While we approach the end of autumn, this post aims to summon light and so it is all about reminiscing summer. Considering that we are in November and days are extremely short in the Northern hemisphere, it is therapeutic to look back at the long gone sunny days and remember that the sun will shine again, even if in a distant future. In Finland, November is called “marraskuu”, being the darkest month, it has a particular word etymology: marras ( an archaic word for “death”) +‎ kuu (“month”); all together ‘marraskuu’ indicates that the land “dies” in November. Surely at the moment days are gloomy and by now deciduous trees have shed most of their leaves. As I write this post, in Helsinki the sunrise is at 8:34am and sunset at 15:36, so you can imagine there is little light and I have had to let go of my morning walks, replacing them for walks after lunch: although not every day, because I’ve been avoiding to go out when it’s grim and cold outside.

Anyway enough about darkness! let’s look back at summer time in Helsinki, when we had plenty of light and lots of opportunities for adventures outdoors. This summer was quite odd due to the pandemic. I did meet friends and had my fare share of picnics and walks together, but still had a surprisingly large amount of time by myself, more so than in any previous summer. With so much time in my hands, I decided to participate in a reading marathon which had several challenges, one of them being to read a book completely outdoors. ‘The summer book’ by Tove Jansson seemed like an obvious choice! Tove is mostly famous for her Moomin character books, but this does not talk about them. Instead, ‘The summer book’ tells the story of a grandma and her granddaughter living in an island over one summer. It is funny, charming and a window to a child’s innocent wanderings.

I succeeded in reading the whole book outdoors, sometimes in my garden, others next to the sea side and my favorite: a mossy comfy spot in the forest!

Midsummer day – Juhannuspäivä

Midsummer day or “Juhannuspäivä” as the Finns call it, it’s the day before the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. In a normal year midsummer weekend is time to spend the weekend with friends and family and enjoy the outdoors. This year there wasn’t much going on…I had a picnic with friends on midsummer eve and then on midsummer day I took a late night walk to see the midnight sun.

Chasing sunsets

Once you’ve seen the sun at night and the wonders of a colorful clear night, you can get enough of it. Thus during the rest of June and July I took several late night walks to take in the most of the stunning views. All the pictures in the slideshow below were taken after 22:40.

Summer sights

Besides the stunning views of the clear summer nights, there were plenty of other sights that kept my heart warm and draw me closer to nature:

Annalan Huvila

Annalan Huvila is an old manor house in the Arabia neighborhood of Helsinki. The old wooden building always caught my attention while passing by on a bus, but I never visited it until now. A positive side effect from the pandemic, one could say, is that I finally visited it, as I tried to expand my horizons and find new places to go without using public transport.

The main building has an impressive front garden full of ornamental flowers that invite you to go upstairs. Once up if you explore behind the manor, there is a varied range of themed gardens! there is the tea garden, the garden of dyeing plants, a garden of medicinal herbs, just to mention a few, and there are also allotment gardens. In the manor house there is also a coffee shop, so all in all it’s great place to visit.

Bonus points for…

Chasing midsummer sunsets: 4/5 Always a surprise in the sky, if it weren’t for mosquitoes it would be a 5.

The summer book: 3.5/5 A heartwarming and funny summer read

Reading outdoors: 4/5 if you love reading, take it to the next level and find your favorite reading spot outdoors

The Helsinki mobile library: 5/5 what a privilege, the library comes to you! 🙂

Annalan Huvila: 4/5 if you like plants, this is a place for you!