It's a bit of blur what happened to yesterday. First of all, we slept for ages even though we didn’t go to bed particularly late. Perhaps it’s because the windows have blackout curtains (for the 24 hour summer daylight) and the bedroom is practically soundproof.

We managed to get out for a walk down to supermarket and buy some dinner and that seemed to be about it.

Today, however, we tried to make amends by setting the alarm for 8:30am, but all we managed to do was to switch it off before falling back to sleep and waking up at 10:30am as usual.

It was snowing again so instead of going snowboarding we decided to go to Venejärvi for snowmobiling. We stopped off at the shops in Kolari for some sausages just in case we might go past a laavu.

Katja, Petri & Tarja were waiting for us at Grandma’s house so we quickly got changed into 80s snowmobile overalls and grabbed helmets. There were five of us on two snowmobiles so we only went on a short ride into forest, to the first laavu we came across. We grabbed some wood from the shed and quickly got a fire started before the light started to fade. The light fades fast at this time of the year and by the time we started cooking our second sausages it was dark. In the distance we could hear another snowmobile and then we could see the lights coming our way. It was the next door neighbour, Reino, who joined us for a sausage. David wondered if Reino roamed the forest looking for sausages because he arrived with his own tube of his favourite mustard.

David rode back with Reino on his 'million’ horsepower machine and despite his promises to drive slowly, he still managed to hit 70kph as they bounced around through the trees. When they reached the road, Reino decided to show David how it could reach 80kph in about 100 metres and then brake quickly enough to go round a hairpin bend.

David was offered to drive Reino’s snowmobile, but thought better of it and instead went on the older and slightly slower Lynx 59. Following Petri, they first started hooning around in a field that had about a metre of fresh powder in it before heading out for a short trip on the forest track.

While we were out having fun in the snow, Grandma had made us a dinner of roast meat, potatoes and vegetables. All very healthy until it was accompanied with wine and followed with coffee and cakes.

It had been a few days since we had been at the Venejärvi cabin so we had to clear the snow on the paths and driveways. It never gets any easier, if anything it gets harder because the newly cleared snow has to be piled higher and higher on the previously piled up snow. At least the exercise would burn off a cake or two.

Late evening we had a sauna and cooled off with a perfectly chilled beer and cider under the light of the moon. It was almost full moon so even though it was close to midnight, it was unusually light. The sky was completely clear and the light reflecting back off the snow made it seem more like dusk rather than the middle of night (especially in an Arctic winter).