We still haven't worked out why you sleep so long when you’re in Lapland in the winter. Maybe it’s the primeval instinct, like a bear, and you want to hibernate. Regardless of the reason we slept for a long time again. The excitement of a birthday wasn’t even enough to wake Maria early from her slumber. The reason for that was that there were no presents to open. The few presents she had, had been opened already – a sausage stick from Ta...

We had a bit of a lazy morning, watching television while we had late breakfast of caviar and rye bread, washed down with the second pot of coffee for the day. Our travel plans were still a bit sketchy so just in case we weren't coming back to Äkäslompolo, we packed all our stuff including David’s snowboard and boots and loaded it all into the car. Torsti had left for Rovaniemi so we tidied up the locked the cabin. The first port of call was at...

We've been in Finland for nearly 2 weeks now and whilst we've been tantalisingly close to the Arctic Circle, only 7km away, we hadn't actually crossed it - today would be the day. We took a short drive to the Santa Claus Village and Post Office, which sits directly on top of the Arctic Circle. Once you step across that line there is an air of enchantment, things just seem different. Our timing was a bit lousy because it coincided with Santa's half hour lunch brea...

Since arriving in Finland, there had been a lot of indulgence, eating and drinking, but very little exercise so time to make amends. Having a dog, Nena, to walk made it easier to leave the house, especially when the weather was not so great. In the summer we would have been walking up the side of the river but this was winter and you get to walk 'on' the river. It's not just walkers on the river, it turns in to a bit of a highway...well, actually, it really does ...

The snowflakes being buffeted in the light wind of daybreak looked very picturesque but it was not ideal for driving. Ten centimeters of snow had fallen through the night and all the cars in the carpark looked the same with their white cloaks on. After the second guess, we found our car, swept off all the snow and loaded our luggage...Rovaniemi, here we come!! It took a very uneventful two hours to reach Maria's sister's house and with impeccable timing, Katja h...