They said there might be snow in Southern Finland today (12th October !) - now doesn't that make you want to come and live here?! - and I suppose we can say they were just right.

I went namely to the shops in Tapiola and more specifically to Stockman where it was the third day of their semi-annual Yellow Days where they *theoretically* have specially low prices and the store is packed.

Even it seems on a Friday morning, although my wife tells me if was even fuller on the first day (Wednesday) at about 10. She wondered where all the people came from because the crowd wasn't composed of obvious pensioners but of people you'd expect to be at work or at school at that time.

These days I go once; buy a packet of biscuits that you maybe can't get during the rest of the year and that's about it. As I wrote above the prices are only theoretically cheaper. I saw a TV in their catalogue and went straight to the web site of a computer/video store to check it out and it was cheaper in that store by a couple of hundred.

Where was I? Oh yes, snow. We finally left the Yellow Days and headed across the small walking area outside in the direction of the second department store (during the Yellow Days at Stockmann, empty!) and then we noticed that the rain we had been walking under to get to the bus to get to Tapiola had now changed to snow. Very wet snow that wouldn't have stuck on the walking area's surface even if that hadn't got heating under it, but snow (of a sort) nonetheless.

It didn't last long there but a bit further away from the sea (and thus a bit colder) maybe it lasted a bit longer because there were a few reports on the radio of the inevitable minor traffic accidents.

Not a problem for me. The bus got us home again and on the same ticket too (valid up to 60 mins after getting in the first bus - or is it 75 mins, I can never remember).

P.S. The comments are about the fact that "Yellow Days" is wrong and the translation is in fact "Crazy Days" or "Mad Days". Yellow is the prominent colour with them packing everything you buy in very garish Bright Yellow bags with dark black letters and the personnel wear Yellow T-Shirts and the ceiling hangings are bright yellow too. (An easy mistake to make, in other words )