Walking on the frozen sea at Espoonlahti is something I enjoy. I has got something to do with the vast expanse of snow, and the equally vast sky that is blindingly blue.
The other thing that makes it so good is the air. It is better than a meal, or at least when you have done a five kilometer walk and breathed all that fresh air a meal tastes so much better.
What do you see when you are out walking on the sea? Well lots of other people doing the same thing. Families out for walks, kids being pulled behind on a sledge. Old couples walking slowly over the ice, Young couples skiing fast in the skating style, middle aged couples skiing in the traditional nordic style. And then the ice is pock-marked with 15 cm holes where the ice fishers have been.
My own plan is to walk quite near the shoreline and look for a hot spot. This is a place that is sheltered from the wind, and for some magical reason is miraculously warmer than out on the open sea.
The hot spot always seems to have a huge granite stone you can lean on, or an upturned boat with a black pitch bottom that absorbs the suns rays. It is a pleasure to sit in a hot spot and watch the movement of people out on the ice. They often look like matchstick people from a L.S. Lowry painting. A hot spot is at its best when someone fires up a sauna on the shoreline and the blue smoke smell of resinous spruce permeates the air.
The sun makes young people move fast, and it makes old people sit down.
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