Less Northern lights

There haven’t been many sightings of Aurora Borealis in Lapland this winter.

According to the Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory, the scarcity of northern lights is due to very few sunspots. Last time the sun was last this passive in 1913, nearly 100 years ago. Apparently the sun’s activity runs sun in cycles, and you can´t predict the length of these cycles. Well, I can vouch for that, last week skiing up north I had no glimpse at all of northern lights what so ever. But the skiing trip was nice, getting a change from the normal routine.

Skiing, good company, good food and wine, some snow sledging and relaxing, that makes at least this woman fit for fight again. And eventually, dating.

Sporty winter look

She is strange that little perfectionist woman that lives deep inside me, she can not stop re-writing my posts over and over again, and yesterday's posting she has come up with as many better variations that I have fingers to write with!

Maybe I will alter it, keep on writing this one little post over and over again until it is perfect and I am fully satisfied with it. I am not normally that unsatisfied with the outcome and that only when I write on line instead of writing it in advance before posting. But I kind of like this more spontaneous blogging as I never know how it turns up, nor do I know what I blog about. I mean, I have an idea I begin with but I never know before hand where the any posts lead to in the end.

Anyway, this lovely sunny but cold winter weather inspired me to take a long walk but unfortunately the slippery walking routes cut it shorter than I wanted together with the cold wind blowing, now I look like a cooked crayfish. The sporty winter look, red face.
It is actually the same look you always get after a hot sauna, more like a crimson red face. Having pale skin makes winters hard as everything you do outdoors has to be planned some time ahead, so the face is properly protected from getting too frost bitten and sunshine and cold temperatures is the worst combo, and if you forget to get your cream on for protection then you will know after wards you made a very stupid thing.

Not me this time, fortunately, only the slippery roads made an end to my walk as I pulled a muscle in my back.

No sleep nights

Even thought the World Championships in Ice Hockey are played in Halifax Canada, this meaning the matches are broadcasted in the middle of the night for us here in Finland, they still rule the TV evenings in many ways.

Weekly programmes get scheduled off their ordinary broadcasting time in order to show the re runs of the matches and even the nightly chat hosted by this one drag queen has a touch of ice-hockey with the host or maybe more appropriately “hostess” wearing the Finnish hockey team’s blue and white lion shirt. Fortunately the offspring is not that interested in watching ice hockey so there are no late nights due to the games being on so late, it is more a matter of surfing the Net. Or actually hanging around with friends all night on messenger, in stead of getting the needed amount of sleep for being able to cope with school and studies.

Today was another morning of close call, and yesterday went with the wake up time way past ten o’clock.

And my postings get later and fewer all the time because of these nocturnal activities.

The warm weather went and here we are again with temperatures way below the average and normal for this time of year. Fortunately it is not as cold that we have to switch back to winter coats but seeds sown in gardens might get frostbites if not covered properly.

Even I have sown a few seeds and will eventually plant them in the garden of a friend as I got interested in natural dyeing plants and wanted to try some out. I would have wanted to have them close by to study their development but they would probably not succeed on a balcony as well as in proper soil. One of the plants is said to produce a blue colour and the second will turn red so I am really looking forward to seeing how it all turns out in reality. The red is not to be harvested in a couple of years but the blue should be made to use as soon as there are leaves big enough, and there is a fair amount of the leaves to make use of them.

Snow in wrong places

Did you know that in the Inuit language, that is the lingo of Eskimos or Greenlanders speak, there are at least three dozen different words for snow if I recall it correctly. The different words are used to express the various forms of snow all from wet sleet and flaky crystal snow to dry powder snow. Amazing to have so many ways to describe something that to most people on earth just is something white, that they have never experienced and only seen in pictures.

Lately there have been snowstorms in very surprisingly wrong areas around the globe like southern China, Morocco and Greece unheard of, at least in this part of the world. Oh yes there has been snow on high mountain tops on glaciers in countries there normally is but an occasional snowfall but as the glaciers are melting away with the global warming is it not odd that snow begins to fall in uncustomary or should I say the wrong places?!?

