We brought a pair of dumbbells with us to Estonia so that Ingrid could get some workouts in. And since I was just sitting doing nothing in particular, and the dumbbells were also doing nothing in particular during the pauses between Ingrid’s sets, I joined her and did the same upper-body workout.

Spent the day at my father’s country house.

My father’s body is wearing out (due to a combination of age and childhood diseases) and his wife is shouldering all of the physical work around the house and the yard, so we made ourselves useful and moved a stack of firewood. Doable alone, but much faster with three or four people.

Once that was done, the next two-person job was to climb up into a tree to cut up a branch that had fallen there due to winter snows and gotten stuck. Ingrid did the climbing, I did the ladder-supporting.

The next generation: me and my Estonian friends’ children. (After spending an hour in an escape room, named “The curse of the pharaoh”, which they failed at escaping but succeeded in having fun together.)

Picnic with friends at Pangodi lake. The weather forecast promised more sun and heat than we actually got, which led to less bathing than expected, but also a less sweaty picnic.

The were signposts for a short walking path starting right where we were. It turned out to be just about passable, lined with mostly nettles (but also wild raspberries) and mosquitoes, so when the signage disappeared and we lost our way, we weren’t too disappointed to return to the parking lot.

A lousy night’s sleep on the ferry (my brother snoring, Adrian talking in his sleep, my brother waking up at 5, Adrian waking up at 7, etc etc) and then a few hours of driving. Now we are in Tartu (in my father’s apartment) and we are tired. Vegging out in the sofa, but at some point we will need to get up and at least get groceries.

On the ferry from Stockholm to Tallinn. I liked the DFDS experience last year, but Ingrid especially missed the buffet dinner, so we’re back on Tallink this year again.

The dinner is nice but the waiting before and after is boring as heck. There’s activities for the youngest kids, and adults can hang out in a bar if they like, but there is nothing at all for either teenagers or adult non-drinkers. How about a nice lounge with armchairs and music? A movie theatre?

Today we head back home to Sweden, but we squeezed in another half-day in the countryside with my father and his wife.

Last year’s canoe trip on Ahja river was a hit so we did it again, but slightly differently. One canoe rental place has invented/introduced canoe rafts – three canoes attached to each other, with a wooden platform on top. It handles like a raft, sturdy, no wobbles. A bit less nimble but still decently steerable.

The big bonuses are that it’s much more social than a bunch of individual canoes – and it is very child- and dog-friendly.

There was eleven of us, and we ended up with one raft of adults and one of kids, with one dog each.

The dogs had to be split up and weren’t entirely happy about it. But two large, playful dogs on a raft getting the zoomies or starting to tussle with each other would have been too chaotic. They longed for each other, though, or perhaps they just wanted their herd to be all in one place.

We were on the same lake and river as last year, but only did half the distance, and in the other direction (upriver). Not that it felt like the direction made much of a difference – mostly we paddled along a lake with no noticeable flow.

At around the halfway point we steered our rafts into a little bay, tied them to each other, and had a lovely picnic. The rafts made it very easy. Dogs and paddles and kids and food everywhere.

The lake turned into a river for the last kilometre or so, and the paddling was more challenging now, with logs, submerged broken branches, sand banks and other obstacles.

I got fewer photos this year since the rafts didn’t exactly allow any darting around to the side to get new angles on things. And with four of us paddling, I couldn’t just stop my part whenever I felt like it, or we’d end up going in circles. Ingrid helped out and took over the camera for a while, too.

Ingrid’s most favourite burger ever, that she’s been looking forward to for a year. The sweet potato burger at Veg Machine at Aparaaditehas.

The kids and I spent the day in the countryside with my father and his wife. Walked and talked and made sushi.

My father is struggling with a bad back so he couldn’t join us for any of the activities any longer, so here’s us walking with my brother instead. I swear I definitely didn’t line them up this time, it just happened!

This year there’s peas growing in several of the fields closest to their house, which makes for good snacking.