Picture the scene.... children waiting for the ice cream van. Mums and Dads with the money. Excitement queuing up to buy some frozen goodies! Can you see the picture in your minds eye? It conjures up lots of sunny summer days doesn't it!
Think again...re picture that...
Try a dark wintery night, snowy and at temperatures of -30c! Yep, it's true!
Every wednesday of the year, at around 6.15pm, the ice-cream van calls.. summer AND winter! We hear a little beep or two (not so long or musical as the UK versions) and there is the van somewhere outside - across the play area. To be honest we have never bothered going out to it. It beeps and then drives back down the road a bit and waits in a little slot out of sight...plus you seem to be able to only buy in bulk. Not like the UK vans, where you can buy an individual ice-cream to eat there and then.
Yesterday around this time, we had call to go out. As we drove down the road, the van was arriving - all lit up. We really couldn't believe that not only was the Kotijäätelö ice-cream man making sales in such cold weather..but that people were actually WAITING for him to arrive! In temps of -30c for goodness sake! There they were, moving from side to side, hopping from one foot to the other to keep warm.. just for the sake of ice cream! All I can say is that they must REALLY love the stuff!
Kotijäätelö (as it is called in Finland) means "Home Ice Cream", it is part of a Northern European brand of ice cream, known for it's home distribution system in its light blue ice cream vans and selling ice creams by the box, in contrast to ice cream vans other places in the world. In Denmark and Norway is called Hjem-IS and Hemglass in Sweden.
Hemglass was originally founded by the Swedish Eric Ericsson in 1968 but later spread to other countries, establishing in Finland as recently as 1993. The group has been a subsidiary of Nestlé since 2002. Here is the Kotijäätelö website http://www.kotijaatelo.fi/
I couldn't resist showing this line.. Sateenkaari-Sekoitus means Rainbow-Mix!
How appropriate!
I didn't have my camera with me at the time...and it would have been too dark anyway... so you will have to use your imagination! It was really COLD though..and today it has been even colder around -34c... so cold that the tip of my oldest sons ear lobe got semi frozen on the way home from college, because it was sticking out from under his hat! The temperature is charted for similar tomorrow.. so he will certainly be wearing his balaclava under his hat then as well!
Cool and Crunchy Lapland! Fancy an Ice Cream?
