Wednesday writing - my adventures in Finland

So, I know you’ve been wondering how my long weekend in Finland with fellow writer, Susan Laine, has gone!

In brief, we had a terrific time.

Susan and I have written a book together (The Last Werewolf due out on 12 October) http://www.evernightpublishing.com/jennifer-denys/) but we have done this entirely by email, having never spoken to one another before I arrived at the airport (wearing a t-shirt with a wolf on it naturally! I had to make sure she recognised me somehow…..)

One of her concerns beforehand had been whether we run out of things to say since it is vastly different spending several days with a person than it is to converse over email. She gave me a lovely compliment that I had made it easy for her to talk to me! (In truth I never shut up. Well, I am an enquiring person – I wanted to know all about her and her life and her country so was constantly asking lots of questions. Some people might regard that as being nosy, of course…..)

Susan was a lovely host (and I must give thanks too to her long suffering mum who gave up her home and her bed for me!). After experiencing a Finnish sauna on my first evening, Susan took me all over Helsinki (this is me under the ‘Maiden of Finland’ who will not have ‘maidenly’ thoughts if she reads any of my books!!).

The next day we walked around Nuuksio National Park (well, 4km of it although it felt like all of it) – very beautiful with millions of lakes. Unfortunately, it was raining and we were your typical tourist wearing totally inappropriate clothes but it was a great walk!

And on my last day we went to the second oldest city in Finland, Porvoo, which had a beautiful cathedral (their churches are NOTHING like anything in England!) and lots of craft shops. Susan had to remind me frequently that I had absolutely no space left in my bulging suitcase to buy anything else……. We finished our trip there with a meal at a lovely restaurant where I ate reindeer!

Thanks for having me stay, Susan. Hope to see you next year!

Jen