Day 15: A fantastic final day at Palvajarvi

Anna caught the lake in all its beauty this morning!

Anna and I were up fairly sharp this morning and were shopping in S-Market before Sandy or Keith were even awake, with the predicted warm sunshine promising a great day ahead.  I wanted to visit the chemist there too, as the tubigrip I wore yesterday was far inferior to the wrap-around sticky bandage I had worn earlier in the week. With a couple more of these bandages safely purchased, we had breakfast outside in the garden with the rest of the gang once they were awake and up.

Keith enjoying the comfort in the garden.

After that, it was a case of soaking up the sunshine, as the temperature rose steadily to ensure that apart from our first day in Helsinki, this was the warmest day of our 2015 holiday. I lit the sauna as soon as we had eaten an early lunch and decided to test the wrap-around bandage in both the sauna and the lake, and was delighted to see that it survived both of these without any problems. The lake itself was noticeably warmer - it's quite amazing how quickly it warms when the air temperature it a bit higher, and it doesn't surprise me therefore how the water temperature can become as high as it has over the years here in Finland during the warmest months.

Anna captured Sandy and Olivia diving from the jetty as I watched.

Despite the great weather, I knew it was going to rain this evening, and so it has, with the lake transformed once again to looking extremely choppy. But that doesn't matter, as we have been busy preparing for our departure tomorrow morning, cleaning the cottage and packing the bags.

With Sandy as we relax.

So, it's the end of our 4th year here in this heavenly cottage. All of us, Keith and Anna's family too, have already agreed we'll be back in 2016, and our friends Timo and Lissu have already said it'll be no problem for us to return again. We'd like to thank them again for inviting us over to their own house the other evening, as well as for continuing to rent the cottage to us. We'll leave for Helsinki once more in the morning knowing that here at Palvajarvi, we have continued to be captivated by the natural beauty of this wonderful, peaceful place. Until 2016!

All I need to do once we get home is to look through the more than 350 short video clips I have taken, to condense these all into a film of around 4 minutes or so. I have been looking forward to making what I hope will be the best video of our Finnish adventures over the years, and I have lots of ideas, so look out for that in a week or two, once all the editing has been done!