I got together with my SO (significant other) about six years ago. He's a tad younger than me *coughs13yearscoughs*. He went to university in Brighton, and while there shared a house with an English bloke and, by accident, a Finnish bird. These friends got together and are happily still together awaiting their second child. Aaaaanyway, in a bizarre twist of fate, Dom came away from uni with his friends wooden egg cup that he had made at school. I 'egged' him on (see what I did there?) to send it back and Dom got in contact with his old friends. They invited us to go and visit them 4 or 5 years ago and off we went.
We fell in love with Finland, although not immediately. We initially started in Helsinki, which I found rather drab and industrial. Building projects appeared to have been abandoned, there were lots of blocks of flats. At first glance it appeared to be another city. They showed us around and we gradually warmed to the beauty of Helsinki; the Russian Orthodox church, the older buildings of the city which were grand and splendid. And then they took us to their 'summer' cottage....
For me, that's when it clicked. When it felt like I had 'come home'. The houses we passed on our way to the cottage were beautiful, different colours bright against a lush green backdrop. There was no uniformity to the houses. All individual shapes, characters and sizes. And the most important thing of all, space. Just walking alone back to their place through the woods and seeing a woodpecker watching me, flitting from tree to tree, just out of reach. The quietness, the beauty and sense of tranquility struck me hard.
We had a great time, messing about on the lakes, sauna, great food and total relaxation. When we returned to England, I felt a loss that I couldn't explain. I got itchy feet. I wanted to move from the place we currently reside in. I hunted the internet, I saw a mortgage advisor and became depressed again. We were priced out of our own country. Don't get me wrong; the place where we live will 'do'. But we have no garden and most of the properties around us are rented out. I started to wonder and think more about Finland. Could we?
Obviously, with no grasp of the language and no particular skills to speak of, an outright move was out of the question. I asked our friend for property websites to look at and found out how much we could remortgage our property for to raise funds.
This was one of the most frustrating times. I found Finnish estate agents nowhere near as aggressive as our own. Every time I saw something I liked and contacted the agents, they took so long to reply, the property was sold. And that was if they bothered to get back to me at all. We lost so many opportunities and people were advising us to wait and look when we returned the following year.
I happened to pop home one lunchtime and was casually browsing through the property sites again and my heart leaped as I saw the pictures of what finally became ours. We were having to look further out from Southern Finland as we couldn't afford those prices. Instead of waiting or e-mailing, I telephoned the agent after sending a text to Dom telling him to get home quickly if he could. Luckily, the agent (who has since become a good friend) spoke excellent English and told us more about the property. As we couldn't get out there, he volunteered to go and take some more pictures to send us. Dom came home and I excitedly showed him the pictures. We agreed. We didn't want to lose it. It was not a cottage, but an old farmhouse. I telephoned the agent again and we put in an offer below the asking price. By the time I returned home, the agent had e-mailed me to tell me our offer had been accepted!
So, did I answer the question? We chose Finland because I feel, for me, it's the right place to be. I miss and think about it every day when we are in the UK and feel truly unsettled when we're not there. Maybe there's something deep in my heritage that links me to the country; I just don't know. All I can say is when we're there, I refer to is as 'home'.
In the next week or so, I'll write about the actual process of purchasing a property there.
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