Piling snow up high

For a long, long time many things have been prioritized in my life before this Blog of mine, but I have often during this time thought about what I wanted to blog about. I have had many ideas but never actually sat down to write anything.

Sometime ago, last spring I think it was, I even thought I would be back, but then never got round to it. But as so many people still seem to visit here, I made a resolution to myself, to blog at least once a month about something, anything. And maybe in time, as I did from the beginning, I might get caught in the wind and do it more often.

Anyway, yesterday, actually…I found myself once again wondering about the meaning of things. This year we have had exceptionally more snow than usual, I mean now during the time I have lived in Finland. And very cold weather for a very long period. Snow arrived earlier than any other year, way before Xmas last year and has stayed with us since. So getting to the point now, as more snow falls down from the sky, more snow piles up. Well, this has of course to be cleaned away but still the snow tends to pile up without us noticing it with sometimes inches of ice below our feet on top of the pavement and asphalt.

The snow that gets cleaned away from streets and pavements has to be dumped somewhere and this seems to be big trouble. Cities have special snow dumps and I know that the city of Helsinki for instance dumps lots of their snow in the sea. I am not here going tell you my opinion about this, you might read it in between the lines, and this was not really my point, but slowly trying to target in on it.

Yesterday, as I said, they had two big wheel loaders scraping off all the ice both our back and front yard. There were inches and inches of thick ice and they scraped it all off the asphalt so the surface of it was visible for the moment it took for it to get covered by the new snow falling on top of it and covering it.

Now to the point, the removed snow and ice was piled up on outside the asphalt. They actually went on all day with it. Big, huge 4 to 5 meters high piles with ice and they had to be dumped somewhere, but that is on the lawn where they dumped it. And where the bushes and shrubs are in the summertime and big piles of ice take months to melt. Loads of snow to melt an turn into water, watering the lawn that gets all soggy and wets it up, never dries up and smells like it does in the spring and to the enjoyment of us all, what in the winter is covered in snow well be coming out in thaw in the spring and we all know what that is, what a joy to look forward to. The smell.

New Year with a bang

In time for the New Year's celebrations the law concerning firecrackers and fireworks here in Finland was revised, well actually slimmed down.

Earlier you could bang your works and crackers (and excuse me if anyone got the wrong idea, this was absolutely not intentional) from 6 PM all night long until 6 AM the next morning. This New Year's Eve it was only from 6 PM until 2 in the morning. Selling fireworks is also from now on prohibited for under 18 years old and minors are not to handle them and wearing safety goggles are compulsory to wear when lighting the works.

With these new rules in work I was very much interested in seeing how the festivities actually would take place in practice.

On the day itself I woke up at 2.30 AM in the morning of two loud bangs in the yard, so the hours allowed did not work out as they should have. In the evening at midnight the neighbours muted their loud festive music in turn moving out onto their balconies to advise their minors lighting the fireworks. None I saw wearing any goggles, not even the adults safely on their balconies risking the limbs and eyes of their offspring.

The lights in the yard went out for several hours as someone hit the light switch with a firecracker or something, and the pub across the street had their own fireworks worth to see. Men standing on their knees in the freezing snow without any goggles, they shot them off. Some up into the night sky but most of them along on the street, that is in the end once they got them lit, which seemed oddly hard a thing to achieve.

Anyway, about 4 AM on New Years Day morning the glass of the front door downstairs was kicked in as someone who apparently did not live in this building wanted to get in, into the wrong house, as they had lost their keys. At least that is what the shouting downstairs was about.

The result of the festivities is full of strange stories, an acquintance of a friend of mine celebrated in high heel shoes, out in severe sub zero temperatures a night out in town and was hospitalized with frozen toes with an amputation of several toes as a result...the offspring of a friend spending the night in jail..and a couple of friends found themselves in another city their were supposed to be spending the night in.

So ladies, beware of your vanity, use sensible shoes when it is freezing out! And carry indoors shoes with you instead of risking your feet and toes.

