I like Finland. The people there don’t say much but when they do, they make it count. When I visited nearly four years ago, I spent five days with two men who said almost nothing at all. But on the second night, after dinner, one of them told me that as a child he wasn’t allowed out to play after dark because of wolves and the other, in the sauna one evening, said that what he wanted most was for his small grandson to be a great ice hockey player. It wasn’t much but I left feeling like I knew those men.
Those of you who’ve shot with me will know that, as much as anything, I’m there to talk to people. I can’t really recall how I shot last Saturday in Norfolk but I’ll long remember the keeper telling me about beating, as a child, at local hare coursing meets.