see-through faith

One of the wonderful things about having visitors from abroad is that it almost always opens my eyes to seeing Finland – my adopted homeland – again.

Right now we have a friend from England visiting us, and it’s been lovely. She’s twenty – so the same age as our son – but nonetheless my friend, because we met while I was over at Cliff college doing my MA. I find it a real gift from God that I can – and do – have friends across the generation gap, but it’s also nice when it turns out that these younger friends also become family friends, as sometimes happens.

As already posted my friend and I were invited to the rotary outing to Seili last Saturday, and then mid week (after my working for two days) we skipped off to Sweden on a minicruise. Both trips were a lot of fun. At the end of the week though, hubby took a rare couple of days off, and we headed up to Merikarvia (about 200km north of here) to his parents’ summer place.

Very many Finns have a summer place. Almost all of them are really rustic, primitive even, with outside toilets, no running water etc. My in-laws’ place does at least have electricity, but all the water, for example, has to be hauled from the well, and well it’s hard work. I think that’s one of the reasons hubby and I have never wanted a cottage of our own, and of course we know we can visit Merikarvia.It’s a sort of haven in the background, no matter how seldom I -at least – visit. This week was the first time this year, and last year I only went up there once as well. Earlier in the summer the mosquitos drive me indoors, and to be honest we have a beautiful home here with a great garden, and so, when I am in Finland (and admittedly that hasn’t been much this summer) I’m usually really content to be at home, and do occassional day trips to see friends and new places.This trip hubby took my friend and I out to sea. There’s a little uninhabited island that we’ve dubbed ‘Jack’s island’ because my dad used to love going there. We go there in a small, fairly typical vessel, with a 4 hp outboard motor, and it takes the best part of an hour to get there down the Merikarvia river and archipelago, so the weather needs to be relatively calm, which Thursday was (although it was cold!)

Tyrni (sea buckthorn berries) are native to these islands. They are full of vitamin C. But they aren’t usually ripe until mid September, so we were very surprised to see the bushes laden with berries ripe for picking this time. Sadly, we didn’t have any of the gear with us  to pick them (you need gloves at least, and it’s best to harvest them using tiny nail scissors so as not to spoil the berries (or the plants themselves))… next time …

I just got home from a mini-cruise to Stockholm and back.  This is the view from the ferry yesterday evening (at about 9.45pm) … a full moon over some of the most beautiful Finnish scenery (the Turku archipelago). All that was missing – maybe – was a moonlit serenade!

Later in the evening my friend and I went down to the bar, where a fun Finnish band were playing and the Finns (mostly elderly couples) were dancing. REally dancing. Waltzes and tangoes, and the Finnish humppa. En route back to our cabin we stopped off at the disco which was absolutely deserted. Seems that the oldies know better how to have fun on these cruises.

This morning we enjoyed a wonderful buffet breakfast – cups of tea and apple juice, cereal, fresh fruit, wonderful tasty bread and cheese, sausages and eggs, and best of all a rare treat for me – crepes with fresh berries. Everything was so fresh and tasted wonderful! Only trouble was  that I was so full afterwards I had to take a nap when we got back to the cabin and only woke up again at noon! (Incidentally apart from some fruit we didn’t eat again until we got home this evening!)

We spent the rest of the day in the sky bar, which is a cafe on the uppermost deck which has the most wonderful views of God’s own water park – the waterways leading back to Turku through the archipelago.  The weather was really good (calm and sunny) and it was such a blessing to sit in the warm, sipping cola, and watching the world go by.

There’s so much to see. The sea, the skies, the variety of little islands, and houses …and then there are also the boats. We saw a flotilla of sailing boats, and also something I’ve never seen before …

… a tiny tug boat pulling an ENORMOUS load of logs on a raft.

I had  a really wonderful day today. And best of all it was full of God! (See also eyes of faith, to see what tool I photographed today, and where God was in that!)

On Friday night, driving home from eija’s I swung by Helsinki-Vantaa airport to pick up my friend for her first ever visit to Finland. She’s staying with us until September 1st.

Saturday was an early start as we had been invited by the International Rotary Club of Turku to join them in an outing to Seili. We followed the pikku rengastie from Turku. Hubby drove us from to Hanka (via Naatali, Rymättylä,(with one very short ferry) from where we caught a larger ferry to the island of Seili, a small island in the Archipelago sea.  This was a first for me!