White Christmas

This year we will be celebrating a white Christmas here in Finland, and as it looks the same goes for many places elsewhere as well.

Heavy snowfall and blizzards have delayed air travel and caused many road accidents also here in Finland. It is hard to fathom that the climate is warming up watching the news when heavy snowfall has hit areas where there normally is hardly no snow at all.

It is sad that the Copenhagen climate summit did not turn out well and result in anything substantial, like a treaty or something similar. Yes the industrial revolution and the Western world is to blame for most of the global warming, but who knew back then what would come out of it? That the resources were not everlasting and that nature could not cope with anything? Should then the developing countries be repeating the same stupid mistakes now, today, instead of doing something differently?

People always tend to try to figure out who the culprit is, which in this case is a huge waste of time. We might not have another year to waste until the next climate summit in Mexico next year...and we should everybody begin to do something for it...but what?!?

Sunset all day long

Only one week to go before Christmas, and you can tell that when shopping, all shops are filled with shoppers and there are long queues at the check outs.

At least the pre-holliday panick has not yet stricken, that is normally not detectible until next week, the day before Christmas Eve itself, and on Christmas Eve morning, the last desperate rush before the shops close for the hollidays. Spouses who have forgotten to get the other half anything, or just late shopping as in not enough time.

I have luckily been able to get most of my shopping done already, just had an item to get for Saturday's birthdays party. Sad to be born so close to Xmas especially when a child but we all have to be born sometime.

Until recently the skies here in southern Finland were overcast for weeks, it was wet and murky which made me sad and depressed. Now with the weather colder, actually colder than normal for this time of the year in the whole country, when one gets to see the sun and sky makes one, at least me, much happier and more content with life. It is nice to know that on Monday the light changes and we will be having more daylight time every and each day, as now it looks more like it is sunset all day long.

Hair fashion trend

When you are living in Finland you are actually here to see what is going on, and one thing this country has been renowned for is its' blonde beauties.

Well, knowing more about the facts of life, and how things actually work, you learn to know that naturally blonde hair tends to darken with age forcing so many "once used to be naturally blondes" wanting to stay blonde, having their hair either highlighted or dyed blonde.

I have now caught up another trend, about hair colour that is.

In the summer there are more blondes than in the winters. At least it looks so, and judging from the shop shelves, in the summer all the do-it-yourself blonde dyes are out of stock, and in the fall the blondes seem to disappear and more brunettes and redheads are seen walking in the streets.

That must then mean that many women dyed their hair blonde for the summer, maybe to be more attractive in the summer months or to "have more fun" as they say blondes have. Maybe it is better to go back to normal daily routines for the winter and dye the hair brown in the fall, maybe dyeing it flaming red for the winter to brighten things up a little at Christmas.

Anyway, the seasons show in the way people dress, well, at least how the women dress. In the winter more sensible clothes and shoes are sought for, to keep dry and warm, and when the sun comes out in the spring, the heavy winter clothes are shedded showing all legs and bosoms and women turn blonde all of a sudden to match it.

Is this a new fashion trend I have spotted?

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.

Marrying for money

The weather forecast now promises subzero temperatures for Xmas, but whether there will be snow here in the south, that still remains a puzzle.

This year the first snow arrived later than the two previous years. This year there was no snow until end of November, whereas the previous years we had a snow blizzard that hit the country hard in change of October and November, still we had two black Xmas’.

So in the meantime, enjoy the picture of last Xmas’s snow!

Anyway, seeing a Finnish woman walking in the street with an outlandish looking man always makes people talk.

Comments such as: “what a shame she did not go for a decent Finnish man instead” or “she’s so ugly she had to buy her a man” are spoken out loudly in the street.
And this is in no way my own opinion; this is only what I have heard people say in the street.

Still, the general opinion about these mixed marriages seems to be, that they come here and live on Finnish welfare after their divorce. This may be true or may not, they might be as hard working as any Finn, or even more, but fact is, that these marriages have become a most lucrative business as you might obtain a permanent permit of residency here in Finland.

