leisurely?

On the 5^th of Jan my girlfriend and I decided to go for a leisurely walk to Pohja. It was a little cold and slightly slippery under foot but we were up for it, a little adventure. Well, the adventure lasted a bit longer than expected. It started with me commandeering her camera to take some photos of Fiskars for her. Not my best work but shit happens.

hats on the main street

helicopter over the old fire station

‘stone house’

lake and tunnel

lake by tunnel

evening sky and silhouette

evening sky

There were hats on posts by the main street, an artwork by a local artist. I took photos of various buildings as we went as well as an inpromptude visit from a helicopter.  We passed a tunnel that was very close to a lake. The sky started to change as we continued. It was beautiful watching the variations of colours in the sky.

Having looked at google maps but not having one in hand, while starting with complete confidence, it turned into hesitation. Google said it would take about 45mins each way. Now, in the past google has always overcompensated with how long walks take. Being in Finland, however, meant that people were used to walking around the countryside so it was surprisingly accurate. So our 30min each way little jaunt across the landscape ended up being a little bit of a pain in the ass, almost literally on several occasions. As we finally made our way, it turned out, in the right direction there were several times we thought there was a strong possibility that we could be lost. But no, the beauty that is the town centre of Pohja (extremely sarcastic) appeared in front of us.

Up until now I had neglected to mention that one of the reasons for this trip was not sight seeing but to do some shopping that would be cheaper than the very small, I suppose the UK equivalent would be a corner shop, with a few extras. So as we wandered about the supermarket it became apparent that another predictable dilemma had slipped our minds. The translation of food names and the variations within is made just that little bit harder by having Finnish and Swedish on each item, sometimes on the same type of item beside each other. The saving grace was the occasional icon like a graphic of a chicken. To this day I have no idea what made the difference in prices of what seemed like exactly the same thing. We were both starting feel the affects of not having had lunch so we bought snacks for the walk home.

By this time it was dark and cold(er).  The chocolate, if you could call it that, was gone in moments. To our experienced chocolate tasting palettes it was not worth savouring. The slightly larger than you would expect box of raisins, that reminded me of my youth (yes some time ago unfortunately) lasted a bit longer though giving us sticky fingers. We hurriedly marched back home, knowing our way this time, attempting to keep warm, stave off the increased affect of gravity because of the spasmodically ice laden road we were walking on and not get run over. While returning tired and hungry we had the satisfaction…well, it was nice to be inside, warm and full.

where to start?

My girlfriend and I (Matthew Coombes) arrived in Fiskars Village, Finland on New Years Eve 2011. Getting into my home for the next three months, we were impressed by the size and warmth of the ‘small apartment’.

apartment view from the lounge on 1 Jan 2012

After getting settled and exploring my new home we hiked down the hill for less than a minute to the, open almost always, ‘Siwa’ the local and only food shop open in the winter in Fiskars. After guessing at what we were buying we went home, ate, then met Sade (artist in residence coordinator) who drove us to see some pre-new years fireworks put on in the nearest town.

After getting home we promptly fell asleep and almost missed new years altogether. We were invited to Ron’s place for a party so hurried to find our way there before 12 o’clock.

Ron’s place was a large open plan room within a former plough workshop. It was a cool space with several disco balls, one of which was ‘the largest in the region’ which was reiterated throughout the night. Ron is a local artist. Everyone was very friendly and I think it was the best start I could’ve had to my time here . The only downside was that we overestimated the need for warm clothing by having thermal layers underneath our clothes. This became particularly apparent when we were dancing to fast music. You live and learn 🙂

largest in the region

 

top people

dancing in the new year

photos by Folke Lindqvist