Back to blogging!

Apologies!  Apologies!  The blog has been rather silent for a while.  Well, we do have a few good excuses.  We went through the final phase of chaos as we moved into our new house, our container with all our South-African goodies has arrived, Dirkie had a rather bloody cut to his hand which required stiches and we went through an unfortunate time when Alex’s father passed away and he had to go back to South-Africa for 10 days.  But we’re back and new posts will follow more frequently from now on.

We have experienced an unimaginable amount of snow lately.  As we come from Africa we are amazed by the amount of snowfall that we have experienced on an almost daily basis.  Below is an indication of how deep the snow is in the back yard.  This photo was taken after Dirkie made a short stroll / struggle through the snow at the back of the house.

 

Driving has been a bit of challenge in the current weather conditions.  As the Snowmobile is rather small and light in weight it often slips and slides along the road with wheels spinning and ABS kicking in.  The photo below was taken while driving on the motorway.

 

 

Walking on ice

As mentioned before, Helsinki is surrounded by many small islands.  The backyard of our house goes down directly to the sea with a beautiful view of the frozen sea water and surrounding islands.  The main island that forms part of the view from our house is called Iso Koivusaari (Big Birch Island).  The photos that follow are of a morning walk on the ice.

First of all, one needs to be prepared to go out for a chilly walk outside!  In the photo below Dirkie is wearing his Thinsulate insulated cloves, double layer Kevlar jacket with polyurethane insulation, K-Way beanie with ear protection, a scarf, non-slip and grip-plus waterproof boots with lamb’s wool and aluminium sole insulation and strap-on spikes on the boots (the green thingies).  We would love to wear lamb’s wool socks as well but they are very pricy so we just make use of our Mr Price Brand socks from home.  Oh, and Alex likes to wear long johns (something which Dirkie doesn’t wear as it makes him feel old and long johns tend to creep up in certain uncomfortable places).

 

This photo is of Iso Koivusaari Island as seen from our back yard.

 

The frozen see water is covered by snow and it is only when one brushes it away that the staggering reality hits you that you are actually walking on water!

 

Amateur fishermen like to make use of a crispy morning fishing opportunity by drilling small holes in the ice.  They use a rather odd looking drilling tool to drill a small hole and then with a fishing line lower a hook with bait into the hole.  When a fishing hole is in use it is marked with a stick.

 

We came across some poor fishy next to one of the holes that didn’t make it to the frying pan….

 

The next few photos are of Dirkie and Alex as we as we stroll along the frozen sea.  Alex looks rather a bit “bekommerd” as he might be a bit nervous walking on the ice (hie-hie).

 

The next photo is interesting and very beautiful.  It is of a deserted fishing hole that has frozen over.  It has a lovely rose like appearance to it.

 

The local municipality often scrapes a part of the ice clean to create a natural ice skating rink.  We still have to invest in some skies though….and maybe we should get some proper life insurance.  It is beautiful to see how young people make way for older people to have a chance to have a go at skiing as well.  They respectfully make way for them.

 

This photo Dirkie is very proud of!  He built his first snow man.  It didn’t come out at well and looks a bit like Saartjie Baartman but hey, it was my first attempt!  And may Dirkie add that the scarf around the snow man / snow ladie's neck was knitted by Dirkie himself.

 

Have a look at this interesting photo.  People even ride their bicycles on the frozen sea!  We wonder if they also make use of snow tires…

 

That’s it for our frozen sea water adventure.  Here follow a few photos taken around the house of the beautiful snowy surroundings.  Dirkie especially likes the way that the snow collects on the barren trees.  It has an almost cotton wool like appearance.

This photo was taken from our backyard of Iso Koivusaari Island.  Note how the snow collects in the barren trees.  Is it not like a picture from a fairy tale book?

 

These photos were taken from our balcony and the back yard.

 

We have two huge trees which we suspect are Pine trees which also collect snow creating such an atmosphere of serenity and stillness.

 

Overall things are going very well over here.  We are very blessed and privileged to have found this house and are now completely settled in.  The next blog will deal with the house and some of the chaos (gulp) that we had to go through in order to get everything settled.  See you in the next post!

Cheers!