We went canoeing on Ahja river with our Estonian friends.

Vesipapp arranged the tour for us and were very helpful. We met them at Kiidjärve, where we got our canoes and oars and life jackets – and instructions.

Also plastic jugs for scooping out water from the canoes, but my boat mate and I soon had our division of labour down so well (left side of the boat for her, right side for me, and swapping halfway through the trip) that there was very rarely a need to switch oars from one side to the other. Our canoe barely got a tiny trickle of water at the bottom – nothing you could scoop up. But the teams with more… ehum… athletic paddling styles got rather wetter.

We started at Kiidjärve and had a bit of lazy paddling down the river to begin with. Then a long dammed lake, which was easier to navigate but required more paddling. At the end of the lake at Taevaskoja a representative from Vesipapp helped us carry the canoes over the dam and get them in the river again. From there on it was easy but exciting going: a gentle river, but with constant bends, underwater rocks, logs both under and over the water, low-hanging trees, etc. And beautiful views!

Note to future me: the 12 km trip from Kiidjärve to Porgandi, which was supposed to take 3 hours, took us 4, even though we only had a short break in the middle at the dam. The shorter, 9 km route to Otteni would probably have been enough.

Credit goes to Ingrid for the photos with me in them. It took some manoeuvring to hand over the camera from one canoe to another without risking dropping it!

Apparently Rally Estonia, part of the World Rally Championship, is happening in Tartu right now, and Ingrid wanted to see it. Adrian and I weren’t interested, so we went dog walking with a friend instead. Although we did watch some of the rally on TV, and it wasn’t entirely boring, but the half hour we saw was enough for me.

On the ferry to Tallinn. After two missed summers due to covid, we’re on our way to Estonia again! Eric stays at home for some peace and quiet, and to take care of Nysse.

Family fun: demolishing Adrian’s Lego constructions together, and sorting the pieces by colour to prepare for the next time. The Millennium Falcon is so monochrome that our sorting bins are “small light gray”, “large light gray”, “small dark gray”, “large dark gray”, “black” and “other”.

Ingrid did some mowing the other day to earn more money. Adrian also wants more cash, so he tried to do the same. But it was hard work. The grass is high, and most of our garden slopes.

Our off-and-on-traditional midsummer outing with the Lennakatten museum railway to Marielund.

The weather was hot and the inside of the train like an oven, despite the open windows. The carriage filled up later, but wasn’t as crowded as it’s sometimes been in the past. I think they may have added more carriages to the train.

The train ride took longer than scheduled for some reason, so by the time we arrived and had unpacked the picnic, we attacked the food like a horde of locusts. I barely managed to get a photo of the cake.

Adrian is rediscovering the joys of building Legos and bought himself a giant Millennium Falcon set.

Adrian and Eric are off to scout camp. (Ingrid gave up scouting about a year ago.)

A lot of building with Legos is about searching for the right piece. Especially the tiny, gray ones.