Dreaming of a White Christmas ...

I have now been home for two nights and I'm not flying back to Finland tomorrow. I think my body has finally realised I'm not just here for the weekend and is now starting to relax.

We had a glorious weekend before I left with friends Graham, Barbara, Jim and Linda. Lots of adventures and visits, the photos of which are all cunningly stored on the PC in my Helsinki apartment, so those will have to be posted another time. But the weather there helped to get the season feeling truly festive; we had snow whilst walking from the Winter Gardens to restaurant Sea Horse for Sunday lunch and, by Tuesday when Graham, Barbara and I visited Porvoo, temperatures were down to minus 15.

I flew back on Thursday, amidst threats of a BA strike, thankfully now averted. Had I tried flying a day later, the snow might have prevented my arrival, as several UK airports were closed by an amount of snow that my Finnish friends would consider an unimpressive start to winter. But on Thursday, I put all my experience of regularly travelling this route into action. I dawdled somewhat coming off the plane at London Heathrow, ensuring that I was the last passenger on the first bus from aircraft to terminal building. Doing this ensures that I am the first off at the arrivals hall, whereupon I stride out as a man on a mission, walking the (it feels like) five miles from entry point to passport hall. The unpredictable IRIS machine worked (yay) and so I was through passport control without queueing. And despite the UK baggage handlers showing sympathy for their striking Finnish colleagues by putting our bags on the furthest belt from the exit, my case (loaded with Glögi, Finnish chocolate and smoked Reindeer) was the first off the aircraft. I was out to the arrivals hall less than thirty minutes from landing, a personal best when travelling with luggage!

The photo shows the sight that greeted me from our living room window on Friday morning. I am so glad that I repainted the sheep in the summer, as their previous somewhat green tinge (from four years or so of lichen growth) would have been rather noticeable against the white carpet which nature had provided as their setting, for the next few days at least. Will the snow last until Christmas? I rather hope so.

A day less ordinary ...

Well, I think today (actually yesterday, by now) has probably been the most diverse set of experiences in the two years, five months and thirteen days since I moved to Finland.

It started with a text message at around 8am from one of the newswire journalists, suggesting that I might want to frame the day's copy of Kauppalehti, a business newspaper here. It turned out that a briefing I had given on Tuesday on a legal case had resulted in a story including my official photo, printed rather larger than the photo of our company chairman on the previous page. Surely a career limiting move!

Today was our Capital Markets Day, to which we invite representatives of our major shareholders and investment analysts, as well as journalists. It was only my second time wearing a suit and tie this quarter, part of my role was to press the button to advance the slides for my executive vice president who was presenting.

The event ran a little over its scheduled time, so I had to rush to my car to drive home and change to be assistant stage manager for the Finn-Brit Players' performance this evening. Thankfully, I was not too late and there were no traffic cops around.

The show was great, making me wish for the second time this year that I was performing rather than part of the technical crew. An evening in Marian Helmi, coincidentally my local, ensued.

I was rather grateful that none of my Finn-Brit friends had read Kauppalehti this morning, I got quite enough teasing on that from colleagues earlier. One of the joys of the group is that it matters not a jot what you do to earn a crust, you are taken on your merits as a performer or supporter, nothing more and nothing less.

On Friday, I will fly home to see my wife and daughter in their show. I only hope they have had as much fun as I have this week. I can't wait to see their performances.