Cosy Night In

On our last weekend we decided to make a little day trip to Tallin in Estonia. Tallin is only a short ferry trip from Helsinki so we wrapped up warm and drove onto the ferry. We had booked breakfast on the ferry and it turned out to be a lovely way to pass the two hours it took to get there. The breakfast was huge and definitely set us up for a day of exploring.

I wanted to do a whole post about Tallin but the weather was absolutely dreadful so I left my camera in the car. The city was still beautiful but we did spend a lot of time under the umbrella and indoors doing some sale shopping. We snacked on delicious garlic bread and hot wine and had lunch in a German beer house that brews 14 different kinds of beers and serves food in very large portions, delicious. I will tell you more about Tallin next time we go, hopefully in the summer, because it is a city worth knowing and visiting.

Our last Sunday in Finland was spent relaxing, we took the dogs for a lovely sunny walk by the sea.

To warm up, we retired to the spa. Our everyday spa ritual is one of the things I miss the most about Finland, there is no better way to unwind than a long soak in the jacuzzi and a sit down in a hot sauna. Nano seems to agree.

 While we were in the spa, mom and dad had put the fire on and prepared a cheese feast. We had sausages barbecued on the fire, lovely red wine and of course cheese.

As you may have guessed, I love cheese. All kinds of cheese, and if it wasn't for the sake of my waistline, I would eat a lot more of it, a lot more often. I couldn't imagine a better evening, munching on cheese and sipping wine. Bliss.

Walk in Winter Wonderland

As my boyfriend is Welsh, we like to bring a bit of British into our Christmas. On the 25th we cook a turkey, make some real roast potatoes, cauliflower and cheese, pigs in blankets and a whole selection of veggies. The Finns have yet to discover cranberry sauce so we even brought Sainsbury's finest with us, all the way from London. I'm quite a fan of this two 'Christmas dinners' tradition. We get both ham and turkey and two amazing dinners, what's not to like?

After boxing day we headed 5h east of Helsinki to Joensuu. Both my parents and all of us kids were born there and my grandparents, aunts and lots of cousins live there. It was freezing cold, -25'C, but breathtakingly beautiful. We stayed in Hotel Kimmel, right on the river that runs through the town. It's a great location and the breakfast room had stunning views. The rooms were basic but nice and clean.

Most of the time was spent seeing everyone and having lots of coffees, cakes and mulled wines but on the last day we snuck out for a little winter walk. It really was a winter wonderland, everything looked beautiful. We were so lucky the sun came out as well, if you didn't know, we don't get a lot of sunlight in Finland in the winter months! I photographed until my fingers so numb and cold I actually had to run back inside.

Coat: Soaked in Luxury

Fur headband: JZB

Jeans: Zara

Sunglasses: Chanel

Jumper: Supertrash

Jeans: Zara

What a lovely weekend spent with family in beautiful surroundings.

Christmas in Finland

I absolutely love Christmas at home in Finland. I love the snow, the cold weather (I can take a few weeks of it!), the peace and quiet and I love staying at my parents house. This time both my boyfriend and I packed our bags and wen't to Finland for two and a half weeks, our suitcases full of presents and our fingers crossed for lots of snow. We also took our little pomeranian Nano, he loves the snow and is such a good traveller.

 We arrived to a +3'C Helsinki with no snow what so ever! We did our final Christmas shopping in slightly grey but cold weather and then on the third night the snow finally arrived. It kept snowing for the next couple of days so our Christmas was well and truly white.

Coat: Soaked in Luxury

Fur headband: JZB

Scarf: Cashmere from Nepal

In Finland we celebrate on the 24th of December and our celebrations are slightly different to the British ones. Our Christmas morning starts with a rice pudding like 'rice porridge' with cinnamon and sugar. We then make our way to a little Chapel down the road for Christmas Church, it's a nice tradition and reminds us what it's really about. Time for afternoon coffee and cakes in the cosy lounge downstairs. With the fire on watching the snow outside I could not have felt more christmassy. After this my boyfriend and I braved the snow storm like weather with the two dogs in an attempt to walk off the cakes before yet another tradition, the Christmas Sauna.

We have ham for Christmas dinner, with lots of fish including hot and cold smoked salmon, herring, caviar, carelian pasties 'karjalanpiirakka' made by gran and a variety of vegetable casseroles such as carrot and sweet potato. For pudding we had caramel biscuit baskets with white chocolate ice cream, not quite as traditional but delicious nonetheless.

When you are young, Santa actually comes to your house to deliver the presents (my dad did the rounds to the neighbourhood children before dinner!). As we are a little older now we share the gifts from under the tree and then spend hours opening them one by one so everyone can see what you got. I think its a nice way of savouring the fun of giving and receiving. All this is of course enjoyed with the fire blazing and a glass of 20 year old port in hand.

After playing with our new gifts, a bit of a dance, a midnight snack and lots of selfies with my sisters new selfie stick, the whole house went to bed happy. Okay maybe the kids stayed up playing a little bit longer than the parents did.