So after THE journey came THE view – Halong Bay. The photos don’t do it justice, and neither do these words. It was quite misty, which added to the mistery and majesty, but not the photos, sorry. However the water was just as emerald as it says on wikipaedia. We had the most fabulous 24 […]
Holidays
Bonus post – a tribute to the late Dave Allen
So I wasn’t going to write anything today but our morning evoked memories of my childhood and watching the extremely funny comedian Dave Allen on tv with my parents. Children look up his clips on YouTube. He always finished his show with “Thank you. May your G-d go with you.” Whatever your religion, find your […]
Good Morning Vietnam – eventually
So we have arrived – fog at LBA, so flight cancelled. Courtesy of “The beast from the East” and “Storm Emma”, we never flew from Leeds. We should have left leeds at 14:05, but at 14:15 they were telling us the plane we needed was due to land at 14:30 despite the fact that we […]
So we are off, again . . .
. . . to a part of the world we have never been to before, how exciting! Again the accusations of desertion from the children, but they they are all working and can’t get the time off – such a shame! I’m hoping that for this trip there will be a “guest” blogger so that […]
Even more snow, and ice sculpting
Today was a totally relaxed day for our last day. Walking, watching the snow fall, reading and listening and lighting fires! The snow through our window. There was 3cm in about 3 hours: It’s Narnia outside I lit this one. A proud moment – no paper and no fire alarms!: My pyromania In the afternoon […]
The Ice Hotel
So we have left Muotkan Maja after a fabulous five days. After a transfer of just under 3 hours we are now at the Snow Village and Ice Hotel in Lainio. So we’ve moved from Finland’s NE Arctic region, 24 miles from the Russian border in a SW direction, still well into the Arctic circle […]
Ice fishing and the one that got away
A relatively early start as we were picked up at 10:00 for our hour and a bit drive to Lake Inari. It’s Finland’s third biggest lake and its massive – it reminds us of Lake Windermere. It’s completely frozen. Whilst we were there we saw people snowmobiling and people in sledged being pulled by huskies […]
Reindeer and more Mum bravery, kind of . . .
Another great day from Muotkan Maja. Snowmobile safari and a Reindeer farm. These machines are massive and powerful, so this had the potential to be very similar to “that jet ski experience”. However I am older and wiser, and I trust my husband implicitly – I declined to drive, not even a taster I an […]
Huskies, huskies everywhere
An amazing morning – we left at 9am to go to a nearby Husky ranch. We were taught all about them and then we were taught how to drive our sledge and off we went. You put one foot on brake to slow down and both feet on it to slow done more. Note the […]
We’ve seen them!
And they were amazing. Over 90 minutes of dancing Aurora that filled the sky above us – and by filled the sky I mean it. You didn’t know where to look. We were so lucky to see them on our first night. The forecast wasn’t so good – what do they know?! Apparently they’ve not […]