And here in Nordic countries there is a lack of it, well has at least been until now here in Finland. Which has been mended lately with snow falling from the sky and the whole country has now finally been covered in this white blanket of beautiful snow.

Still we have had a lack of snow and many skiing event have had to be postponed until better weather and the skiing weather was not particularly good when most of the schools had their winter holidays a couple of weeks ago. Same goes with the world cup in cross country skiing. And as the weather has been unusually warm some skiing events have been moved into big towns to please the crowds apparently in order to make more money on the events. But how good is this for the environment, to make artificial snow, make tracks on the streets in the centre of big cities to get more coverage?

I just saw FIS in the middle of the Stockholm, the Swedish capital, and another was televised from Drammen Norway. At least there seemed to have been some snow in the surrounding countryside as far as I can tell from what was seen on the TV. Btu in Stockholm there was absolutely no snow to be seen except on the tracks.

What does this cost then, regarding the energy it takes to create the fake artificial snow, to make the water that fist has been purified into drinking water freeze into snow. Store the snow cold in order to gather the required amount to build the track, move the snow with trucks on site for making the track of snow in and in time for the competition. And make some more just in case the one used on the tracks melts before the event. The waste and garbage the people attending to see the skiers dispose of freely around them, more seldom into the dustbins acquired for this purpose. The portable toilets to move to site and from site, empty and clean, dispose of waste. The selling of the traditional junk alimentation such as hotdogs, hamburgers, chips, crisps sweets and candy, and beverages like beer and sodas, and you need straws, paper wipes, mugs and wrappers to serve them which create an immense waste mountain to dispose of. And with a bigger crowd a bigger waste.

I am not saying people should not have fun, but if we really are serious about lowering their carbon oxide emissions in order to try save the planet earth, maybe some more consideration should be taken to these matters.

But question remains, is the weather warming up, really like they say, or is the weather just going through its’ natural cycle of heating up and cooling down as it does. How can be really sure that the weather is not cooling down as some experts claim and the weather climates are not just moving around and changing places?

Still according to the Laplanders living up north this is so far the warmest winter in a century.

A pig’s hole

There seems to be a nice little loop hole, or a “pig hole” as they say here in Finland with the sports associations rules as right now it seems like the Finnish female skier that just last week tested positive for doping might just make it without being banned from all sports competition for life.

As her previous positive doping test was for another sports association, then the cross country skiing association, and now this time she tested positive being a member of the biathlon association she apparently still has tested only once positive and not twice as previously was though. A nice little pig‘s hole, isn’t it?

Now with the Chinese New Year closing in on us we are also so conveniently leaving the year of the Pig and entering the year of the goat. Or what Chinese year is it?!?

White as snow

A Finnish female skier yesterday tested positive for doping.

This is the second time in her skiing career that she has tested positive and both her A-sample and her B-sample were positive in a doping test. First time she tested positive with then also traces of the so called EPO-hormone 2003 as a member of the FIS when she was part of the Finnish cross country skiing team, and now this second time she tested positive for the same illegal substance, this time as member of the International biathlon federation and she may be banned from competing for the rest of her life but that won’t be decided upon until next week

I always though that if you were to cheat you should do it so nobody sees it, and if caught cheating then don’t do it again.

Most of the Finnish cross country team that was caught red handed winning their own hosted the 2001 world championship in Lahti when 6 Finnish skiers were tested positive for doping with Hemohes. Just days before the skiing event a doctor’s bag with bloody syringes and empty, used bags of the Hemohes plasma-expanding fluid were found forgotten on a petrol station, and those championships were for long called the Hemohes championships here in Finland. The doctor’s bag was in the end were discovered to belong to the Finnish skiing team coach who was made to resign together with a couple of other coaches. This same female skier that now tested positive was also competing in cross country skiing in Lahti but her test was then clean and she was not among the tested negative for doping.

Quite embarrassing actually, it must’ve been, hosting the world championships during which most members of the home team tests positive for doping.
Anyway, now the Finnish biathlon association is demanded an explanation by the Finnish minister of sports whether they knew about the doping, if and who was involved in it etc in two weeks time as they are sponsored by the government and this might mean having refund paid sponsorships. This particular illegal doping substance is also said to be difficult to get by which also raises the question about how and where it was obtained from.