This gives an entirely new dimension to the expression: “marrying for money”.

The media say that these marriages of convenience are arranged for between thousands of Euros up to tens of thousands of Euros, and most frequently the other part comes from across the eastern border or from Africa or Thailand.

First frost night

Today is the Swedish Day and it is celebrated among the Swedish-Finns in this country.

Swedish Day is actually older than the national day itself, as it was first celebrated in the year 1908.

Anyway, with the ongoing decline of world economy, stock exchanges globally plunging on and off, I find it most annoying to watch the large amount of TV-programs about selling and buying property. Redecorate and make it up slightly, then you will get a better price for it. Fat chance!

Fact is that there is a decline in real estate here in Finland as seems to be globally, at least in the so called western part of the world, and people are less prone to take longterm loans with current mortgages.

Ah, time for a brisk walk. The sun is shining from a clear blue sky, and the air is crisp from the first night frost of the winter.

Vice of snow

Today southern Finland is once again in a vice of snow as it is currently in the grips of a blizzard.

Hard winds blowing of changing directions, mostly from northerly directions though and lots of snow twirling around in the air looking for some place to settle, quite like the blizzard we experienced on 1st of November 2006 when the offspring did not manage to get to school as the city buses did not run and stayed home all day, as school was cancelled to their delight and my personal nuisance.

Fortunately for me, this time the buses run and I am left home alone to wonder at the raging of the nature. Everything you see looking out of the window is white and most of it snow. Snow in the air, twisting and twirling around, snow on the ground and on trees weighing heavy on the branches the time it hangs there before twirling away again in the hard wind. Snow blowing all over, most of the time from right to left.

Another thing I have caught glimpses of has been the neighbourhoods’ old ladies going shopping, or their attempts of doing so. I have wondered do people not look out of their windows in order to check out the weather as to how to dress when exiting in order to know how to dress? Just like checking the thermometer for the temperature before hand.

Anyway, it has but been just a single incident but several of the old ladies, and the one odd old crone who is pestering the neighbourhood with her righteousness acting self appionted neighbourhood police, always ringing the police and parking guards to come and fine any parking offenders, that have come out of the front door of their building, that is the one next-door from ours and backed back indoors again, frightened by the drifts of snow that has gathered round. Quite wisely I would say though and no wonder in that. I had planned an outing myself into town, running some errands that need to be done but fortunately as there are not compulsory ones to attend to at this point, I have postponed my trip to a later date, maybe tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, depends on the snow and when the streets get cleared of the snow. By the way, some areas of the town take their time to become cleared, some never seem to be attended to and it seems no use complaining about it. Smaller off the beaten track streets are not as important as bigger, more trafficked ones to get snowfree, quite natural when you think of it, but such a nuisance to all pedestrians and old ladies with their shopping trolleys trailing behind them.

So I am finally getting back to my point here, it is not only old ladies that have trouble with snow, for you who have been reading my Blog before, you know I am quite accident prone and have made quite a few bad falls in my time, and the reason I am snuggling up in my bed with a nice, hot cup of tea is, I don’t want to take another fall, which I probably otherwise would have done today, knowing my previous history and given the chance, that is going out into the blizzard, as it is not that long ago I did my last, just after a heavy snowfall during the night that concealed the shining, sleek slippery ice beneath.

Later on, in the news tonight, there will be the usual reports of power cuts, unfortunate traffic accidents and cancelled ferry traffic over to Estonia.

So I am just a lady in waiting for calmer weather, as weather is the queen at present.

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.

Singing in the snow

Finland had it’s final in the out take for their representative to the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday.

The winners by far were the heavy metal band called Teräsbetoni, which in English would be “steel concrete” and they will be representing Finland in the contest in Belgrade, Serbia this May.

