Maria had booked herself in for a haircut this morning. It had been about a year since the last time it was cut and she wanted it tidied up by a professional. David had offered many times throughout the year to do it, but Maria declined every time.

David was surprised when Maria returned because instead of having all her hair cut off in the style she had a year ago, it was still longer but just neatly trimmed and blow dried.

Whenever we are in Rovaniemi, David always wants to visit Santa Claus Village. The village is 8km north of Rovaniemi and apart from a few other attractions, the three major ones are the Arctic Circle, Santa Claus Post Office and Santa Claus' Office.

We have passed over the Arctic Circle many times, mostly in a fast moving car, but in the park they have a line marked out. The actual Arctic Circle, by definition, is constantly moving and the one in the Village was its position in 1865. That said there is still a special feeling when you walk across the line into the 'Arctic Circle’.

Once inside the Arctic Circle, the next logical stop is the Santa Claus Post Office. All the letters sent to Santa, regardless how bizarrely they are addressed, will end up here. They get hundreds of thousands of letters every year and every single one gets opened and read (by an elf helper).

David bought a postcard for his parents just so he could post something and get the special Santa Claus postmark on it.

It wasn’t too busy in the main building today so we decided to go and pay the main man a visit. Santa Claus is pretty much always in his Office and waiting to meet visitors and have a quick chat. We walked through the passageway, past the ‘time slowing down’ machine (which he needs to deliver all the gifts) and up the stairs to wait to be taken into his office by his elf helper. We seated either side of Santa, who sat in his huge chair, and talked in both English and Finnish to us. Maria told David afterwards that Santa had told her, when speaking in Finnish that she must make sure David keeps the bedroom tidy to ensure a visit from Santa and a present next year. The proof of meeting Santa, a photo and video, would have cost us €40. We weren’t paying that so you’ll just have to believe us that he’s there.

With our visit to Santa over we managed to take a few pictures of the village with out the Asians or the Russians getting in the way. There seemed to be a disproportionate number of them today or perhaps we just noticed them because they don’t pause to let someone take a photo, they just walk straight in front of you.

We left Rovaniemi and headed south west to Kemi, to Maria’s mums. There were a lot of speed cameras on the road and it was unusually dark after the bright moonlit nights we were used to in Venejärvi so we took it easy. In the end it only took a little over an hour and we were in time for dinner.

After nearly a fortnight without Internet access, we had some fast WiFi again so we could check what had been going on in the world.