A perfect Finnish day!

This has been possibly the best day of weather since we were in Helsinki back at the start of our holiday. Although we woke up to cloudy skies, it was sunny by 10am and then it just continued to improve and get warmer as the day went on. By 3pm, when we were in Ruovesi, it was 25C in the centre of the town there, and the sun shone until a few minutes ago, when it disappeared at about 10.30pm. We weren't up early, as we slept possibly later than at any other point since Sandy and Olivia were born- until about 9.20am! I had read yesterday when linking to a post about our walk up to the gorge that it was possible to buy wild boar soup at the nearby kiosk, so I went up there this morning and spoke to Mirja the owner about it. Of course, we have already seen her flock of 24 wild boar in her garden along the road a bit, so she was happy to produce some frozen smoked wild boar soup for us to try. It was really delicious, and Anna, Sandy and I all enjoyed it. Olivia wasn't too keen to eat what she has seen running around in the woods close by!

Before lunch, Sandy had been keen to catch a lizard here- there are lots of them living close to the lake, and they come out to sun themselves on the jetty, so we worked for a while and eventually cornered one and caught it- see the photo below.

After lunch, we decided to go back to Ruovesi itself, to the public swimming area by the lake there. We lay in the sun, swam and enjoyed ourselves for most of the afternoon. There were quite a few locals also diving and jumping from the high diving boards there.

At about 5pm, we came home and decided to cook outside and eat our dinner by the fire area in the sun. We must have spent about three hours there, before finally having more time in the water here, jumping into the lake again before eventually coming in about 9.45pm. This has been the weather we have been used to over the past couple of years- and looking ahead to next week- it's typical that the warmest weather of the whole summer, and therefore the warmest lake temperatures, will occur over the next 10 days or so! So, Finland's weather certainly appears to be influenced by the jet-stream too. For us, we will be happy to enjoy the sunshine for the next couple of days here, before we head home!
The delicious smoked wild boar soup!
Happy lizard-catchers!
By the lake in Ruovesi.
Looking across the lake in Ruovesi.
Back at our place, in the evening sunshine.
On the jetty, after a last swim of the day- 9.35pm

Sitting on the jetty at 9.45pm in the still bright sunshine!