This means that Finland will give heavy rock music another shot this year, with the hosting of the contest last year after Lordi’s victory and having the first Finnish Idol winner representing in between with something not quite as heavy. Maybe the song contest is too lame, but hey it is called song contest and traditionally the songs have been quite boring and mellow, at least to my own personal taste. Maybe the future of this competition lies with in rock instead of folk music, ballads and songs.

I have been wondering about how the song contest will work out in reality in Serbia as the neighbouring country Kosovo just recently declared its’ independence as former part of the country and Serbia has not acknowledged it as they consider Kosovo as a part of their country, as one of their counties. Many of the countries partaking in the Eurovision song contest have already acknowledged the independence of Serbia and I wonder how this will affect the general atmosphere on site. But there still is some time for things to either calm down, or flame up fully.

Anyway, the southern part of this beautiful country of Finland is today experiencing yet another day of snow chaos, the record for snow set this winter this morning by 10 cms, the former being just 8 cms. The snow fall has meant a lot of snow shuffling on car parks and brushing off cars early this morning for all using them to get to work. On the 22^nd of February it was the warmest day with a record high 8,5 degrees Celsius measured in the month of February over a ten year period. So the winter really doesn’t know which way to go this year as the temperature is falling once again.

Another fabulous day

Some days really are a drag, and this certainly was one more of them, the ones you really could do without ever having to experience.
The morning went well with a nice late breakfast spent mostly in bed watching TV, but as the day went on things changed. The day was planned for some browsing on some nearby flea markets, just to get out and see if anything worth the while might find itself a new home with us. Walking out to the car I of course fell head over heels on the icy ground that had been concealed with fresh snow during the night scratching my both knees and right hand in the fall. So I had to get back inside and get changed as I was bleeding all over my jeans and the woolly I was wearing. Having rinsed off most of the blood from my wounds and leaving the clothes to soak in cold water in order to remove the blood stains, we happily left home and went shopping.

Nothing really worth to mention as bargain on any of the visited flea markets we did a few acquirements anyway and went home for some nice afternoon tea and that is the point I would like to do without of yesterday. Kettle on but with a loose lid on is not a good combination for this accident prone female and here we went again, of course the lid came off when I was pouring the hot boiling water into the teapot, and of course I burned my hand. Fortunately it was just my right hand, and not the pair of them, but it still was the already once injured one from the same morning.

When bleeding is hard to stop you sometimes use the measure of burning the wound, but a fresh wound that has just settled and is still throbbing is not a very delicious combination. The burns were as severe that I for some time actually considered seeking medical help for them but the some what surprisingly sounding house remedy of pouring as hot water on your burns as you can stand for as long as you can take it with out screaming too much is remarkable and helped once again. And the chamomile and St John’s Wort ointment is also another remarkably soothing thing to smear in on any kind of cuts, bruises or burns. Mind you this was not a minor burn but still treatable at home as result of the hot water treatment.

Still cooking had to be performed by someone, and that meant it was not the dinner we were supposed to be having.

Thank God for offspring and a taste for Mexican spicy food in crusty corn shells.

But this typing is no fun as it is.

Nothing done

This week has so far been a real drag with the ongoing winter vacation with the offspring being free from school, and friend that was off last week for her stitched thumb injured a second finger.

The next finger in line it seems as she continued by her left index finger, this time on her free time when cooking and once again the wound got stitched and she has a second week off from work. This means she has once again been visiting me more than usual, that it day time and I have got absolutely nothing at all done this week, as you probably can see by the lack of postings on my Blog.

Anyway, today on the 21^st of February is the 200^th anniversary of the beginning of the Finno-Russian war.

Two hundred years ago the Russians declared war on Sweden by attacking Finland and thus Finland became a part of the Russian empire instead of having until then been a part of the Swedish kingdom. Maybe I should proclaim some kind of state of emergency in order to get things done by stipulating a time when nobody is to disturb me as close enough to be able to get by me allowing them to disturb me are all aware of my blogging. Do not disturb between the hrs 10-12 am for instance. But then it really is up to me to tell them that, not to just leave a sign attached to the door for them to read.

At Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the northern Atlantic, or might it actually be the arctic sea as it really is way, way up north, they had an earthquake with a 6,2 on the Richter scale. I have never ever heard of any earthquakes in the Nordic countries except for Iceland where there is substantial seismic activity going on all the time. This actually reminds me of a subject I wanted to blog about already some time ago, but I guess I will have to get back to you on that in due time, maybe tomorrow already I will have time to elaborate on some ideas about the possessions of Icelandic investment companies in Finland, as they currently own more than just shares of the Finnish airline Finnair that I have mentioned about earlier.

Cold Valentine’s

The celebration of the last school day for the soon to be graduates from upper secondary schools in Finland celebrated with their traditional parades on around the country in more cold weather than we have been accustomed to this winter.

Hard wind gusts were blowing straight across the arctic from the North Pole but this had none what so ever effect on the traditional celebrations for the students parading from the back of lorries throwing sweets at the spectators and people passing by. A very cold Valentine’s Day is celebrated today.

This year more than 40.000 students are taking their final exams beginning in a month’s time. This is the day the second year students become eldest in their schools, which is traditionally celebrated by having a formal dress ball tomorrow night in each upper secondary school in the country.

This means there might be some problems concerning how to dress and behave to deal in the near future, as well as someone in the house studying, or at least pretending to be studying. Fortunately there have already been discussions about having ambulating study sessions at several school mates’ homes, which might be a good idea at least from my point of view.

Polar bears in Finland

Since the year 2000 Finland has hosted the World championships in winter swimming and this year they will for the first time be held outside of Finland, this time in London to my great surprise.

The championships will be held in UK's largest cold-water open-air swimming pool this weekend and I guess they can cool down a pool of water as well as heat it up, the temperature is said to be at cool 3 degrees Celsius which would be about the temperatures it would have been if swimming either in a lake or the sea in the Nordic countries, even despite the mildest winter in a generation, or “a man’s memory” as it would be expressed over here in Finland.

But not in any man’s memory has there been any wild polar bears wandering free around the countryside here in Finland nor in any of the other Nordic countries, only a few species living in captivity in Zoos and guess no one will be living that day as the climate is getting warmer all the time.

I guess I am not the only one to have considered the National Geographic’s Magazine as a reliable source of information on wildlife and nature, but I just recently heard that they published information about the polar bears in Finland to soon die of extinction, because of the effects of global warming.

Curios about whether this possibly could be true, I googled it, and to my great surprise I discovered that the National Geographic’s had indeed published such a thing, but that they had since updated their information in beginning of January this year. Well, I know that the general impression has that there are walking wild polar bears in all of the Nordic countries, but I would have expected such a reputable magazine the check their facts before publishing, they normally do have people employed just to do such background research, or at lest they used to in earlier days.

Well, we all make our fair share of mistakes but you must admit this was a bad one!

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.

Cat naps

That people living in the northern hemisphere, way up north as here in the Nordic countries are deficient of vitamin D, but not until just recently it was in research discovered how badly deficient we are. Sunlight being the main source of this vitamin D, or to be more accurate being in the sunlight makes our skin synthesize more vitamin D, and with a one week vacation to the sun cures the deficiency temporarily for about three months time.

Vitamin D is also in the food we eat, and most of us probably know that we get if from fish, especially fat fish like salmon eel, mackerel and sardines as well as vitamin fortified dairy products but to my surprise I found out that a good source are these tube formed chanterelles and the picking of them this fall have been blogging about earlier

They have now discovered that the official intake recommendations of vitamin D have been way too low, as the functions of the vitamin D is more complex than was believed earlier and it actually more works more like a steroid hormone. The research indicated that vitamin D deficiency has a role in causing many varieties of cancer as well as heart disease, stroke, hypertension, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, chronic pain, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis and muscle weakness. It is also clear that the presence of vitamin A in food supplements might inhibit our ability to digest the additional vitamin D, so now I have one more reason to stay out in the sun when it is shining, and to take more keep in mind what we eat to and if taking any food supplements read the label more carefully in order to get enough vitamin D.

