This Kitchen

This kitchen, in the picture, is the place I have some of my happiest childhood memories. And they are because of the two other people in the photo, my aunt Salme and my cousin Sari.

Being brought up in the UK, other than my parents, I had no family around me as I grew up - so our yearly summer holidays in Lumijoki were the only time I got to spend with people I was related to. You can probably imagine that Lumijoki (a farming community of 2000 near Oulu), could not be more different from the centre of London where I lived the rest of the time.

But even though I was only in Lumijoki for the summer holidays, my strongest memories of growing up are not of being in London, but running around in the forest with my cousins. They used to laugh at my long white school socks, and I used to wonder why everyone wasn't wearing them. We didn't always understand everything the other was saying, but we got along nevertheless.

Sari and I used to compete in our own version of the Olympics, (including the long jump into the sandpit and various throwing events, usually involving pine cones). However, even though I was a sporty child, she still used to beat me in every single event.

As an only child, I always used to wish I could live in Salme's house with my five cousins. There was always something going on and people in every room. I would walk into the house early each morning and ask for Salme to cook pancakes, which she invariably did. They have never tasted as good anywhere else. This kitchen is also the place I tasted mushrooms for the first time, after Sari and I had picked them in the forest. We ate fresh honey which Salme had collected from her own bees in the garden. Things like that didn't happen in London, at least not in the block of flats where I lived. 

In most senses life is all about change. Nothing is permanent. Even things that we think are certain often turn out not to be after all. Experiences turn into memories, relationships end, even when we might not want them to - and people move on.

But in this case, thirty years on, I am lucky enough to still be able to visit one of my most treasured places in the world. That hasn't changed much at all. This kitchen of happy memories is still there, and for now at least, when I make my monthly trips to see my Mum in Lumijoki,  I can still visit it.

Talking to my Dad, before he died, reminded me that all we really have at the end is the memories we have collected during a lifetime. I guess the best we can do is to make as many good ones as we can. And this kitchen in Lumijoki will always be remembered as the setting for many of mine.