Friday, April 23

At the end of the first week that restaurants have received permission to open, we decide to end the working week by going to Gurkha in Herttaniemi to eat momos. The last time we ate out we also ate here and that seems months ago.

We will have a thoroughly enjoyable time. They do not make the best food we have ever tasted, but the atmosphere feels relaxed and unhurried and, indeed, the elderly woman sitting talking with one of the waiters looks as though she might have come for lunch and forgotten to leave.

The new rules for restaurants seem exactly the kind of compromise that happens when people feel a need to make themselves heard in a negotiation. Restaurants can serve alcohol until 6pm, and then continue serving food until 7pm, after which they can only sell takeaways. They can, however, open at 10am and start serving alcohol as soon as they open.

The Finnish government does not want you to go for a meal after work and drink alcohol for fear that you might forget to social distance in your kissy kissy drunkenness.

It would prefer you to do that sort of thing at lunchtime.