Blue moments in the midst of Finnish winter

The blue hour is that almost magical period of twilight between dawn and sunrise, or between sunset and dusk, when the sky and the world around you take on beautiful hues of blue. Although it’s spectacular anywhere, I particularly love to experience it in a snowy rural landscape when everything is ‘oh so quiet’.

Just before Christmas I was on a family visit in a small village in Eastern Finland where the fields and trees were covered in thick snow and even on a dull, grey day you felt you were in a winter wonderland. One evening I was returning from a walk with an inquisitive Lapphund  at the time when the blue hour started to descend. The birds were already roosting, the air was still, and the only sound was the snow softly crunching under my feet. As the colour of the sky slowly changed, it was as if the world had been wrapped in a soft blue shawl.

We are said to be feeling blue when we are sad, and the walk in the midst of the blue hour was also a walk in the midst of sadness: The reason I was in Finland and walking on the quiet country path was that only a couple of days earlier my Dad had died. Having that landscape so familiar to him enveloped in the hues of soft blue seemed very appropriate.