In any case skiing has got once again got a bad reputation here in Finland which probably means a major set-back of many sponsors withdrawing their support.

In the meantime southern Finland has been caught in a blizzard with hard wind gusts. This now means that all of Finland now will be white with snow but this is still far away from the normal amounts of snow at this time of year. Or maybe blown over by snow it should be in this case. At least that will mean favourable skiing conditions for the general population, that is, if the weather keeps cold enough for it to not melt away during the weekend.

Stormy weather

Today a storm has been making trees fall over power lines causing power cuts in Southern Finland as well as much of the fast ferry traffic between the Finnish capital Helsinki and the Estonian capital Tallinn have been cancelled.

The distance between the two capitals is just a three hours voyage by ordinary boat, and as far as I know their traffic has not been disrupted. The fast ferries reduce the trip into an hour and a half and many Estonians work in Helsinki commuting by boat as well as many Finns do business in the southern neighbouring capital over the day.

Guess this is some change with the crossing of the Finnish Gulf from earlier decades when hardly anyone could get across the Gulf as Estonia was a part of the Soviet Union. Even I have had the opportunity to visit Estonia a couple of times and a new trip is in the planning in the near future.

I am not a great fan of watching winter sports but as it happens I did see the bad fall of the American skier Macartney’s in Hahnenkamm slope in Kitzbühel earlier today. Must have been awful for the family and relatives to see something like that on TV and as there have been several fatal accidents in this particular slope over the decades it seems especially this slope is quite a dangerous one. Guess it does not do you any good with having a helmet is it comes off, nor do the nets surrounding the slopes do much when falling inside the track instead of been thrust off it.

I am glad the offspring is not into alpine skiing, at least not serious enough for entering any competitions.

Lack of snow and more talking

The opening event of the FIS slalom world cup scheduled to be held this weekend Levi in Finnish Lapland is moved from to Reiteralm in Austria, because of a lack of snow.

After a very mild month of October, there was no snow at all in Levi early in last week and it was not cold enough until last Friday in order to make some snow artificially. As the forecasts predict milder temperatures and the skiing slopes had only got between 20 to 60% of the needed slow keeping the venue in Levi would have been too risky. Still the cancellation of the alpine skiing event this year is a major setback for the tourist industry of Finnish Lapland but there are hopes for the future as the opening event of FIS slalom world cup is set to take place in Levi the four next coming years.

I have finally got my new specs and now I can see! What a relief, no more squinting in order to see things. Anyway, the British company Specsavers have finally arrived here in Finland as well so it is sad I got my new ones before, but guess this gives me a chance to get a new second pair to have ready having displaced the ordinary pair as that seems to happen annoyingly often. More time is some days spent searching for the specs than using them it seems.

Anyway, radio stations here in Finland need licenses in order be allowed to broadcast their program on the air and 15-30% of their time on the air should be talk according to their licenses. The radio stations just recently checked had too little talking on their broadcasts and they will be asked for explanations of why this is the fact.

This more talking seems to be against the overall trend as many people just want the music with the minimum amount of talking in between the songs. The disc jockey, or should it be radio jockey, is better off just announcing the name of the artist or band together with the name of the song. Period.

The more music the better the radio station, and this is not only my opinion but most of the people I have talked to think the same. There are of course some talk shows worth listening to, especially in the mornings and if you are into talk shows then tune into one radio station with more talking. I definitively prefer more music with less talking!

Power shortages?

If the coming winter is a cold one there might have to be power cuts even in households and not just in the industry.

A very cold winter might stretch Finland's energy resources past the breaking point as Finland does not produce enough power of its own. There is a risk for power cuts especially during the peak season of Christmas when the traditional Xmas sauna is heated up at the same time with the traditional Xmas ham cooked in the ovens. At present power is imported from Russia accounting up to ten percent of Finland's energy needs and the Finnish power supply company Fingrid now says that with Russia turning down its output in order to meet its own power needs there might not be any power left to sell to Finland.

