30 YEARS AGO

covid -19 cases

Finland: 125 Uusimaa region: 80 Helsinki: 47

Summer is at its most beautiful and at its brightest in Finland. We have had a Midsummer celebration going on yesterday and today. Many are at their summer cottages or with relatives having sauna, grilling, swimming, and enjoying the summer…

but the corona situation still does not ease. Today I panicked again for a moment after reading the new corona statistics because they were pretty high again. Apparently, infections from those returning from Russia to the European Football Championships are now starting to show up in the statistics. It was known that these football tourists will bring the virus here from Russia, where the situation is very bad. However, I hoped that this would not affect very much as vaccinations are progressing (more than half of population vaccinated once).

In addition, the heat here in the north should help. Usually viruses do not live here in the summer, in warm weather. I have been wondering if this could be due to the intense UV radiation from the sun in the north which destroys viruses … but these new virus variants apparently are even more resistant to UV radiation.

The forrest near our home where we were walking yesterday.

SUMMER 1991

Now we forget for a moment this virus situation and go back a bit in time … or actually a little more. For today my purpose was to show you excerpts from my life 30 years ago when I was 11 years old.

So let’s go back in time to summer 1991 … and Midsummer of the same year which I spent at the summer cottage with my family. There always had a lot of program and I also had two good friends there: Sini and Sanna-Kaisa. I played with Sini’s brother Janne too and with Sini’s cousin: Risto.

Life was very different at the time. There was no internet, and no social media. However, writing was already close to my heart although I was no master writer at the time. In the early 90’s it was written mainly in the diary and to pen pals. (I also writed poems and stories to the desk drawer). These texts in todays post are straight from my first diary.

(* marked words or names are explained below)

Thursday 20.6.1991

We went to the summer cottage and there was no traffic jam. *Eila visited us.

Friday 21.6.1991

We went to the traditional Midsummers *Bridge dances. We danced and grilled sausages. We bought many lotteries as well but we didn’t win. Eila, Jussi, Janne, *Anja and Keijo visited us.

Saturday 22.6.1991

Eila’s family visited us. I played with Janne on a ”ghost train”. We pushed each other alternately in strollers and was pushed from some terrible point or not really pushed on (but so close for example the dike) that it feels like falling. That becomes a terrible and wonderful feeling at the same time. Then we gatherer dropped from the stroller. Anja and Keijo visited us and then later *Veikko visited us when I was gonna go to sauna to *Terttu with my mom. After the sauna Terttu came to visit. Then Sanna-Kaisa and Pälvi came to visit and then Eila’s family came again.

Sunday 23.6.1991

Many guests visited us.

Monday 24.6.1991

Many guests visited.

Tuesday 25.6.1991

Sini had been at the wedding party in Helsinki, Pasila and stayed in Helsinki for several days. She was supposed to come back on wednesday or friday but she came already today. I was very surprised. This is where it all started again. I went to her *grandmother. We played school, broomstick, hide and seek and ”Nurkkakurttu”. At our cottage we jumped the skipping rope and twist and plyed with Barbie-dolls. We went to Sini’s grandmother again to eat and then we played ”Penkkipersis” and broomstick, played with Polly Pocket and wrote on each other’s backs and hands and played ”viivahippaa” (line tag) and ”Saarta” (island).

Wednesday 26.6.1991

Sini came to our cottage at 9.40 am. We went to her grandmother and to sauna to my grandpa. Then we went to swimming to ”Koipijärvi” and again to sauna to Sini’s grandma.

Thursday 27.6.1991

I went to swimming with Eila, Risto and Sini and we also ate packed lunch.

Friday 28.6.1991

I went to swimming.

Saturday 29.6.1991

Sini had bought a lovely dog plush toy. It was gray and it had a blue dress and yellow bone. I also bought one. There was only one left. It was yellow. I liked the blue one more but the yellow one was also pretty so I bought it. Risto bought one dog plush toy too but it was different not so cute. We got the toys at a discount. Risto’s dogs original price was about 70mk now it was less, don’t know how much. Mine and Sini’s dogs original price was 85mk and now the price was 59mk and 50 pennys. We went to Sini’s grandma to play with those.

Sunday 30.6.1991

Nothing special.

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*Eila -Sini’s and Janne’s mom.

*Bridge dance: dance on the old bridge in our summer cottage village where used to have traditional Midsummer dances. In Finland it is traditionally organized that kind of dances in the summer but the speciality in this bridge dance was that it was held on the bridge on the flow. It’s very beautiful place. The name of the place is: ”The Flows bridge as Virran silta”.

*Anja and Keijo was our familyfriends and Anja was like second grandma to me. (My real second grandma I’ve never seen, cause she died when she gave birth to my dad.)

*Veikko and Terttu -our summer neighbors by then. (Veikko passed away at 90’s.)

*Sni’s grandmother lived almost next door to our cottage. Sini often stayed (part of the time) at Grandma’s when our family was at the cottage.

There were a few excerpts from my diary, June 1991.

