Day 9,

breakfast bright and early,

a little of everything, the efforts of yesterday had certainly made me hungry,

it seems like you just stand there, but you have to use your body to lean the sleigh in the turn that you want to make,

today we are going cross country skiing,

ready set,

so skies on, and off we went,

I have to admit I found going up and down over the hills a bit too much, it is one of those things that if you had skied before it would have been easy, but never having skied I was hopeless at making much progress,

so back to the cabin for a hot chocolate,

watching the never ending snow fall,

then in the distance a bit of noise,

a snow plough appeared,

removing the snow and piling it up,

then it was our roads turn to be cleared,

we then decided to take a walk,

before lunch,

'Cheers!',

next out on to the lake,

stopping off at a swing,

which was a bit frozen, 

 the bar-b-q pit on the side of the lake,

and with all of this snow around,

we just had to make a snowman, well somebody else did, we just posed,

in the evening,

off to the ice cave,

it had warmed up a bit, now just minus 10° centigrade,

there is a main tunnel,

with rooms leading off of it,

with ice sculptures,

carved into the walls,

now that is a big fish!

and of course an ice bar,

in this room an angel,

in this one an owl,

back to the bar,

a medicinal vodka,

and a soft drink for Diana,

we then moved to another one of the circular buildings,

for our evening meal,

a mixture of soup,

meats,

and salad,

first the soup,

and nice it was too,

then grabbing a cornflour pancake,

it was grab salad and meat,

to make your own roll,

'Cheers!',

it was easier to use fingers rather than a knife,

sans the pancake,

we then went out aurora hunting,

but after a couple of hours the sky never cleared, so a stop was made at a shop,

whilst everyone was shopping,

it gave me a chance to try out the double camera set up, one a normal camera, the other converted to infrared,

meanwhile inside the shop,

there were all manner of goods on offer,

I am not sure if a stuffed white pigeon would make our home complete,

the shop was amazing,

there was so many things to look at,

and of course out here everyone carries a knife,

lots of utensils made of wood,

and some scary looking dolls,

amongst others,

reminders of Finland,

dream-catchers or lights I am not sure which,

Diana called back outside to see how I was doing,

as it happened all was well except my hands were frozen,

so I went inside to warm them,

it was a shame we did not see the lights, but it has been snowing since we arrived in Finland, total unbroken cloud, still better luck in the days or I should say nights ahead, the coach dropped us off at our resort and with that we were off to bed.