The worst case scenario is that even household power would have to be rationed, this meaning cut of for some time, and the power supply company now hopes that the households will economize the amount of power used during a cold winter. Some electricity is also imported from Sweden but with a cold snap there at the same time as here in Finland, there would be no additional electricity resulting in shortages. As last winter was an exceptionally mild one apart from a couple of short cold snaps Finland didn't experience any power shortages although they were already then expected to happen.

An electricity shortage or rationing of the same will surely make the electricity prices sky rocket.

As I am no sports fan I to my great surprise yesterday found out that The FIS Ski Cross Country Worldcup began its’ season 2007/2008 in Düsseldorf, again, and this for the 4^th time.

Snow in Dusseldorf at this time of the year?!?

End of October a mild autumn, in the middle of the Old town down by the river Rhine? When the leaves still are green? Becoming curious I googled the event and found the official site and read on.

What a waste of energy and resources!

The event was proud to on their official site announce that they are the only event of the cross country season to have a 100% guarantee for snow. The needed 3000 cubic metres of snow for the track is made out of 1500 cubic metres pure drinking-water without any chemical additives. The same amount of water to fill a common 50m swimming pool and the manufacturing of the snow is begun 100 days ahead of the World Cup and the track itself is handmade.

Okay, cleaning the water, making it freeze, storing it cold in order to have the needed amount, moving the snow into place of the track, hand making the track, how much does this cost in energy resources?
Or money for that matter?

And there is lack of pure drinking water in many areas of the world!

I have been feeling bad about it as there is no alternative when showering living in apartment in Finland as the municipalities supply you with water and it is all pure drinking water but this unbelievable wast of resources.

One thing comes to mind though, they are absolutely right, good that the water used is pure and does not pollute the river Rhine in any way as it is quite polluted already. No more additional pollution of the water except for maybe some substances washed down by the melting snow on its’ way down the banks into the river below.

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You can check out the facts out yourself at the provided link to the official cite of The FIS Ski Cross Country Worldcup in Düsseldorf at: http://www.worldcup-duesseldorf.de/index.php?id=35&L=1

Tough races

Kimi Räikkönen has become the third Finn to win the Formula One World Championship after Keke Rosberg in 1982 and Mika Häkkinen twice in the years 1998 and 1999.

Räikkönen won his championship in the in the last race of the season yesterday, the Brazilian Grand Prix by a long-shot chance at the title as he was seven points behind the season leader and his victory has been well celebrated through out the country.

The Helsinki Horse Show is the biggest indoor sports event in Finland and this year it was held for the 23^rd time throughout Thursday until Sunday. More than 40.000 people visit the show at Hartwall Arena annually with 40 top international riders this time, the best home riders and around 100 super horses participating. In this years suspense killing highlight the Rolex FEI World Cup in Helsinki, only three horses out of 39 went clear on the course and nine horses just had one fence down as the course was very technical and especially the combinations were said to be highly challenging. Especially happy news was that for two Finns on 7^th and 11^th place, with of course the horses doing most of the work, having for the first time got World Cup points in the same class.

Surprise visits are not always pleasant ones but all the same surprising, things you could not plan ahead and they have begun to occur more and more frequently these days. Friends you have not heard from for years all of a sudden turn up on your footstep as they are visiting town in business from abroad. One family even came during their summer vacation but unfortunately as we were not at home at the time we did not hear about it until later when they had returned back home after their holidays. A pleasant visit we just missed.

Well how to prepare yourself? Stuff the freezer full with goodies you can just whip up into a three course dinner with wine in no time at all, replace the offspring to their respective friends for the night and enjoy the moment, in best case. What if the person that turns up uninvited is someone you would rather not see? I guess you just abide your time and try to survive, make the best of it and try to make your guest understand you have previous appointments you can not cancel, at least not this late time anymore. Well, this particular visit was actually planned in the near future, just turned up one day earlier which actually was better as it suited our timetable as there was a concert yesterday evening that was not to be missed, at least according to my dear spouse.

Three months vacation

Yesterday the Finnish Parliament met for its first autumn session after a summer break of nearly three months that is even a longer vacation than the school kids get every year. Quite a long vacation I gather so I really hope they all are well rested by now and ready for some action and have lots of improvements and changes in store for all of us living in here Finland. I guess we all could do with a three month vacation a year.