The world of an 11-year-old girl, so simple… and that is why it’s so beautiful…

Tell me if you want me to continue this text and I will.

Hopefully your midsummer was nice!

~Three years ago~ *FINLAND GYMNAESTRADA JUNE 2018*

Covid -19 cases today

Finland: 73 Uusimaa region: 49 Helsinki: 21

In recent days there has again been a slight increase in covid cases (atleast here in the Uusimaa region). It’s a little worrying. However, more than half of Finns have already received the first vaccine and about 13% have received their second vaccine. I would have expected (or hoped) cases to remain very low. On the other hand, the cases have apparently been raised by cases from Russia where football European Championship-competitions are currently underway. Many canceled their trips, but surely many have also left to follow the competitions despite the very bad virus situation in Russia.

Finland is also participating in the competitions for the first time in history. We won our first match against Denmark 1-0 certainly only because an important Danish player: christian eriksen had a heart attack during the match and the Danish game got mixed up. Eriksen’s heart surgery was successful but his career is sadly over now.

FINLAND GYMNAESTRADA

A sporting event is also my actual topic today. It’s not related to football but to the Finland Gymnaestrada held three years ago in Turku, whereby the corona was not yet known and we gymnasts could enjoy each other’s company without fear. So, I participated in the event with my team. These moments are nice to remember in these difficult times, even if it is wistful.

I remember a hard workout during that few-day event. There was little free time. I remember how tired I was, (I slept poorly in a hotel as usual in foreign places) but I was still happy. I remember good conversations with my roommate and a visit with her to the Turku Historic Cathedral. I remember how my already deceased father called me every day and asked me to visit him. Although in every call I said that I was on a gymnastic trip in Turku, (and so my parents lived in Helsinki just like me), because of Alzheimer’s he just didn’t remember it. Also I remember a good team spirit and sunburn in black, sweatable outfits. Especially the actual show day was so hot that I was close to fainting on the field, waiting for our turn to performance. The wait was really long and I didn’t have any money or debit card with me. I had left those with my other stuff but luckily one wonderful co-performer was so fair that she bought me water from the kiosk next door that I would not faint before performing. The performance went well in the end. I miss these moments most from gymnastics now that I haven’t gotten to practice for a while.

”Elämän voima” (the power of life). This is the court show where I participated.

Here’s links to my original posts of this topic:

TURKU SG 2018-THURSDAY-FRIDAY

TURKU SG 2018 *SATURDAY-SUNDAY*

TURKU PHOTOS

Have a nice weekend!

I GOT MY VACCINATION

https://lyricstranslate.com/en/valot-pimeyksien-reunoilla-lights-verges-darkness.html

https://lyricstranslate.com/en/vapaa-free.html

Finally I will be free! On monday morning me and my spouce got our first vaccinations. I’m so happy of that!

Soon I can start living a more normal life again without constant fear which was already almost destroying me. Of course I can’t fully relax yet but I am much closer to that moment. Anyway, the situation here in Finland has made it easier with the summer and vaccinations. Today, there were only 6 new cases in Helsinki. I don’t remember when was the last time virus counts were equally small.

Monday’s vaccination day was exciting. We had been afraid all the time that there would be a lot of people in the place and that someone there would infect corona to us. We arrived on the ride of our friend. There was some queue on the outside and even more people inside. The vaccination itself in a small booth was rapid but after that each was directed to wait 15 minutes if you happen to get an allergic reaction. I thought my spouse is in the same hall where I was following the others but he was not visible. Someone in the hall coughed loudly all the time, even though if you have flu symptoms you should not even be vaccinated. Luckily I soon saw my spouse passing by in the hallway, outside the hall I was sitting. I ran after him and fortunately got out of the hall where the coughing woman was. There had been someone next to my spouse too who was constantly coughing and my spouse changed place. I heard the coughing voice still in the hallway where we were but there was a screen in between. Well maybe they had allergies or tobacco cough, don’t know about it…

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Photos on our yard. It’s so beautiful in summer!

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After a while we began to feel a little bit weak. For a moment we feared it was a vaccine, that we had an allergic reaction but it went away as soon as it came. Probably it was only due to the heat cause the day was really hot. About a quarter later we set off for a walk home. The distance was almost four km (over 2mi). We would have taken the city bikes from a nearby bike station but for some reason we didn’t get the bikes to work. The bike screens stayed off mode and the push buttons required for the code did not work. So we walked all the way home (because we don’t want to use the public transport). At least we got a decent walk. The weather was good too, so it was quite nice to walk although the heat was a little exhausting.

At home, I noticed muscle pain in my left hand (vaccination hand). The pain was similar as after training but the next morning that pain was almost gone. Neither has had any other symptoms. Well, on Monday night, my head ached, but it was surely due to the thunder that started then. Thunder is usually caused by headaches, or maybe I just drink too little…

I can hardly wait for the second vaccine in August although, on the other hand, it is exciting because I have heard that the second Pfizer vaccine can cause worse symptoms than the first. Well, let’s see…

Now I try to start enjoying summer more. I hope you all can enjoy it too, wherever you are!