 3,000 people attended the charity concert in aid of The Baltic Fund. That's a lot of people for Mariehamn.

Indigo, a popular cafe/restaurant/bar - empty.

But to our surprise von Knorring was full. We'd heard from the locals that the food was good here, and obviously a few other people thought so too. I saw online the restaurant on board a steamer was serving crayfish and  immediately phoned to pre-ordered some for us. (The season officially starts in early August). After a few moments a plateful of native Åland river crayfish arrived at our table, smelling of the sea and decorated with dill flowers. Then two glasses of chilled Marskin Ryyppy were placed in front of us, followed by two glasses of locally brewed beer, Stallhagen.

I can still taste them.

We had a rainy view of Österhamn - the East Harbour in Mariehamn

While the rain poured down outside, we chose our first crayfish. They were fresh-tasting, large and delicious. The brine was just right, not too salty or sweet. The dill was fresh and the cumin-spiced cheese, traditionally eaten on toast with crayfish, was excellent.

Me tasting the crayfish

Then it was time to taste the schnapps. Husband raised his glass, leaned across the table and in a low voice started singing,

Helan går

I joined him, in a whisper. Not because I was embarrassed but because I really, truly cannot sing. But it seems it's physically impossible not to sing when taking schnapps with or without crayfish, whether in public or not.

Sjung hopp faderallan lallan lej

Helan går

   Sjung hopp faderallan lej

Och den som inte helan tar 

Han heller inte halvan får

Helan går

We drank the purest tasting vodka there is and continued,

Sjung hopp faderallan lej

The post-schnapps beer to dull the hit...

Strangely the other diners hardly batted an eyelid as time after time we sang our schnapps songs. There were a few envious glances directed at the crayfish but none at us. We left the restaurant happy and just a little worst for wear. The town was still deserted so we decided to head back to Lemland where a bottle of champagne somehow got opened and drunk. 

The Esplanaden. This was 11 pm on a Saturday night in early August...

Oh, I wish I was still on holiday!

Finns can't cope with ice - shock!

I've had some disturbing news from Finland: some 50 vessels of various kinds are stuck in the ice around the Åland Islands in the Baltic Sea between Finland and Sweden.

During the most severe winter weather Northern Europe has experienced, this sounds a perfectly reasonable state of affairs. Expect it isn't. Finns are used to severe snow and ice, they always cope with it. They are one of the leading manufacturers of ice-breakers, large ships that keep the shipping lanes free from ice.Besides, we eat rye bread, drink vodka and fight with knives. Surely a little bit of ice isn't a problem?

Last night even the ice-breaker struggled to free a Viking Line ferry. This boat, fondly named Ålandsfärjan, takes passengers from the Island to Stockholm through the narrowest bit of the Ålandshav several times a day. It's more like a commuter ferry. It's the route we take when we go to the Island, and is used weekly by my Mother. For the ferry to stop operating is the biggest headline the local paper, Ålandstidningen, has ever had. Their normal fodder is drunken disorderly Finns causing havoc to the peace-loving islanders.

What has happened to my country??????

Landlocked

I've always had a thing about islands. I was born in Tampere, an industrial city pegged between two of the 190,000 lakes in Finland, Näsijärvi and Pyhäjärvi. When my family moved to Stockholm, we didn't get very far from water. The capital of Sweden is made up of beautiful islands. But as a Finn I would argue the archipelago surrounding Turku on the Finnish side of the Baltic is much more stunning. It's where the fiercely independent, Swedish speaking Åland Islands are situated. Though closer to Stockholm than Turku, they still loosely belong to Finland.

About twenty years ago my mother settled there and we have since been going back every summer and sometimes in between. Life in Åland - or The Island as we call it - feels slightly old-fashioned. It's as if floating in the middle of the Baltic allows you not to worry about the stresses and strains of modern living. There are cars, mobile phones, supermarkets, offices, but for some reason it's as if it all happens in slow motion. Unlike the Finns in Helsinki or the Swedes in Stockholm, the Ålänningar prefer to observe rather than part take. Perhaps it's because the Island is full of tourists from the neighbouring countries, doubling its scarce population during the months of June and July. Or perhaps it's because most of these tourists arrive by boat, either on the many commercial ferries or small private sailing boats.

As the children have grown, they've started to make their own trips to the Island. This year daughter went on her own, last year son did the same. My mother keeps asking when we're coming over. It is our dream to have our own place there on a clifftop in a low built house with vast windows over looking the sea.

This is the view from the sauna cottage, our occasional sleeping quarters, at about 2 in the morning on a summer's night when the sun dips behind the horizon for a few minutes before coming up again.

This picture more than any others I've taken over the years begs the question: How on earth did I end up landlocked in Wiltshire?