The Finnish ice-hockey championships also began yesterday for this season with a match between HIFK and HPK with a 3-2 win to HIFK. I don’t even know for sure whether the championships are held annually but I guess so as there always seems to be some hockey game broadcasted instead of one or other of my accustomed TV shows. I wonder how long vacations the ice-hockey players get?

Being totally ignorant in sports, except my newly discovered interest in the fun art of swamp football, or swamp soccer as it also is called, I got curious and checked out both hockey teams’ homepages.

And surprise, surprise, only one team told what their real name is on their pages, what their abbreviation stands for. I still don’t know what HIFK means, but from the advertisements on their pages I guess they come from Helsinki which means that the H stands for Helsinki but what the rest is I have no idea if it is in Finnish. If the IFK is in English I do know it. HPK actually told their name on their homepages, Hämeenlinnan Pallokerho so there I am wiser today than I was yesterday.

One thing that bothers me over and over again here in Finland is this corner-patriotism that exists, that everybody is expected to be aware of certain things like where cities, places, businesses and shops are. In advertising their products the Finns leave out mentioning the address of their business and their phone numbers as everybody is to be aware of who and where they are and the advertising doesn’t really change from one media to another, it’s the same missing info in the papers, TV and radio. At least one can always google things but that takes time and effort and I bet they loose a lot of business through that and not all companies have as yet bothered to get their own homepages with more info than just the address and phone number and me being curious I would like to know more.

Gold medal

Finland won a gold medal in javelin in Osaka world championships in the weekend and Finland also won the first Eurovision dancing contest on Saturday. Finland was one among 16 countries to compete in the dancing contest and won for the first time as the competition was held for the first time ever.

But one thing for sure Finland will not get a gold medal or win a competition in is customer care as

Customer care and customer service is one thing that most of the times seem non-existent in this country, even in so called customer care profession.

There are of course exceptions but they are scarcely rare, sometimes I wonder how anyone gets anything sold or done in this country. The son of a friend being in his late teens went to buy himself a new suit, not his first but another one as he happens to be from a quite wealthy background. He walks into a posh and renowned men’s outfitter in town and began his look around the suits. Time went by and the salesmen were not at all interested in this young boy and after a while he got fed up with not being seen and went straight up to one of the salesmen asking him: “Do you know who I am?” with the confused man answering with an obvious:”No, I’m afraid don’t.” followed by his curious question of: “Who are you then?” expecting the young man to be someone famous he should know about.

My friends’ son answering to this by saying that he is a customer and that he wants to buy a new suit and could he please get some help. This quite accurately describes the situations you end up in sadly enough all too often for it to be good for the national economy of Finland and currently I am in just the same situation right now. The situation gets even trickier as there only is one supplier available for the service in question and as there are no one else to compete with there is no need to take care of your customers, is there? At least that is how it seems.

I have now been trying to get contact with this one guy in the company in question for two weeks, I have spoken with him on the phone twice but as he has not been where he should have been to read my e-mail concerning the items I am to order, he has been non-committal about it all. My problem now is that I have promised to do this as a favour to a friend who has to get it done but has not the artistic gift to go through with it together with lack of sufficient language skills but time is now running out as the items have to be ready for the occasion, and we are here talking about hundreds, not a single one, with hundreds more to come if it all works properly and is delivered in time.

I can’t promise a good deal in the future as this deal seems to have to be moved abroad in order to get it done in and the company in question’s name getting a real bad reputation among many people and missing the opportunity to do some easy business. So no gold medals in customer care to be expected to in this country for a long, long time.

Speeding

There are several ongoing sports events in southern Finland, the Kalevan kisat which is the annual Finnish sport championships, a trotting event and the Finnish Neste Oil rally world championship race causing problems in the traffic as people are getting to and from the different locations. The strangest thing is that always when it is the time for the Finnish Neste Oil race more people than the average day get caught speeding.

And to tell you the truth jokes have been made already for years that there is a Mika Häkkinen, or Marcus Grönholm for that matter, living in every single Finnish man and this seems to be one of the times he steps out and takes control of the driving.