Seili island has an interesting history. Earlier it was a leprosy island, and later on it served as the location for the mentally ill. Since the 60s however, the University of Turku has had its Archipelago Research Institute located there. This was really interesting for me.

The Baltic sea is not very big, yet about 90 million people (half of whom live in Poland) are in its catchment area.  (For comparision, the ‘outer’ coastline of Southern Sweden, Norway and the tip of northern Russia on the North sea, and Norweigan sea – which is about the same length supports less than ten million people).

What’s more the Baltic Sea is rather shallow in many places (particularly near Denmark), whcih means that while it’s not landlocked, the water does not mix with the water from the North sea  very rapidly, and that is affecting its salinity (amongst other things). That in turn affects the species etc etc. And you can imagine the environmental consequences …

While on the island we visited the old church rebuilt in the 1700s (which is lovely), and there we were shown some very,very old grafitti (on a pew).

We shared a fabulous picnic. (I do like pot luck and in my experience it almost always ends up working out really really well.)  And afterwards we boarded MS Linta and then continued along the pillurengastie to Turku (via Nauvo and Parainen) in a friend’s car.

Today our youngest (along with her two sisters and five brothers!) turns 1.
And let’s not forget TS’s terrific girlfriend who also celebrates her birthday today! Congratulations to you all.

From left
sisters Misty (3) & Maggie (1) together with mum Mindy (6).
(Photo -used with permission – taken by hubby over in Merimasku earlier this summer with his camera phone!)

went to view red kites over at Argaty (near Stirling) yesterday.Didn’t know much about kites before the visit, and will definitely visit again when I’m in Scotland next. Now know that  these beautiful birds were virtually extinct in the Uk and certainly had been wiped out in England and Scotland (only five breeding pairs remained in Wales) until the conservation and re-introduction programme began ten years or so ago.

Shame the weather wasn’t good yesterday. And oh for a good camera with a great big telesphoto lens for a sight like the Kites. It’s brighter again   today. Hallelujah

a couple of days ago I posted about Boris’ new bike scheme here in London. Today I read this in the London Evening Standard

More than 4000 people have signed up for the London bike hire scheme in three days. Major Boris Johnson said he was delighted at the rush to register for the £140 million project before its launch this Friday. Almost 4,2000 have registered for a £3 electronic key to unlock the bikes from docking stations.

I wrote that the scheme costs £1/day. Actually it’s cheaper than that for regular uses. It costs £5/week or you can fork out a mere £45 for an annual subscription (that’s less than a pound a week). Bikes can be used for up to 30 minutes for free, and it costs £1 for an hour, and £6 for two. (So obviously designed for quick on/off spurts from A to B)

I did wonder the other day what would happen if all the docking stations where you want to return it are full (i.e. if lots of people all want to use it from e.g. Waterloo station to skip over to the Bank/ St Pauls  and then choose not to cycle back in the evening – for whatever ever reason!) … What happens if all the spaces in a particular docking station get quickly filled up? Or a particular docking station is devoid of bikes? Seems there is going to be an online map, which will go live on Friday, so it will be interesting to watch this drama unfold.

There are 6000 cycles ready for use (according to the standard) – none in Vauxhall yet – and 400 docking stations most of which will be ready for use by Friday.

Interesting

A leaflet came through the door this morning

TfL (transport for London) Your new way to get around

It’s all about the new Cycle superhighways (bike paths/cycle lanes) that run into central London from outer London. The idea behind these is to provide cyclists with safer, safer and more direct journeys into central London.

It looks good doesn’t it?

Also new in London this year are the new TfL’s cycle hire scheme (due to be launched at the end of this month).

They recently installed this cycle hire ‘station’ around the corner from here.  The cost of being part of this scheme is much the same as taking the bus. There’s a daily fee of £1 and then a small fee for using the bike (although it’s free to use the bike for up to 30 minutes’ use). This means that it’s ideal if you have a cycle hire station near where you live to cycle to e.g. the tube (rather than taking the bus) leaving it at the cycle station there, and then picking up another bike when you get out of the tube and cycling to the cycle station near where you work/want to shop etc. (more info here)

Time will tell how well this scheme works, but I’m loving it that London is becoming more cycle friendly. My dad (who who used to risk life and limb every day to cycle to work in the city from North London on his bright yellow bike “so no-one can say they didn’t see me!”) would have loved it too.

