Big walkies for little McSquish...

Elina: We went for a big walk today. We left our apparment in Leppävaara and started walking down the road and through the forest. After a while we turned left and then left again, then we turned right under a bridge, then we turned right again and walked across a building site which was very bumpy. Then dadda said “I reckon it must be this way”, pointing down a track. When we saw some old ladies who we passed about ten minutes earlier, mamma lost confidence in dadda’s ability to navigate our way to Pasi’s place in Tapiola, so she stopped them and asked for directions. They laughed at us and pointed us back in the direction we just came from. After about an hour of walking around, we were back at the Maxi supermarket in Leppävaara (which is about 8.5 minutes walk from our apartment). Dadda said “we weren’t lost, we were just going a different way”. Next time I’m bringing a map

We went to Pasi’s place in central Finland

Elina: One weekend we went for a drive to Suolahti. It’s about 350km north of Helsinki, quite near Jyväskylä. It is a small town, with about 5000 people. It is where Pasi grew up (I guess it has a bit to answer for ). His parents still live there. I spent the weekend eating dirt from Pasi’s mum’s pot plant and trying to break the keys off Pasi’s dad’s accordian. We went out to their summer place and barbequed some sausages for lunch. Then we did something really amazing: we all hopped into a row boat and went for a paddle. First Pasi rowed us all the way around an island in the lake. Then mummy took over … that was really funny ‘cos we went round and round and round and round, then she finally got the hang of it and we headed back to finish off the sausages. There was a really fat bumble bee buzzing around while we had lunch. We saw lot’s of berries and some mushrooms on the forest floor. Some of the berries are called lingonberries (puolukka or Vaccinium vitis-idaea) and they taste a bit funny. I don’t really like them… I prefer blueberries (mustikka or Vaccinium myrtillus) because they were nice and sweet. Pasi’s dad and dadda went looking for mushrooms in the forest near their house (actually like I said earlier, there’s only one forest in Finland, so it’s also the same forest that is near our apartment). They didn’t find a single mushroom. They claimed it was too dark and there were too many leaves on the forest floor so they couldn’t see them. But I reckon the gnomes were sitting on them so that they couldn’t find them. Have you heard that if a gnome sits on something it can become invisible to adults? I guess I could have gone with them and shown them where they were, but I put the time without dadda watching me to good use. I was very busy trying to pull those keys off Pasi’s dad’s accordian while mamma was having her 10th coffee and pulla session for the day with Pasi’s mum. There are so many keys and buttons on that thing that at least one of them should come off if I keep trying. I hope we go there again one day so I can try again

We live near a forest

Elina: Just like everyone else in Finland, we live near the forest. There’s only one forest here ... it’s just a really big one. About 77% of Finland is covered by it. Sometimes we go for a walk in it ... we’ve seen heaps of little squirrels (they call ‘em orava over here). Every time I see one I get really excited (wave my arms and kick my legs), but they don’t hang around for long ‘cos they are very busy at the moment collecting nuts and stuff for the winter...


A squirrel with a nut

This is our place

Elina: It’s a lot smaller than our house in Melbourne but it’s heaps of fun ... the floor is really hard so when I piff stuff it makes a lot noise. When I pretend to be really upset, I usually throw myself forwards and backwards on the floor (mummy and daddy call it a full body tantrum (or FBT for short)). Sometimes I hit my head, and then there’s no point pretending anymore...

I have my own room with lots of toys next to mummy and daddy’s bedroom. There’s a lounge room, dining area, balcony, kitchen, bathroom and my favourite ... the sauna. It gets really hot in there. We don’t have a bath tub so I have a spishy splashy in a plastic tub. Elina and Aki lent us some other furniture and a TV. We went and picked it up from Elina’s grandmothers cottage (mummun mökki) near Riihimäki. It was really nice there. Elina and Aki made us some sausages, potatoes and pancakes.

23 August 2001: Time to bring in the reinforcements...

Elina: After a few days I was ok to fly, so mummy said it was time to catch up with dadda . We said bye bye to "those folks" in Australia and then got on the big plane. It was a long flight but I wasn't scared at all because I didn't know what was happening... Mamma is getting used to flying so she's not as scared as she used to be and she even has a new motto to help her from getting scared: "The bumpier the better!". It was pretty cool; I spilt mamma's drink all over her pants and even got the guy sitting next to her. An old lady told mummy that she was amazed at how quiet I was… so I quickly fixed that up wäää wäää


Last chance to show off for Paaaa at the airport...


Elke and Elina's plane leaving Melbourne... it's the white one in the background

17 August 2001: Dadda went first

Elina: I was sick and couldn't fly, so dadda left for Helsinki first. He arrived there on the 18th of August to a beautiful, sunny, late-summer day. At first, he stayed at the Privatel hotel in Leppävaara, just on the other side of the forest from our new apartment. After a couple of days, Pasi and Jouni lent him some portable beds so he could move in without sleeping on the parquetry floor (apparently he tried it, but it was pretty hard). Then he started work, going to the gym and basically staying out of trouble until we arrived (at least that's what he told us).


Michael leaving Melbourne