ILMALA

We took a trip  and drove east, to my grandparent's summer stay in Southern Carelia, Ilmala. Last time I was there was five years ago with my sister  when my grandfather was still alive. I've been meaning to go there every summer since but never didn't make it until now. It's one of those places thatwhat's along the road to there might change during the years, but once you get there, it looks the same as it always has, just like it did during our stays there as a kid.

The place is on a typical Finnish ridge with a steep hill down to the lake.

Plus 26C in the water! Approved.

Pretty much everything in the cabin(s, there's another smaller barack on the premises too) is built by my late grandfather by hand; the houses, beds, shelves, tables, hooks and so on. He was also the kind of guy to make lamp shades out of old thermoses and built a jetty from a road sign that said it was 1km to the motel for example. And all details are painted in the same green color, as he had a lot of it and thus put it everywhere. In their town apartment too...

Dinner preparations. Well one of these at least ;)

Freshly baked local sour rye bread. To be had with heaps of butter. Crazy good. Dag thought so too and got a little greedy.

Pine trees, pine trees, pine trees. A lot of Finland looks like this. Easy to get lost in , everywhere looks the same. 

The salpa line  from the war went trough here. (In Finland The War refers to the Finnish Winter War and the continuation war, wwII.)

I snatched the second pic from my sister's Instagram.

Blueberries and blueberry pie. Ah, summer!

(Lately blueberries however makes me think of the phrase "beautiful blueberries", which was the last thing Christopher McCandelss wrote in his journal before he starved to death in Alaska, having tried to live separated from the modern world. One of the things I've stumbled upon during my insomniac  nightly internet odysseys... Such a lonely, deliric thing to write. My head makes me picture the scene of the skeleton man praising his last berries. Thank you internet for that one, I will most likely ALWAYS think of that whenever thinking of blueberries again. )

Well, back to here and summer and sand and such. Here's my sister's & hubby's little chorkie Lilly in the evening sun.