Lost Post 4: What not to take on a bike ride

Hazards for cyclists... From Kesä10 - lost postcards

Imagine it is the middle of summer again - heinäkuu 2010 to be exact - remember the blue skies, 20 hours of light, 30+°C heat? You are going with your partner on a ten day cycling/camping holiday around Saimaa, starting in Parikala and ending with a few days at a friend's mökki near Haukivouri (see map) - about 350km in all. You can't be sure if the weather will hold, and for every cyclists's instinct shouting 'travel light' there is the camper's instinct whispering 'be prepared'. It may be warm and dry today, but it could be 10° colder, wet and windy in a weeks time. What do you take? 

Lost Post 3: Pesis

Pesäpallo: From Kesä10 - lost postcards

What is the national sport of Finland?

First thoughts go to ice hockey, followed shortly by jääpallo (ice hockey with a ball), mäkihyppy (ski jumping), and rally driving (although maybe that's just a mode of transport to the match).

But apparently some claim it is pesäpallo or pesis. Well maybe in the summer. If you live in what Konna disparagingly refers to as 'middle-finland' - Helsinki doesn't even have a pesäpallo stadium these days...

Same old same old

Not the view from my window: From Favourites

Like the UK, we are also having an early cold and snowy winter in Finland and looking to last another week at least... -33°C in Lapland last night and -16 forecast here for the weekend. Even in Helsinki we have about 10cm of snow on the ground, which we've had for a couple of weeks now. Our newly purchased thermometer tells me it has warmed up a few degrees and now is only -10.6°C outside. After last winter it all seems pretty common place now (not having a picturesque view from my window, makes it all seem a bit wasted somehow) but good news for all those enthusiasts who got excited and bought new skis last year I guess!

I really must buy a proper winter coat this year...

Lost Post 2: veden varaan

Veden Varaan was the no.1 platinum album by PMMP (2009)

Still waiting for a review from Breaking More Waves though...

 
It seems to me that the Finns have the same wary relationship to water (vesi, vetä, veden) and damp in the home as the Brits do to electricity (sähkö) - treat as a potential hazard (varaa).

In Britain we have fuses on everything, ring mains, plugs the size of a brick, and are (apparently) terrified of the thought of light switches without pull cords in our bathrooms, let alone power sockets or appliances - or at least the people who wrote our regulations were. Meanwhile we Brits seem to accept a bit of damp in our walls and when was the last time anyone in UK switched the water off to their washing machine or dishwasher between uses? And do we put our washing machine in our bathroom (with a power socket next to the shower) with a fully 'wet' i.e. tiled and drained floor just in case there is an overflow? Or on a special plastic tray for the same purpose? Back Suomessa while you can't wire a switch to a two pin plug and know which pole will be live or neutral, every kitchen sink in Finland has an extra tap or two for the washing appliances.

47 down

What to do when you forget your book: From Kesä10 - lost postcards

Now that I have embarked on my 'Lost Posts' mission, I'm going to immediately set it aside for this...

Here's a list that originally allegedly* came from the BBC but I picked up from Ganching.
You copy the list and then bold the books you have read completely and italicize those that you have partly read or dipped into.

Apparently the average person has read 6 of these books. Yes only six... frightening.

Lost Post 1: Rock on

Uudessa eteisessa: From Kesä10 - lost postcards

To make the point that I really could maybe have, probably, at a stretch, if I really wanted to, have found a thing or two to scrape together, to fabricate (in the very best way) the merest hint of a few lines of a post, over the last, oh let's say, six months, I'm going to have to own up to the fact that we bought, decorated and moved home back in kesäkuu (that's June for anyone who hasn't changed their date and time settings to Suomi on their computer).

Of course one advantage loss you do have of course is missing out on the excruciating exciting ... kävin K-Rautassa taas ostamaan valkoista maalata ... type blog posts.

Tyhjä arkki tympäännyttää

headspace: from Biennale 2010

Prevaricate. Procrastinate. Vacillate. Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow? Hedge. Dodge. Delay. Beat around the bush. Sidestep. Equivocate. Temporize. Stall. Evade. Hem and haw.

English is full of synonyms for viivytellä - the art of not doing something quite yet. And unfortunately (as you may have got an inkling from this blog... or rather it's recent lack thereof) I am somewhat prone to this condition myself. I have also been developing Prevaricate 2.0 - not doing something because I should be doing something else and because although I am not doing that either not allowing myself to do the other thing as that would be an excuse for not doing what I should be doing, thus removing any excuse (but still failing to do what was meant to be done in the first place - in case you were wondering).

So, to cut a long story into small pieces, stick it back together badly, and end up with something even longer and more confusing that the original, my unbelievably lame excuse for not posting here is that I should have been too busy doing other things... like trying to learn finnish, run my business efficiently, get more work, exercise, ja niin edelleen...

And without further ado, ladeez an' genelmen, may I introduce "the lost posts" ...