Let me describe to you the simple pleasures of Finnish life. It’s an early autumn morning, there is a crispness in the air and a light drizzle but it is hardly noticeable. I arrive at the local Prisma supermarket store to collect some essentials to add to my already loaded car.

I enter the store in the gifts & home-ware section and can’t help but stop to admire the new range of Finlayson Moomin bed-sheets and towels. Reluctantly I continue to the other side of the huge store, to fill my basket with ready-made beetroot salad, small kotimaan (which means home land) potatoes, fresh dill, Huilun Tuhti (the best ever Finnish sausages / frankfurts), a six-pack of Karhu beer, some Juhla Mokka coffee (beer & coffee for visitors) and of course a Fazer blue chocolate block.

I have to say, going to a supermarket is never as much fun as when I visit Finland. It is like a treasure-chest full of the most magical things, for a Finnish child-migrant who lives overseas!

The journey continues and finally I reach the narrow gravel road in the woods that leads me to our cottage by a lake that is now calm and perfectly transparent apart from a few drops of water that hit the surface, here and there.

The tree colours are changing as autumn progresses and some fallen leaves can already be seen in the garden beds. The air smells of earthy aroma, like damp moss and wet tree trunks.

After emptying the car, it’s time to start heating the wood-heated sauna. The huge tall pine trees that surround our cottage whisper peace and solitude to my soul. I feel the stress leave my muscles as I relax with my cuppa on the veranda and put my feet up onto the railing.

Later I savour the sauna’s warm steam as it hugs me in its embrace. I feel my bare feet prickling as I step on a needle-covered path beside the lingonberry bushes on my way down to the lake. I dip myself into the cool blue water and feel totally invigorated.

When the evening comes, and the sky above me is filled with stars, I grill some Huilun Tuhti on the fire, while I listen to the fire crackling & popping and my sausage sizzling. The post-sauna feeling while sitting outdoors in front of an open fire is bliss defined!!