Parklife (or a summer’s evening barbeque)

The tune of the day is really easy: one of my favourite ‘Brit-pop’ bands Blur with Parklife. I toyed with Country Life also. Since today was more about doing stuff in the great outdoors, Country Life is here as a bonus!

Because I’m certain that our lives are about to get very complicated and busy, I suggested to The Engineer yesterday that we head out for a barbeque dinner today. Originally the plan was to take the boat to one island in the west, where we can anchor, sit on the rocks  and grill in the late afternoon sun.

Unfortunately the weather was against us. Instead we headed inland:

A parking spot in the forest.

We gathered our belongings and headed down the path.

The path is dry here!

The path started out dry, and rapidly degenerated into a muddy quagmire. Luckily there were boardwalks along the way to keep our shoes dry. Except where the mud was so deep that the boardwalks had sunk.

Shoe saving boardwalk.

Eventually our destination appeared through the trees. The mosquitoes stopped nibbling just as we reached the shore.

Our destination!

Storträsk is a small lake to the east of Helsinki, very popular with fishermen and walkers alike. A water snake slipped into the lake just as we arrived, and the frogs were everywhere. There were so many we were afraid of causing them mortal harm.

One of the many frogs crossing the boardwalk.

Our family nickname for this place is Frog Lake. Late summer is great for spotting big fat frogs. It also goes a long way to explain why we usually see at least one or two snakes on every trip in summer.

Close to our intended barbeque spot, the lake is shaded and so the lilies grow abundantly.

Lilies in the lake.

While the barbeque heated up, I enjoyed a cool beer …

My favourite summer beer.

… and prepared the mushrooms.

Mushrooms ready to go!

After the mushrooms we enjoyed grilled corn cobs and juicy steaks. No pictures as I was too busy eating. Instead here is the barbeque doing its thing:

What’s cooking?

While we were eating we could hear some fishermen on the other side of the lake getting very excited. One fish went into the net, although later it would have been released (the lake operates as a catch and release fishing spot). A few cyclists came through, and stopped to catch their breath on the bench next to us.

At the end the rubbish went to the bin, and we hit the path back. The mosquitoes were just as hungry on the way out…