On many occasions, when the newest generation of Hayshoes were still small, I would bundle up Hugo and Sofia into the family car and drive the short journey to Grandma Elisabet's home (see post Grandma Elisabet And The Hayshoes). Once there we would all spend a few quality hours together. Grandma Elisabet lived in Central Helsinki and within walking distance of the elegant Stockmann department store, the Finnish equivalent of Selfridges, and if you stood on the balcony on tip-toes and looked left, you could see the roof-top of the chic red-brick building in the nearby distance. Back in those days, the value of this central location was something I neither appreciated nor understood. Rather it frustrated me that finding a parking place in the centre of town for our enormous and unwieldy family car, a Toyota Land Cruiser, was such an ordeal.
Please do not misunderstand me, as with my children I have loved all my cars equally and this vehicle was no exception. Each one has formed an intrinsic part of our family life, and their names will always remain embedded within me even though we have long ago parted ways. I still remember with fondness from my England childhood, the first car that Papa owned, a small Hillmann Imp named EUD-244C. (see post Watching The English Part I And II). So, please allow me at this stage to introduce you to our current and much valued family member, BJS-355, otherwise known as The Tank.
Now The Tank, or robust all-terrain four-wheel drive Toyota Land Cruiser to which BJS-355 belongs, is the car of choice for the United Nations on its many demanding humanitarian missions across the globe and rightly so; trekking across thousands of kilometres, it dexterously navigates along barely existent roads, until finally delivering its precious cargo of passengers and humanitarian assistance to often remote and inaccessible corners of the Planet. It was also an excellent choice of vehicle for Hugo and Sofia's Finnish Papa on his many lengthy journeys across the Finnish border and deep into Russian territory, for the Soviet Union had by now made way for the return of Mother Russia.
But my drive was neither penetrating into the Russian motherland, nor on a demanding humanitarian mission, rather this was a simple visit to a Great-grandmother's home on the other side of Helsinki. The greatest peril I could expect to meet on the road ahead of me on this fine summers evening, if I were to be that unfortunate, would perhaps be a slippery banana skin discarded onto the highway by some reckless inhabitant. But Finns never litter, for this fundamental cornerstone of respect for the environment is ingrained into them from birth and passed down from generation to generation along with the Mothers milk which they ingest, so this misfortune never befell me on my numerous traverses across town. Once we had uneventfully reached our destination, came the most hazardous part of the entire journey, the search for a place to park. And this is where the fun began with an exhausting game named ‘Parking'.
I always hoped for a space the size of a football field, but was usually rewarded with a narrow corridor making the parking a stressful and draw-out manoeuvre. 'Why can't I have a small car like everybody else? I would ask myself with exasperation on these occasions, 'just my luck to be lumbered with this Tank!' My parking skills, or lack of them to be more precise, never passed unnoticed by my passengers seated in the back. 'You're not very good, Mummy! ' would be seven-year-old Hugo's profound and somewhat correct summary, whilst three-year-old sister Sofia, seated next to her brother would momentarily interrupt her intense thumb-sucking to look up and pass her own valued opinion, 'Hurry up, Mummy, I want to go wee-wees'.
After countless futile attempts at squeezing into narrow road-side slots, I would eventually capitulate and park The Tank in a literal football field: The parking square of the nearby Market Hall, and from there we would walk the remainder of our journey to Grandma Elisabet’s home on the Kalevankatu street. As The Tank unloaded its precious cargo of three, Hugo and Sofia’s depleted Mama truly felt that she had indeed completed her own demanding United Nation humanitarian mission; for this Spanish-English Mama had fearlessly journeyed across Helsinki in her Japanese Tank and would soon deliver two young Spanish-Finnish-English children to their immensely grateful and aged housebound Great-grandmother. A Finnish Great-grandmother, with an ancient family name bestowed centuries earlier by a legendary Swedish King (see post GrandMa Elisabet And The Hayshoes). And all executed within a proximity of just one hundred and eighty kilometres from the imposing Russian border, for this is the distance separating Helsinki from its neighbour, the great Eastern Power.
Once we had eventually made it to the front door of her beautiful home, Hugo and Sofia would run straight into Grandma Elisabet's lounge to compete for the illustrious prize of who would be first to open a small Wedgwood jewelry box sitting delicately atop a beautiful Rococo coffee table. For this fine porcelain box, my first gift to Grandma Elisabet upon my arrival in Finland many years earlier, contained delectable treasures. Initially, within its interior lay a single square of chocolate for whenever Hugo happened to come by and visit his great-grandmother. After Sofia had joined our family, the number of chocolate squares were duly increased to two, and the box solemnly guarded its contents awaiting the arrival, unexpected or planned, of its two eager recipients. Hugo and Sofia were well aware of the bounty that lay within the delicate box atop that table, and their haste to uncover and consume knew no limits.
And whilst Hugo and Sofia each feasted upon their reward, I would listen with fascination to stories, some very sad, about Grandma Elisabet's childhood in a country that was still part of the Russian Empire, and where the Independent Republic of Finland of today was still but a faraway dream. But no-one lives for eternity, and eventually the time came to bid farewell also to Grandma Elisabet and to everything that went with it; farewell to the visits to her beautiful home, farewell to the captivating conversations encapsulating one hundred years of history, but most important of all, farewell to the dash from the front door to that Wedgewood box to consume those heavenly, melt-in-the-mouth squares of chocolate.
To be continued...
Next post 24th March : Wakes And Weddings
Note: All written content is the intellectual property of this Author. Image material is drawn largely from Pixabay with some small additions from private family archives.
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