An emotional week in Pargas

This time around, I went to Finland with a heavy heart, since my dear mother passed away a couple of weeks ago. So the occasion wasn't exactly great... But anyway, as you've probably noticed if you read this blog regularly, I've deliberately kept a pretty light tone, so I'll try to stick to that now as well - so I shall let's say limit the emotional aspects associated with my trip...

Anyway, what's most important is to be together with my family, so even if I was sad to separate from Mathilde (if only for a few days!), I was happy to rejoin my family back home! It also made it a lot easier to process these difficult times...



So anyway, my stay started with a few very nice days spent at that wonderful place, Rågård. On Saturday, we all met up for some proper quality time together, enjoying the Finnish summer at its best (strawberries, the long days of sunlight, the swimming and the peace and quiet of it all). 

Jani came along with his family as well, with lovely little Unda. Great to catch up with him as well.

 My dad had some projects going, as always, which I was happy to help with (it's nice to do some "real work" from time to time, when your daily work consists mostly of hacking away at a keyboard). The project was to put the finishing to Janne's and Katja's little cabin. Perfect therapy - and my handiwork even got dad's stamp of approval!

The rest of the time we spent well, chilling away, watching football, enjoying the sauna and so forth. We were also invited to Essi's birthday party in Wepo (where I met up with Johan and Maria and their kids for the first time since god knows when...). Berit also invited us over to lunch at her place, which was nice. (maybe all these people thought we'd starve to death if left to our own devices...?)

On Wednesday I headed to Helsinki, since Mathilde was arriving in the evening. Before picking up Mathilde at the airport, I headed off to Janne's and Katja's place for a bit of boardgamin'. We had a go at a real classic - Through the Ages - a real marathon of a game (3 hours for the simple version of the game). I came through as the winner! After that, 'twas time to head off to the airport to pick up Mathilde.

We didn't have time to much enjoy Helsinki, as we were driving back to Parainen the next day with Janne and Katja. We joined the rest of the Turtiainen clan for dinner at Kamu, a new restaurant in central Parainen. Hmm, nothing much to write home about I must say, the food was decidedly average. But nice to catch up with everybody and enjoy the evening sunshine on the terrace!

The next day was when we laid my mum to rest at the Pargas church. It was a hard and long day, but at least the event brought some manner of closure to everybody, hopefully. And at least I very much appreciated the number of people present, who were genuinely saddened by our mum's passing away...