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Showing posts from June, 2010

Smoking in Finland

I have come to the conclusion that Finns have a great affinity with smoke.  I suppose it must be to do with the vast amount of wood that there is in the country with over two thirds of the land covered by forests. They are beautiful forests too with a mixture of various pines, larches and the ubiquitous silver birch.  Along with the forests and scattered liberally across the landscape, are more than 100,000 lakes. The land is not high but is undulating, sloping to the southwest where the lakes become inlets of the Baltic sea and the forest covered hills become peninsulas and islands that drift into the Gulf of Bothnia. The archipelago around Turku is made up of hundreds and hundreds of rocky islets each with a summer cottage. We have been privileged to stay at Soili and Matti's summer cottage in the hinterland on one of the many lakes and in a few weeks we will have a couple of nights in a summer cottage in the islands off Turku.  Along with this is the wonderful Finnish hospital