My Diary 22nd September by Valerie Kalves

7.30 a.m. Awakened by mobile phone alarm as usual (otherwise I’d sleep much longer) and put on the kettle for our morning pot of tea with the precious York tea brought back from UK. We both take our mugs of tea (with later refills) to our laptops and spend an hour or so catching up, at least trying to! A very rainy, grey morning. 

8.30ish. Time to prepare our regular breakfast; banana, apple, Brazil nut and blueberry salad with yoghurt and Accai powder sprinkled over it. First coffee of the day. A few Scrabble moves on the computer before getting ready to go into Tampere, 30 kilometres away.

10.00 a.m. Leave for town taking lunch (homemade Finnish cabbage and mincemeat casserole) with us. We haven’t actually ‘lived’ in the house in town since April so the fridge is rather bare. Many Finns migrate to the countryside whenever weather/work permits in the spring and often move back for when schools start. But hooray! we’re RETIRED teachers so can please ourselves when we return to ‘civilisation’.

Arriving in Tampere, Yrjö does some important shopping while I water all the house-plants, collect the post that has accumulated over 4 days and lay out our dark clothes ready for the funeral of a friend of ours.

Once again, I’ve been sent a packet containing cod-liver oil capsules despite having phoned and cancelled my membership. These sellers are like leeches! Re-addressed package to be returned.

Midday and the sun starts shining. Lunch, change and leave for the church. On the way, we realize that we’re a little too early and while away the time watching a dog show taking place in a car-park by the ice-stadium.

Our friend was brought up bi-lingually, so the funeral service was in Finnish and Swedish. The hymns were sung in Finnish. One of Markus’s daughters is married to an Englishman and lives in Essex and had come over for the few days. It was nice to meet her family and speak to the children in English at the reception, which was a very unusual one compared to normal Finnish funerals where there is often a very formal atmosphere. This was a very Markus-like reception for an unusual man; an artist, composer, musician, actor, chemist and friend to all. He was also the chairman of the art society. 3 different groups of musicians performed while we were having a buffet meal. The first soloist accompanied himself on the piano singing jazzed up songs. The first group (piano, guitar, bass and violin) in which Markus had normally been on the piano, played some of his compositions. The first piece was so moving. Markus had once mentioned to his friends that this was one that they could play at his funeral, not realizing it would be so soon. It was so beautiful and poignant.

Other groups played Markus’s favorite music and then one blind lady stood up and told us how she’d met Markus; in the café of the indoor food market. He’d befriended her and they’d often have a coffee together when he tapped her shoulder and said hello. She made us laugh describing Markus’s spontaneous personality – one day he’d asked her to accompany him as he was off to buy a second-hand piano. She agreed and had fun. When she started to play her guitar and beautifully sing, a tribute to her late friend, we realized just how talented she was.

Many folks stood and spoke warmly of Markus. One person read out a long poem of Markus’s life that she’d written specially.

We drove back to the country via our townhouse feeling happy that Markus had had such a good send-off. He would have loved the music and seeing his friends enjoying it.

Back home and feeling invigorated, I did a load of washing and hung it out in the evening sun. So seldom the sun shines nowadays so had to make the most of it.

After a few hours of reading the newspaper we’d collected from the postbox that morning and enjoying a drink or two, I wrapped up a birthday present for grandson, Konsta. We were going to his eighth-birthday party the following day. Life goes on.

TV news and then bed

A different sort of Saturday!