Kalsarikännit

A Finnish word for that feeling you have when you spend the evening getting drunk at home alone in your underwear, with no intention of going out.

The word came to me when this afternoon when I was so attired, log fire blazing away. The beer came later. I had returned home tired and weary and had stripped out of my damp clothes after a day cutting saplings from the whinstone quarry in Cliff Rigg wood, part of the National Trust’s Roseberry property. The quarry is a geological SSSI and you might think that a few tree roots won’t do too much damage to 59 million-year-old rock that’s survived glacial erosion. But one of Natural England’s requirements for managing the SSSI is to keep the rock faces fairly clear of trees so that they can be examined. So keeping it clear of trees we will.

Just a word of warning, Google translates Kalsarikännit as ‘Buttocks’ so be careful which social media group you slip the word into. It might backfire. Perhaps better to use emojis that the Finns have created specially.