We had set the alarm for 9am and it was still pretty dark when it began to ring. It was hard to get up and out of bed, but we'd agreed yesterday with Katja and Petri that we would go snowboarding in Ylläs.

After a standard breakfast of coffee, cake and porridge, the four of us plus Grandma and Nena, the dog, squeezed into Petri’s Audi Quattro for the drive to Äkäslompolo. The car handled exceptionally well on the snowy roads and even when a minor lapse in concentration (watching the sunrise) had us miss a turn, a skilful handbrake turn had us avoiding a route over the lake.

The weather hadn’t improved as much as we thought, but we decided to go for 3 hours on the slopes any way. Unlike New Zealand where you must buy a full day ticket, in Ylläs you can buy a lift pass for 1 hour, 3 hours or a full day and of course, choose the time you start.

As soon as we got up to the top of the fell, we realised that a 10 knot wind is quite different up there compared to say, being in a park in spring. The wind was whipping up icy snow and blowing it straight into any exposed skin. It just meant we didn’t spend much time hanging around at the top, we would just quickly strap in and head back down the slope to the relative shelter at the bottom.

We met up with Torsti, who was working on the ski field, and Matias, who had come along for the day instead of staying home playing video games.

After an hour we had break to warm up at Jokeri Kuppila with a much needed mug of hot chocolate with a generous shot of minttu (mint liquor) and a munkki, an oversized Finnish doughnut.

Later in the day, we moved back to the main run and David stopped for a couple standing over a skier who was wasn’t moving much. They were Russian and David established the guy thought his leg was broken. It didn’t look too mangled and he wasn’t complaining much, but David raced down to the bottom of slope anyway to get someone to help him get to a hospital.

After 3 hours it was dark and we were really beginning to feel bit cold, so we quickly packed up our gear into the car and also took Matias with us back to cabin.

We warmed up our toes, fingers and noses before going for dinner at Julli's. Instead of the usual burger we had pizzas this time, which were the usual double dinner plate sized pizzas that you seem to get in Finland. We shared a kebab meat & jalapenos pizza and house special 'Four Wheel Driver’ pizza, which came with salmon, Lappish bread cheese, smetana and reindeer. Washed down with some Lappish beer, it was delicious!

On the drive back to Venejärvi, just south of Kolari, an ambulance with its lights flashing, overtook us while going maybe 130kph. Not five minutes later, we saw the blue lights up ahead in the darkness by some parked cars. It was only as we got closer, we realised the ambulance had driven off the road; it was now on its side, in a roadside ditch. Plenty of cars had stopped already, so we just continued and hoped it wasn’t on an urgent call.

Back at the cabin, in Venejärvi , David lit the fire for the sauna which also helps heat up the building a bit, it had got colder again outside and the temperature had dropped to -14c. There was snow clearing to be done too, no rest for the wicked as they say.

After calling David's parents to belatedly wish them a Happy New Year, it was sauna time followed by the obligatory beer. It’s doesn’t matter what the outside temperature is, it’s never too cold to sit outside with an ice cold beer after a sauna. Especially when the sky is clear, the moon is bright in the night sky and the forest is silent. Very relaxing.