People > Aune

My grandmother (my mothers mother) Aune is the person who told me how to walk; and I don't mean my first steps, but how to really enjoy walking. Almost where ever we went, we did it on foot. She always had plenty of time. No hurry, no worries, and we could stop as many times as needed if I wanted to pick up a stone or examine a plant on our way.

She is also the person who told me how to think. She never had any ready made answers: "Find it out", she said, or "Try if it works" - and I always found my answers and always got tried out my projects - and learned how the thing works.

Some of my earliest memories from my childhood are from the time when my grandmother was working at the public library. All those books made an impression on me, and I'm sure that my passion to books and reading has very much to do with those moments at the library with her.

I spent many summerdays in my grandmother summer cottage near Parola, a few hundred kilometers north from Helsinki. It was a place surrounded by lakes and forest - and without any modern things: no electricity, no phone, no running water.

At some point my grandmother sold her summer cottage and bought in stead a little house in Spain, near by Torremolinos. I think she just got tired of those long cold winter months in Finland and wanted to be somewhere warmer. She began to spend all her winters in Spain - and we other used it in summer time. It was quite nice to have a "sommer cottage" in Spain :-)

Unfortunately I only have very few pictures of that house, and as the house is now sold there is only memories left.

My Grandmother comes originally from the eastern Finland, the area called Savo near be the Russian border, but she have lived most of her life in the capital area around Helsinki. She lives now in the City of Helsinki.