Day 5- Thursday 12th July

Olivia at the front this morning.
It's been sunny and warm today, with the temperature reaching 25C this afternoon and therefore there has been lots of time spent in and around the water.

This morning Sandy was upset because his birthday present that he wanted in March, a waterproof digital camera for filming underwater here, began to steam up- suggesting it was taking in water. I asked him about it and he admitted he had dropped it on stones close to the jetty. After trying to dry it out, we went in to Parikkala to see if any shops here had a similar item. Luckily, one did, so I bought him it and it (an Olympus) appears to be a much better camera than the Kodak it replaced, and also at a price significantly less than I would have paid in the UK. The shop lady also knocked 20 euros off the price of it after I pulled a face after asking and being told the price- I had already seen the price and was quite happy with it :-)) Anyway, he has spent the day reading up about it and testing it thoroughly- and Olivia has inherited his old one, so everyone's happy!

With the Russian contingent!

This afternoon I nipped back into town to have my haircut- and I am also much happier after my first Finnish trim!

And to this evening and the usual round of saunas and leaps into the very warm lake- we all enjoyed this very much. Apparently tomorrow the weather suggests it might rain, but we will wait and see. I think it's been significantly better than Scotland's weather, even if it rains tomorrow.

On the jetty this evening