Yesterday we had two concerts. The second one was special. We played in Valkeakoski Memory Center, where lives old people with serious memory problems, caused by Alzheimer’s and other diseases.

We had an audience of about 30 people. The nurses told us not to play more than half an hour. Maybe we could have played more, at least the audience listened very carefully and intensively. It was great to see an old man react to the name of Matti Haudanmaa, a famous Finnish fiddler. It was great that another guy was moved to tears by the sound of nyckelharpa and talked us about it.

Afterwards we had coffee together with the audience. A smiling lady who sat next to us told us very nice memories about bike tours she made with her husband and another couple when they were young. They used tandem bikes that were made by welding two old frames together. The tandems worked fine and were fast. She said that she can’t ride anymore but it is great to have that kind of memories when you are old.

We hope our memories of this bike tour will stay with us as long and as colourful.

Now we are riding from Valkeakoski to Janakkala. It is a day to forget. Grey and rainy and cold with headwind.