I visited my aunt today. With my mother’s passing, my aunt is the last of the five siblings in her family (five children – three sons and two daughters). But out of those three uncles I should have had, I only ever got to know one, and even he died when I was still a…

No problems with my flight in the morning, and the train was on time as well. I made it to Lappeenranta perfectly in time for lunch, and it was an easy choice – I just had to have a ”vety”. It’s a meat pie with ham and egg, this is original Karelian fast food! I…

The reason I came to Lappeenranta for such a short visit was to see how my dad was doing. Happily, everything looks good so I don’t have to be worried about him all the time. But I also wanted to see the plaque with mom’s name, it was mounted long after the funeral so I…

For the past couple of years, every time I’ve visited my parents’ summer house, I’ve been thinking that it’s the last time. I think this was the third last time… but now it’s looking increasingly likely that it really is the last one. Dad wants to sell it, he’s just not so keen on keeping…

I remember when I was a kid, the fair was a huge thing when it came to town every spring and every autumn. All the junk they sell… useless stuff, but for a kid, it’s everything. As I recall, every time during the fair, the weather was awful. It wasn’t all bad today, but there…

I’m not a Christmas person by any definition, but I know it’s important for my parents so I have a tradition of going to Finland every other Christmas. Since my parents live in a middle of a busy town, I knew beforehand that this would be no photography trip and thus travelled light with only…

I was reading the latest Suomen Luonto (Finnish Nature) magazine that I brought with me from Finland. They had polled a number of Finns to find out what Finnish landscape they think is most beautiful, and the landscapes on offer ranged from seascapes to mountains and old industrial towns to farming. The winner was a…