of cakes and castleyards

I had white chocolate cake the other day, in a castleyard that was silent and hot with sunlight. You could say that I drove four hundred miles just to have cake in this castleyard. I had a sudden craving for something sweet and the Middle Ages.

Turku Castle

Where I am from, there is history too. Things like million-year-old meteor craters and Neanderthal caves - but they look just like enormous fields and any old caves. People lived here a thousand years ago and more, but they left no castles behind, just a few mysterious stone labyrinths and the fields they plowed.

When I went to university in a city far, far away, many years ago, I discovered what it was like to walk down the same cobblestoned streets used by monks seven hundred years ago and explore a castle where a king threw his brother in the dungeons. And staying up late, labouring over my books, seemed easier when I knew students around here had done the same for centuries.

After graduation and some exploration of the world and even more ancient history, I eventually returned to my homeland of silent forests, birdsong and diligently plowed fields. I love the pure air, the flowers, the small boats in the archipelago, the earthiness of the people. But I miss the visible history and the atmosphere it brings. That's why I took the car and drove hundreds of miles to the castleyard.

I ate my cake and breathed deeply, and felt better.