Arriving back for another year...

This place is seriously beautiful- and now it's bigger than last year, with an extra bedroom, lounge, new shower-room (2 showers) and a new inside sauna as well as the lakeside sauna. Outside, there's also a new hot-tub!

First of many swims this year!

We arrived safely here this afternoon at around 5pm, after our journey which started at 2.45am when we got up to get ourselves to the airport for our early morning flight to Amsterdam. We finally met with our cottage owners, Timo and Lissu, who were delighted to show us around their newly extended cottage- which is simply gorgeous!

Keith looks happy- and he swam a good distance tonight!

The weather has been wonderful here- it was around 25- 27c all the way up the road from Helsinki, with the lake inviting us the moment we unpacked! And none of us were able to resist! As well as swimming, we all enjoyed a great sauna once again, although for Keith, it only involved going as far as the dressing room- I know from his previous visit in 2010 that he's not too keen on the extreme temperatures of the sauna- but hey, he did the most swimming of us all, so that seemed like a cool compromise!

Oh boy- why do I look so pleased? Because this is paradise!

Up by the house...

And down by the lake!