Day 14: Spa swimming and relaxation

At our landlord's house last night, Timo's wife Lissu had told us that today the weather forecast was for thunder and lightning all day, something I had checked myself and seen too, so we had decided last night that we'd make the 35 minute journey along the country roads to Laukaa this morning to the spa pools at Peurunka, as we have enjoyed them in previous years on days when the weather has been poor.

As we journeyed north, the weather along the way was great and I was beginning to wonder if this might be one of these days when the promised storms might not arrive. This has happened in previous years too! Anyway, we had good fun in Peurunka, and Keith tried all three different saunas there; the traditional one where I had to instruct him how to remove all trunks and take a sheet to sit on inside the sauna, the steam room, which he quite enjoyed, and the infra-red sauna which he seemed to really enjoy. He also swam around the circuit shaped pool many times, and also tried the various jacuzzi pools and the long flume, which at 130m is the longest in the Nordic countries.

We came out the pools at around 1.30pm and decided just to stay and have lunch in the cafe there, so it was burgers and chips for all of us, followed by coffees and cinnamon buns for the adults, and ice-cream for Sandy and Olivia.

On the way home, we stopped opposite a house that we have passed several times over the years, with a dummy Finnish blonde next to a bike in the driveway, as I wanted to take a short bit of film there. The owner of the house was in the garage, and she was happy to let us take a couple of short bits of footage, laughing as we did so. Just after we left the house and continued along the road, the sky suddenly got very dark and it looked distinctly like rain was on the way, but a couple of miles further on as we approached home, the sky was clearing again and so we sat down to sunbathe in the very warm sunshine. I lit the sauna here and the rest swam and enjoyed the heat, with me relaxing in the garden, as my leg was much more uncomfortable today than yesterday- I think the efforts at swimming even only a little at the spa had proved too much for it. About 5.00pm, I tried a wee walk up the road to see how it would stand up to it, but I only went about 250m, then turned back, as I was really slow and limping pretty badly.

Looking back to the house as I leave to walk up the road a bit.

No sign of rain yet- a gorgeous sunny afternoon!

I propped the camera up on a rock to take this selfie.

Keith's still swimming as the clouds begin to darken.

Finally, about 7.00pm, the heavens opened after the clouds suddenly returned and the thunder appeared too, but it was short lived, and by 8.00pm everything was beautifully sunny once again!

Tomorrow, it's our final full day here and the weather is suggesting it could be the best day of the whole fortnight. Let's hope it's correct, and we can simply relax and have fun right here!