So far this weekend, and the race is still not over which probably means more are to speed today, at least 200 drivers got caught getting tickets for speeding with dozens of drivers having their licenses confiscated for having driven almost 100 kms more than the allowed speed limit on 100 kms.

The rally has also given the environmentalist something to do as yesterday demonstrators barricaded a street in the city of Jyväskylä to protest against the ongoing rally, even though the race itself was not even near the city at the time.

Now is also the beginning of the high season of mushroom picking and quite a lot of mushrooms exported to Italy as the Italians are very fond of their Porcini mushrooms, as I think they are called, and truck loads of them are actually picked in Finland and shipped to Italy to be sold and eaten there. So husband already went off to see about the Chanterelles so I probably have some mushroom cleaning to do later in the afternoon. And by the look in the woods yesterday when walking aournd the lake I want to get out and get some of these Porcinis as they are also delicious but for the time being our car is staying put parked.

Swamp football

As the planned mushroom picking trip had to be postponed due to the rain showers with hardly no intermissions between, it has either been raining heavily or pouring down biggest part of the day has been spent in front of the TV again, this time watching the word championship in Swamp soccer on the sports channel. And is that indeed a sport with needed stamina and patience.

Most of the rules seem to be the same as in ordinary soccer or football but kicking a ball in a swamp makes it really interesting. Once when young and having been dating an absolute sport idiot I once swore I would never ever watch football again as I got more than my fair share of watching that sport back then from the passenger seat as the remote control was always taken over and a sports channel chosen, well guess no wonder why that relationship did not last in the long run.

Anyway, back to the swamp football, imagine these guys trying to run around in a swamp with the wet peat up to their knees or above at some places of the playing field, trying to kick on a football and make a goal.

You can never be sure which way the ball bounces off to, but, you can of course hit it with your head when down on all four in the swamp as you are not allowed to use your hands here either.

This game requires great stamina and endurance and of course patience as it takes time to get the ball in the direction it should go, preferably towards the opponent’s goal, and you can’t loose your temper as there is no time for that. It is a great laugh to watch anyway.

The bad thing about rainy days is though that someone is always accessing the net which normally leaves me with no access at all day long. Guess it is okay to be able to blog anyway but it is the not getting to post them in my Blog that bugs me! Guess I would not be good at swamp football as I probably lack the required patience.

Tents going up and down

The world championship in beach volleyball has its’ first tournament in Gstaad, an old ski resort in the Swiss Alps. Where’s the beach…skiing slopes…maybe rained that much that there now is a beach, along the river? Somehow I always have thought if beach volleyball played on the beach in seaside resorts, but hey, they just recently played beach volleyball in the middle of Tampere City square here in Finland, and there is no beach there even though it is in the vicinity of the Tammerkoski rapids.

Summer is a very strange season here in Finland, during the winter people are more withdrawn and stay indoors most of the time but with the sun showing in the spring it changes completely. People are more open and go out a lot more and there are all these festivities celebrating different things, open air concerts in the middle of town squares and annually recurring musical festivals around the country.

It is a strange occurrence to see various tents go up on the town square, and then become taken down just in time for another tent for a second festival of some kind. Why not just use the same tent all summer along instead of tearing them down and being replaced by each other? I wonder how many times the same tents turn up on the same town square during the same summer?

I guess the weather has not been as favourable as last summer for all the festivals but at least there can be no complaints about the water levels sinking this year as the previous ones with hardly any rain at all. Even if electricity is less expensive at present than during the winter I guess that is nothing that will be noticeable in consumer pricing of the power we use anyway.

Have you ever tried smoked pike? If you have the chance do so, it is a delicacy I have never come across previously and I have not seen it sold anywhere, but we just received some as a gift from the fishing colleague of my husband’s. Being a bit prejudiced I have always thought that you should only smoke fish with high fatty levels, not dry as pike but it turns out really delicious and now I know of one more delicate way to prepare pike.

Maternal pride

The Tall Ships' Race is at present in Kotka in Finland where they arrived after visiting Denmark. There are about 100 ships participating in the race and they will set off for Stockholm in a couple of day’s time and the Race last visited Finland four years ago in Turku.