Wildlife programme on post-breakfast tv this morning the presenter said

there’s not much more to do than sunbathe and play.

I misheard him and thought he’d said pray … and found myself smiling. It’s really not a bad attitude to life is it? I think Jesus could have lived with it too!

Let’s be honest, this thing is a mess, in every sense of the word.

That’s right. Almost a thousand seabirds, more than three hundred and fifty sea turtles and nd almost four dozen mammals have been killed by the oilspill in the gulf .

Read more from Mike  over at waving or drowing?.  And if you don’t have time to read it all at least read this quote

For too long, we evangelical Christians have maintained an uneasy ecological conscience. I include myself in this indictment . . . Because we believe in free markets, we’ve acted as though this means we should trust corporations to protect the natural resources and habitats. But a laissez-faire view of government regulation of corporations is akin to the youth minister who lets the teenage girl and boy sleep in the same sleeping bag at church camp because he “believes in young people.”

(taken by Mike from the blog of Russell Moore, Dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who went and saw and came home changed!)

I sometimes wonder how I’d fit working full time in again. That said I just submitted an application for a full time post that I really, really hope I get.If I do, life will change considerably come September. If I don’t, then I keep hunting and hoping and discerning.

Yesterday was the first (unoffical) day of DD’s summer holidays. We took a road trip.

DD only got her driving license a couple of weeks ago. And yesterday she drove all the way to Hämeenlinna (about 140km away). We took the old ox route, which makes it lot longer, as the route follows the river Aura a lot of the way, and twists and turns. Much of the journey was along un-paved or only semi-paved country roads, some of which had limits of 60km/hr so it took around three hours to get there!

Hämeenlinna is the oldest inland town in Finland. It was established in 1639 by Per Brahe, a govenor of Finland, when it was still part of the Kingdom of Sweden.

(A couple of years ago I was substituting for my friend at primary school. She teaches English (and History to the English stream) so I found myself having to prepare a lesson on Brahe, much of which came back to me yesterday!)

DD and I didn’t have as much time in Hämeenlinna as we would have liked. We didn’t get to see the house where Jean Sibelius was born for example, but we did enjoy our visit to Häme Castle. (Hämeenlinna means castle of Häme by the way). It’s one of only three remaining brick buildings from the Middle Ages here in Finland. The castle here in Turku and the church of the Holy Cross in Hattula (on the ox route) are the others.

Finns do museums quite differently to the United Kingdom. In Häme Castle, for example, there are almost no artifacts, not even paintings or wall hangings. We wandered through room after room – most of which were empty -  opened a lot of doors (including ones out onto the balcony overlooking the courtyard) and explored almost secret passages. We even stumbled across the only surving indoor latrine!

The Royal chambers were light and airy with whitewashed walls (the Kings’ chamber had a beautiful arched ceiling) but as I said there were almost no artifacts. In the lower floor we found some Holocaust like ovens (near the current cafe) which turned out to be the heating system for part of the castle and I had to laugh at one explanation in the English guidebook

The chimney flue went straight up. In the C16th the system of dampers was developed which greatly increased the efficiency.

500 years later they still haven’t discovered that in the United Kingdom!

There were a couple of exhibitions, one of which was about silver wear (from then to the present) and the other was a temporary exhibition on Finlandisation in Finland, which takes visitors on a trip to the times of the former president of Finland, Urho Kaleva Kekkonen.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term Finlandisation (and it is a mouthful, isn’t it?)  this definition might help

Term ‘Finlandisation’ was launched in 1948 when The Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance Treaty between Finland and the Soviet Union was signed. Finlandisation is understood as a political, economic and cultural phenomenon during the Cold War.

The exhibition was really interesting, with all kinds of tidbits of information from that era and the dance that Kekkonen had to do in order to pacify Finland’s Communist neighbours to the East.

All in all a good day out. DD drove home via the highway (a lot quicker!), with me taking the wheel only for the last 30 km or so.