Day 9 - Monday 14th July

"Thunder. Lightning. Thunder. Lightning"
 I was sitting in the garden at 10.30am taking in the sun's rays as usual, sipping a coffee and eating a delicious pulla bun (Finnish cinnamon bun) and I was looking at the hourly weather forecast for today for our area. That's what it was telling me - hours of rain, thunder and lightning, from 12 noon until 10pm this evening. It seemed impossible to believe, as the sky was clearing rapidly and the few clouds were dispersing. Plus, it was already 24C and was getting quickly warmer.

 Anyway, based on the forecast, we decided to head into Jyvaskyla this afternoon to try to find something nice that Keith could buy as a souvenir. When we set off from the house at 1.30pm I admit there a few light clouds beginning to appear, but as we approached Jyvaskyla 10 minutes or so later, suddenly there were black clouds all over the place and the promised lightning was flashing all over the sky! And, the rain arrived just as I pulled in to the usual car park. That meant we had to hurry as quickly as we could to the main street and the indoor shopping centre, getting soaked as we did!

With Pasi, my friend from several eTwinning conferences!

A few minutes later, it was a great surprise, and pleasure to literally bump right into eTwinning colleague and friend Pasi Siltakorpi, from Porvoo, (about 150 miles south of here) who was in the same shopping centre with his wife for the day! We chatted for a few minutes and then continued on with our shopping, before heading out to find that the sun was back and the clouds had disappeared once again!

Looking out over the lake in the evening sunshine.

Exiting the sauna, with Sandy.

Some refreshment is always needed in the sauna :-)

Anna in the late evening sunshine.

Back home after visiting the supermarket too, we had an evening of relaxing in the sun by the jetty, enjoying swims and saunas as we have every day since we arrived. I asked Keith over supper if he thinks he'll be able to swim every day while we're here, to which he replied, "Aye. As long as there's no more thunder and lightning!"
Indeed!

Below- a wee video showing the cottage and the garden!