Natural Products

In a pleasing echo of my #leithwalkshops series, here's a Helsinki shop on my walk to work. You'll be disappointed to hear that ALE is not what it seems, but rather one of the Finnish words for sale. Another one is tarjous. Not sure what the difference is.

I've long planned to blip this shop, as I really rather fancy the products that are on sale. I thought when I first arrived here that down would be too warm for me, but having procured a (much cheaper than these) down gilet since the beginning of the year I can state without fear of contradiction that it does the job just fine. That's just one of the natural products I've benefited from, along with my sheepskin gloves, my cashmere scarf, my merino wool and silk vest, and my double thickness wool and fleece hat, all essential wears on cold days, along with quite a number of fleecy and thermally products which are man made. Oh, and the gortex linings on my shoes which mean that I haven't had wet feet once, no matter how much snow, ice and slush I have tramped through.

Actually, today was not too cold at all - around freezing point. Hopefully a harbinger of things to come. I'm off to the sunny* climes of Belgium tomorrow, so I'll enjoy the unaccustomed sight of a snow free pavement for a few days. And thereafter to the even sunnier climes of Scotland.** I doubt it will get as cold in March as it has been in February and January, so fingers are crossed that we are over the worst.

* joke
** hopefully not a joke - it was nice weather when I was there two weeks ago, but who knows?