1st of May

Yesterday I decided not to have any plans for this weekend - which is a bit of a "party-weekend", especially for the younger generations...but I was tired after a week of staying home with D and not feeling too good myself either. But this morning I felt it was ok to be a bit active (I function best when there are no "musts" :) even if the weather wasn't very nice. We went to Nykarleby - the nearest town, had lunch and then went up the watertower and had some icecream and buns :). It was raining, so the photos of the center of town aren't too great. Up right you can see the schoolarea where I spent my junior and senior high school years - and my first two years as a teacher of English and German! In the second photo you can see the very hear of town, the yellow building with the red roof is the elementary school and behind it the church. It's not a big town, but the river gives it charm (if you click twice on the photos, you'll see them enlarged).

After that I drove to "Kovjoki", a village also belonging to Nykarleby (as Jeppo also does) - they always have steamtrain- and horsebackriding for kids on the 1st of May. There are a few playtrains as well and some entertainment. D loves the trains and I had a really hard time getting him to go home with me!













I took the road that leads through the forest - it was really bad, but that just made D fall asleep fast. I saw a few cranes, but that was all the wildlife :(.

Tonight I've been cleaning the house - D's fourth birthday is on Tuesday and we're having the party then. Next weekend he is with his dad and I didn't want to spend all of today preparing for a party tomorrow, so it'll have to be on an evening. My mother is entitled to three hours of free cleaning help once a year - we had asked for it to be yesterday, since I've had a hectic period and it's nice to have a fairly clean house with people coming...but there was no word from them, which was a shame, I could really have done with a bit of assistance. Have to check how far in advance you have to book them (two weeks wasn't enough!). On the other hand I've been able to clean now the way I like to - little by little, a bit here, a bit there, some facebook in between etc etc. Nice to clean thoroughly - it's been a while.....