Blogging at 21:30 on Friday 16th August from intended overnighting spot N 61.61122°, E 24.00227° / http://maps.google.com/maps?q=loc:61.61122%2C24.00227
Last night's camp proved impressively quiet again, and - as we left and made our way down the forest track back towards the road - we were lucky enough to spot a whole family of willow grouse skulking both trackside and into the lush forest undergrowth.
Today's mainly been about heading towards Tampere where, in spite of us both being well and truly on the ropes, we still aspire to at least complete the parkrun. Completing a Finnish parkrun has unashamedly become a symbolic, refusing-to-be-defeated kind of thing.
Neither of us enjoyed a brilliant day health-wise, today. We're not particularly any worse, but nor are we anything even approaching 'better'. At least we're both now seemingly past the debilitating fever stages of whatever it is we've caught.
Mood hasn't been helped by the weather. For the first time in well over a fortnight we've had a day of driving that's included something other than massive blue skies and (often literally) constant sunshine. It's most assuredly been grey and wet. It still hasn't been cold, but it's definitely been miserable.
What, with the severe curtailments that less-than-full health brings to our style of travel, the grey and miserable weather, plus the very hollow prospect of just about maybe scraping a parkrun tick tomorrow, we desperately needed a sign from some-or-other supernatural power that our fortune might turn a corner.
Miraculously, our call was answered and the portent we'd coveted was indeed visited upon us. The pic shows it lurking in the undergrowth not a million miles from where we've chosen to overnight.
We really do need to pick a more accommodating deity.
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