h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just got back from a week in Finland, staying with relatives. Spent most of the week at a lakeside cottage in eastern Finland (i.e. Karelia, not all that far from the Russian border). Finland has relatively few inhabitants (less than a tenth of the UK population), a very large area, bordered by Sweden, Norway and Russia, and hundreds of thousands of lakes, some small and unnamed, many very large indeed. The majority of the rest of the countryside is forested, and, despite the fact that these are largely managed forests, they manage to support a lot of wildlife including wolves, bears, lynx, pine martens and a lot of elk. Most of which I didn't see, as they're shy, and don't tend to show themselves in the bright, hot, summer weather.

Yes folks, in case my uncle is reading this, I've been instructed to tell everyone that Finnish summers are HOT! It's not all frozen wasteland all year round. We spent most of the time lounging around in a pretty log cottage next to a beautiful lake surrounded by birch and pine forest. The mosquitos, I'm happy to report, were not too bad, and lots of sauna-ing, swimming and botanising took place without too much discomfort.

The cottage was very pretty, but I was also taken with Helsinki. It is typically expansive, covering a huge area, and has a clean, new look compared with British infrastructure (which tends always to be constrained by all the previous, older structures which went before). The district heating system was quietly impressive, too. Somehow Scandinavian countries in general are good at spreading wealth around, giving a relatively affluent feel to the place without anyone actually being filthy rich. Food for thought.

What does "gadding" actually mean?