Today the sky is overcast so there is no use going out for that reason, and besides I have caught a bad cold I have to cure first. I’ll be hard on the best cure at hand, staying in bed all bad with lots of steaming hot chamomile tea with a couple of tablespoons with honey in it.

And nothing had happened during the weekend we were away, so the offspring must’ve behaved well, both cats were safe and sane. Well, it still is a question mark concerning to little gremlin-kitten, but she has occasionally shown some tendencies to behave like a little cat and we do not receive as many bite marks any longer as she can take a nap on my chest for a while. And this is a very good heater for sore bronchial tubes when coming down with a cold.

Finally something she has a natural born talent for, taking a nap on a sore, feverish chest.

Leaving them home alone

It seems to be gathering up to one of the traditional traffic chaos’s here in Finland as the snow is pouring down.

I am lucky to be done with the acquirements of provisions and necessities, if you know what I mean, for the weekend, as just the two of us, dear spouse and me, will be leaving the city for the deep neck of woods. A good time for us to be just the two of us, instead of always being mummy and daddy as when the offspring is present.

We also will be leaving the offspring home alone with a deal of no modern gadgets with us. If anything happens there is no mummy or daddy to turn to, the offspring will have to deal with the situation.

There is to be no PC for me to blog on, both our mobiles are to be switched off the whole weekend until Sunday afternoon when we are to return back home. No clocks and no time to bother about just a cosy cabin with an open fire, a sauna which of course is one of the Finnish necessities, no electricity but still running water indoors. Thank god there is no need to lift the water from the well in the yard by hand or by a pump outdoors. Being without electricity also meant some planning food wise for me as there is no fridge to stuff with the produce, but is still is clod as a fridge outdoors which makes it a bit easier with the food. Even the more private facilities are ecological and the two types to be separated in order to get out the most benefit of the product. I still am in doubt about taking a dip in the lake or a roll naked in the snow that is said to be very invigorating, even with a steaming hot sauna to return back to afterwards.

My main concern us adults being away for the weekend is our little baby girl, the one more like a naughty gremlin at times, if she still will be with us or if she fallen off the balcony from the 5^th floor. Actually this is a bit misleading, us living on the 5^th floor. Here in Finland you count the ground floor as the 1st floor, so it really means that we are just 4 floors up in the building according to common sense in other countries. This does of course not mean that the Finns are wrong; it is just another way of counting the floors in a multi-storey building.

Anyway, as our baby girl is as fast as she so far has been with everything, running around the place when she is switched on that she need some looking after, our older gentleman will be okay as he is old enough to know what the balcony is about. And the offspring is old enough to cope with cooking and everything else, that I have no doubts about what so ever, but will they cope with little, tiny but ever so stubborn and fast miss little gremlin?

This also means that I won’t be able to blog about anything, even if I wanted to, until Sunday late afternoon, possibly not until Monday.

German protests

The Finnish mobile phone manufacturer Nokia has decided to close down their plant in Bochum, Germany.

Now the Germans public is protesting against the closing down and they are calling for people to stop buying and using Nokia phones. What does the closing down of one single technology manufacturer do for Germany and their unemployment? How can a number of 2.300 employees loosing their jobs make such a big issue of it for the even the German chancellor get upset about it and demanding a clarification form Nokia’s directors.

I think there obviously must be something here I have not quite understood, something the media has left out reporting about the news or I have just not been observant enough to see.

Anyway, another cake day today, which means I have to bake one of my annual anniversary cakes and I can not get out of it. The weather having been so depressing lately and now with some snow having fallen from the sky the scenery looks absolutely delicious to eat and I have been longing to go out and take some pictures of it, as you’ll never know it is the last time there is snow here this winter as the weather forecast tells there is warmer weather to expect and it will not stay for long before it melts into water again.

Maybe I could nip out for just a couple of hours…