Wednesday
Woke up around 8:30, but fell back asleep until 10:30. Had breakfast, then washed the dishes.
I decided to mow the grass today. There’s not too much to mow, mostly in front of the cottage and up in the driveway and parking area. It takes a little while to mow using the vintage Husqvarna push mower.
Afterwards I enjoyed quite a few rum and cokes while Facebooking and copying some music CDs to the laptop then the Kindle Fire. Terttu stopped by mid afternoon and said we were invited to her friend Elina’s for coffee.
I grabbed a quick shower, then walked over to Terttu’s. We went to get gas at Vaalimaa, the Russian border. We stopped at Rajamarket to look around. The place was packed with (mostly) rude Russian tourists, loading up their carts with tax-free purchases.
We got to Elina’s house about 5:30 and had a nice visit. She just had a birthday yesterday and received an exercise bike as a gift. We enjoyed some wine, coffee and pulla (dessert bread). Elina lives right in the church village, so Terttu went to tend to some family graves in the church cemetery.
Came back to Pihlaja mid evening. Terttu stopped by and we played some Rummikub until about 11:30PM.
I stayed up checking the net and reading some old Hitchcock and Ellery Queen mystery magazines. Finally fell sleep around 1AM.
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- Rajamarket, located right by the Russian border
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- Traffic heading into Russia…
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- …miles of cars and tractor-trailers wait there turn
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- Elina’s house
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- Elina on her new exercise bike
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- I remember seeing this on the Benny Hill Show. Yep, its Fairy Dishwashing Liquid
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- No breakfast is complete without a heaping helping of Honey Balls
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- The grass, before mowing
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- The classic Husqvarna mower
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- The front “lawn” , after mowing
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- Sunshine, rum & coke, Facebook and Guns N’ Roses…life is good 🙂
