Simple pleasures...

A couple of days at home are giving me the chance to catch up on some of the things I've missed in Finland, apart from the family.

... dinner in a pub - blissfully they are all smoke free since July 1. We went to the Fox Inn in Ellisfield, one of our favourites. Pete the landlord made us feel welcome and we enjoyed a couple of pints and some home cooked food.

... I got to listen to Today on BBC Radio 4 while driving to the station this morning. OK, so I can listen over the web while I'm away, but the two hour time difference makes it impractical to get my fix of news in English every morning. This morning was a bonus, with John Humphrys and Ed Stourton. For the non-UK readers, Humphrys is a bit of an institution.

... a bacon sandwich on unhealthy, white bread and a mug, not a cup, of tea in a proper London cafe - the Savoy (not the famous one) in Norton Folgate. I can't think of many foods with less nutritional value but, oh, it was good.

I don't know art, but I know what I like...

Friday night was apparently the Night of the Arts in Helsinki, but I felt too tired when I got home from shopping to go out again. Instead, I thought I might see some performers still out and about on Saturday. I was not wrong, but I suspect this artiste and her troupe were not part of the official programme.

She was in the park at Esplanadi, with a poodle and a few cats, all of which were performing for the delight of the crowd. I shall have to have words with our three cats when I get back to the UK on Tuesday night.

Another weekend in Helsinki

It seems quite strange to be spending a weekend on my own in Helsinki, as so much of my time recently has been (thankfully) with the family. Today is Sally's 15th birthday: the first in her lifetime that I have not been with her, though at her age fortunately I don't think it is too much of a worry that I am more than 3,000 miles away. I called her earlier and sang Happy Birthday, so I expect she is quite pleased that I am not in the same country.

I managed to spend the morning on chores and shopping, so by lunch time I rewarded myself with lunch at the market in the South Harbour. The early afternoon involved more shopping, including for Stephanie's wedding anniversary present, followed by a visit to Molly Malone's bar.

Alex and Terry were the bar staff on duty, they are respectively Tasmanian and Irish. There are two main reasons why you'll find non-Finnish men living in Helsinki. The first is mine; working for Nokia. The second is theirs; Finnish women. Now, I'm just coming up to my 17th wedding anniversary, so can't comment much on their reason, other than to say that if gentlemen truly prefer blondes, then their odds of finding a preferred partner are increased if they include Finnish women in their list of potential partners.

It has been a long time since I had 5 pints at lunchtime, but today I did so. Wonderful Guinness, Beamish and Spitfire were the reasons. I shall have to wait a while before I start the ironing, the next chore on my list, lest the creases down the sleeves don't come out straight.

I left my knee..in San Francisco...

Well, not really, but I did take a bit of a tumble over the unfeasibly large kerb stones on the sidewalk outside our hotel on the first night we were in that city. We had arrived late, the bar was closed, room service had ended and a couple of the 21+ members of our party fancied a glass of wine. I tripped over before I found the liquor store and had imbibed, should the more cynical amongst you suspect I had fallen foul of bacchanalian indulgence. I was tired, it was dark and I was distracted; a nasty graze and ripped shorts were the result. I got about as much sympathy from my family as I sense you are feeling, gentle reader.

More photographs will follow on the blog, but as we are now back in England, the day has consisted of feeding the washing machine with the result of two weeks of living out of suitcases...of which we acquired three more whilst in the US, brimming with the treasure gleaned from numerous malls. Surprisingly, I bought four pairs of shoes, exceeding Stephanie's normal prowess at footwear shopping.

Tomorrow I fly back to Helsinki and anticipate a week of evenings spent ironing. Such domestic bliss! I hope the exercise will help me lose some of the additional ballast gained from eating out twice a day for the last fortnight!

Escape from Alcatraz...

One of the sights you cannot avoid seeing from the shore in San Francisco is Alcatraz, the former federal penitentiary with a reputation for keeping the hardest criminals under lock and key. Ironically, the toughest jail to get out of is now the most difficult to get into. Although you can now visit the Rock by boat, the tours sell out several days in advance so we could not visit it ourselves. The nearest we got was on a seaplane tour of the San Francisco bay area - the photo shows it just off the nose of the Beaver aircraft we were flying in. After years of flying under the Golden Gate bridge on Microsoft Flight Simulator, I finally got the chance to fly over it for real. You get a great perspective on this beautiful city from 1,500 feet up!

Leaving Las Vegas ...

Yesterday we left LV and made the 9 hour drive to San Francisco. Vegas is a crazy city full of extremes and surprises. Whatever you've heard about it is probably true, but not the whole truth. We stayed at the Luxor, a pyramid with around 2,400 bedrooms and elevators that go up diagonally inside. Our best view of the hotel was from the air as we took off for a helicopter flight to the Grand Canyon and a champagne picnic inside the canyon. One of the best experiences ever. This underscored the difference between LV, indeed the whole of the US, and other holiday destinations ... scale. Here's looking forward to a little more peace in San Francisco!

Taking the Mickey...

Today we are at Disneyland. Thanks to Ellie's cunning plans, by 10:30 we had done four of the biggest rides with hardly any time standing in line.

Farewell to Helsinki...

This is the view from the lounge at Vantaa airport. I'm on the first flight to Heathrow at 7.45am and I hope Stephanie will see this post when she starts the PC to check my expected arrival time before driving to the airport to meet me! This is my first post sent by email from my Nokia N95.

Normal service will be resumed...

...in a couple of weeks. I'm off on my holidays, after seven weeks of living in Finland. I can't believe it is nearly three months since I left my last job. The time has flown by.

While I'm away, I'm going to try posting to the blog directly from my phone. We're travelling in California, so I hope to bring news from LA, Las Vegas and San Francisco. Please stay tuned for Finn-Mark's travels in the USA...

Alright now....in fact, it was a gas

I was lucky enough (thanks, boss) to see the Rolling Stones live at the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki tonight. The show was excellent, though at one stage I did wonder whether Keith would manage to stay upright through the whole performance.

They played most of their classics and got a great reception from the audience - the Finns love to rock!

As the sun went down and the evening grew darker, the light show behind the stage was spectacular, with a massive screen showing feeds from multiple TV cameras. The highlight for me, though, was when the band, on a moving section of stage, came out into the audience and played some of their old numbers.

I only hope I look as good as Mick does when I am his age. A sentiment shared, I think, by Stephanie!