DARK AND STOMRY

(...is a drink at the Kokomo Tiki bar but that's not what I'm after here.)

A storm swept over us yesterday of a seldom seen strength in Scandinavia. Some roofs and pieces of buildings flew off, traffic signs tipped over and trees broke down in the hard wind. The officials sent out warnings trough the media for people to stay inside. But what do the harbour workers do? Go out in the wind and load the ships! (which were not running by schedule I can tell you). We had to close down parts of the harbour due to safety risks as some contraptions were about to burst.

After finally finishing my very long and tiring week of work I drove out to Eddi in the countryside  where the electricity had been off since seven in the morning. Right after driving out of town and the suburb area everything was dark. When we left some hours ago, our place was still without power, even though the village nearby was lit. (Good thing I was busy and lazy and missed out on picking and storing berries last summer, as things in the freezer -some of those lambs you've seen in posts before...- had started to melt by then.)

Luckily we have a wooden stove to heat the house and cook food on. The house itself is not heated by electricity but by it's own wood chip system, but the system need electricity to run.
Candlelight and a burning fire is of coure cosy, but less cosy is the fact that unlike in the city, water here (from a well on the far) does not run by pressure bit the pump work with -you guessed it- electricity. So no running water and no working toilet. I've spent my summers in the archipelago without those comforts, but it's a little different in June than in December :)

I put candles everywhere. I learnt this trick with using old porcelain cups as candleholders from my friend Maiju, she again had spotted it in some store long time ago. It gives a very nice light!

Warming my feet by the oven and cooking tea.

It was not only the electricity that was not working, the mobile phone network, which usually is nothing to cheer about over there, was also pretty much down and I couldn't get online. That was it!
We're back in town now.