Coffee Helps

Last night, feeling a bit restless from having been cooped up indoors for most of the day, Riho and I went for a spur-of-the-moment walk around the local area.

Tallinn by night is something of a new experience for me, given that when I was here in the summer I very rarely saw any hint of darkness. This is, however, a country of extremes, and the sillily long days are rapidly being eaten up by increasing periods of darkness. Gone are the midnight sunsets and 3am sunrises; when I got here last week it was already getting dark by 8pm, and now darkness only waits until late afternoon before going about its work. It doesn’t bother me – after spending my very first summer outside the UK, I’ve had my fill of long, hot, sunny days. I’m from Northern Ireland: there’s only so much bright light and warmth I can take before my brain explodes and my body melts in protest. I’m loving the cooler weather and dark evenings, and am suddenly feeling enthusiastic about the idea of spending winter in the Baltics. I mean, having just experienced the hottest summer of my life, it’s fitting that I now go for the coldest winter, too. More on that later, once I get photos of the Estonian winterwear that I intend to kit myself out in. It’s the first time I’ve ever been excited about fashion! If you can call funny hats and furry boots “fashion”…

Anyway, for now it’s just refreshingly cool – perfect for an evening stroll. We headed off through a residential area rather than taking the more familiar route through the Old Town, and I have to say that all the little wood-panelled houses look even more sweet and endearing at night, in the glow of the streetlights. It really is like walking through a fairytale sometimes.

The fairytale became more like a scary story when Riho had the bright idea of getting home by following the old disused railway track. I don’t mean by walking along beside it, on a brightly lit path, oh no. This railway track stretched off into the distance, crossing the road we were on and plunging into unknown territory of broken sleepers, rubble and long grass. We had to walk on the track itself, which gave me another of my Famous Five moments. I had just finished explaining to Riho about the one where they followed a railway track in the middle of nowhere (and then it broke off and they got lost and captured by a group of Bad Men), when I realised that we’d completely left the lights of civilisation behind and were now in near darkness, with only the faint lights from the harbour to guide us. Faint light is worse than no light, because faint light means scary shadows. And scary shadows play tricks with your mind, especially when the wind is making noises and the trees are rustling and you’ve just finished talking about Bad Men lurking at the side of an abandoned railway track much the same as the one you’re currently stumbling along.

Riho lamented my overactive imagination as I became more and more convinced that we were going to die at the hands of smugglers or be run over by a ghost train. I jumped nervously at every cracking twig or moving shadow, and Riho showed his sympathy for my nervous condition by yelling “what’s that?” at regular intervals and doing the age-old reaching around and tapping me on the shoulder furthest from him manoeuvre. When a small heap of rubble shifted beneath my feet and made a sudden noise, I jumped so violently that my instinctive grab for safety and reassurance almost dislocated his thumb (this did not go down very well with Riho, who did a whole big song and dance about his injured thumb as if I hadn’t just almost been killed), and by the time I inadvertently stood on something soft and apparently moving, my nerves gave up altogether. I screamed rather loudly, and shot along the track at a greatly increased speed. I have no idea what it was. Possibly a victim of the Bad Men. Or a large, poisonous rat. So much for a relaxing walk – I could’ve cried when I finally saw the main road in sight.

Darkness is all very well, but I much prefer seeing it by streetlight.