Having two cats you are used to taking them to the vet for vaccinations both at the same time, different things turn up when just one has an appointment like this morning. The younger one had to go see the vet and mummy, that is me of course, was all nervous about it. Mister himself took it with great dignity; he was easily caught and put into his basket without a protest heard of, carried off to the car all silent and calm as a cucumber.

When together in the basket with his mum there is a cat aria sung before you get out of the elevator and the reaching out of the basket with stretched claws begins right after the engine is started. Even the waiting at the surgery was quiet and nice, not even stupid dogs did disturb this little gentleman’s behaviour.

Mummy managed to get mister who was acting a bit shy out of his basket; staying calmly on the examination table and going willingly back into his basket afterwards. I am amazed, so calm, and so quiet no protests and they are just bonkers when his mother comes along! As there are no two children alike I guess it goes for cats as well, and it seems that your company effects you, and sometimes very badly.

I am very proud of my little one today.

Bear warning

The outmost southern part of Finland is the peninsula of Hanko and a bear came swimming by sea. With the peninsula being as narrow as it is and the old spa town Hanko being situated on it, the bear had to be shot in order to protect the general public.

Further up the coast a big colony of black-headed gulls, an estimated 30.000 birds are all nesting in the same area being a health hazard and nuisance to the people living in the vicinity of it. The colony in question is said to be the fifth of the total population of the black-headed gulls in Finland and as the black-headed gull is rare in Finland it is protected by law and to be left alone and not shot or hunted. This particular problem with the colony of the gulls has even been discussed in the Finnish parliament and what could be done about it.

Birdwatchers had a competition during the weekend on which of the 167 towers participating all over Finland would see most species of birds. Well 119 species were spotted from the winning bird watch tower, guess they were not in the area of the gulls then there would only have been one species to spot. And quite a lot of gull shit all over you.

Anyway, one sure sign of summer is when the Helsinki 1952 Olympics swimming stadium opens for the summer season, as it did this morning. So swimming we go in the heated up water early in the morning.

Sleet and rain

The most interesting and reported news lately have been the parliamentary elections that were held yesterday.

Less people used their right to vote than in the last elections four years ago, only an average of 67% voted. No real changes, the current prime minister continues in office with the conservative party having gained seats in the house of parliament and negotiations about cooperation by the party of the prime minister is probable in the next few days to come begin.

One strange thing though, how can a representative who already has been elected into parliament last time, getting second most votes in the home county still loose? What is the wrong with this? Who are people voting for if not for someone to represent them and most votes should get you to represent that area of the country that voted for you, or not?

And quite many celebrities were voted into the house of parliament again, so that seems to be one way to advance in politics in this country. Get a gold medal in the Olympics and get elected into the Finnish parliament.

Anyway, now the lovely mild spring weather changed back to the normal sleet and rain. No sunshine in sight. This is so depressing!

Skiing accidents

In the times of the ongoing winter-hollidays and skiing season being at its’ heights more accidents are reported. Especially the young tend to injure themselves and more seriously than before, even as they wear more safety helmets than earlier. The increase of injuries is said to depend on people showing less respect and not taking other skiers in concern on the slopes, and also the use of snowboards with more jumps and rails are said to contribute to the growing seriousness of the skiing accidents of broken wrists and knee injuries.

Well, with our annual week of skiing holidays I still have the same skills as I acquired years ago, I take it slow downhill and am just happy to sometimes still be upright when arriving at the bottom by lifts which the off-spring make jokes about.

At least I do not get injured that often, even though I am quite accident prone.

After-ski

The winter has not been as it has used to be in the earlier years we have been living here in Finland. We now do have something that reminds of snow, but still not as much snow or some whitish stuff as used to.

They say this is going to be the warmest year in Europe, as the migrating birds have not moved further south than mid-europe instead of their accustomed Africa.

The green-house effects, pollution and that the world is heating up. Well, they used to be able to grow grapes up here in Scandinavia in the bronze-age, so maybe we will be able to make our own wine here in Finland soon, shame about the skiing though.

But I was never good on skis anyway, but the after-ski is nice, and I guess it will be more after-ski as in used to once ski, if this keeps up!