Feeling connected ...

A couple of weeks ago, I passed my second anniversary of moving to Finland and starting my new job. The combination of that together with an impending "big" birthday next year has put me in rather a reflective mood over the last couple of weeks.

Living away from your home country is a great way of learning about what you have taken for granted. Of course, top of the list are family and friends; I now value the opportunities I get to spend time with both far more than I used to. Then there are more subtle things, such familiar foods and beverages; I've noted before on this blog the challenges of finding fruit cake and Pimms in Finland. Finally, there are the experiences which give a feeling of connection to what has been left behind.

This weekend was a good example. Whilst my US friends were celebrating Independence Day on Saturday, I was preparing to have a few people at my apartment for a brunch and the chance to watch the Wimbledon Men's Finals on Sunday. Last year, I upgraded my Welho cable subscription to get live coverage, but this year, the same channel was not showing the matches. Instead, I was able to add a one month subscription to the Swedish TV4 channel, so that we could see the images at least. I had this in mind as my plan B, as plan A was to watch through the BBC iPlayer, using a UK proxy service. For those not too technical, this is a way of getting round the BBC's restriction of only allowing UK based viewers to see the program. Since I do pay for a TV licence in the UK, I did not feel too bad at finding a way around that limitation.

However, in the end, the BBC's servers were overwhelmed it seems, so I could not stream the live coverage. So, we had Wimbledon Radio via the Internet, providing an English commentary whilst watching the game with the Swedish audio off. This was also instructional, as we learned that live coverage is not always live. There was a delay of several seconds between the pictures and the sound. Initially, the commentators were describing the action before we saw it happen. (If Roddick had been able to tap in to this, the outcome might have been different!). After a while though, the sound was lagging up to 12 seconds behind the play on screen. At this point, we used the "timeshifting" feature of my cable box to delay the picture by about the same time, ending up with a satisfactory pairing of sound and vision.

It was a good match. But the enjoyment for me was increased enormously by sharing it with friends from Helsinki. We did have strawberries and cream, as well as a few glasses of Pimms, the staple fare of Wimbledon goers. And somehow it made me feel closer to my wife back at home, who I knew would be watching the games avidly, as she always does. I look forward to the simple pleasure, previously taken for granted, of being able to share such experiences with her again when my time here is done.