A new week

Sub in snow

19.1 Tuesday - Woke up 8-9 with no alarm clock. Around 9-10 we drove to Telefoto and picked up some goose necks, then to Verkkokauppa to get a sub woofer to our office and then to Mall of Tripla to pick up the speakers that Titus had ordered from Germany. We bought some lunch supplies to make sandwiches and drove to the office. At the office we attached lists and drilled holes for the new speakers. I drove home to pick up my skies and then drove Espoo. I met Kai in Oittans.

Skiing with Kai

He had rented skies and I had my own. My boots had been eaten by mice on one shaft, so now I know that the boots have been swapped with my fathers. He has mine and I need to get them back. We went skiing for at least 5 km. It was so pleasant. We got back before 6 so that Kai could return his rental skies. I drove back to Helsinki.    

20.1 Wednesday - The morning is hazy - I cannot remember what was going on. At the office we attached lists to the walls. We went for lunch to Royal Nepal in Vallila. 

Lunch time

We drove from the office to our storage place at Kaarlenkatu and carried down the last junk from the office. First I was angry, then Titus. 

It's not about what you do - it's how you do it

Renovation completed

I had pressed the whole day to go skiing. I reached the track at around 8. I skied about 25 km. It was fun and the tracks were so good I felt I was skiing in Lapland. 

Skiing landscape 1

Skiing landscape 2

My fathers boot was clamping and I got a chafed back foot. I could ski all the way to Töölö Bay and from there I walked back home. I bought some milk on the way and it was about 23:00 when I reached home. I took a shower. 

21.1 Thursday - we woke up and had the standard coffee and dates. Clayhill met at our old apartment at 10 and started tearing down the last bits of the decor for the kids show Lekisdagis that we shot at the apartment.

3D printed from Kiva films

We carried everything down to the cellar where we have a small room. From there we drove to Tripla and had lunch at Tortilla house. 

Tortilla lunch

From there we drove to a 2nd hand sports shop. Maria and Titus bought skies. It was snowing hard. Then we drove to the same ski tracks from yesterday and Titus and I skied 15 km. Now my back foot was seriously chafed. 

Me skiing, photo by Titus

We drove back home and went to sauna. After that some improvised tomato-tuna pasta. Good exercise.

22.1 Friday - On Friday we attached the lids to the lists after having pulled the last cables. Finally the office was done and it was neat! We walked home and bought some pike-pearch. We ate it with oven veggies. I stayed up for a bit too long and didn't sleep to well.  

These are the mornings

A flower

23.1 Saturday - We started cleaning after a slow breakfast. We started the cleaning of the whole house- Sauna at around 4:45. I played some railroad tycoon 3 on my old computer but when I tried to merge by railway company with a competitor the computer crashed and I quit. More than this, I struggle to remember.  

Time for hair cut and weight loss

Warmer days

24.1 Sunday - Slow breakfast. I continued the cleaning by a complete scrub of the whole bathroom. Floor tile by floor tile. Then I mopped the floor and we went through our most cluttered closet. Now it's in perfect order. Then I went through my administration. All papers are in folders, mostly in chronological order. Feels good even though I didn't get anal with it. I will look at very few of the documents ever in the future. That concluded the 2 day cleaning. 

Cleaning up

We went for a latish walk. The city is covered in sleet and we made sure not to walk too close to our office. On the way back we stopped in Lidl and bought some groceries to enable our sub-sequential sandwich making. We watched something on TV and ate our sandwiches. 

Rue difficile

25.1 Monday - On Mondays you go back to work. No alarm clock but woke up at around 8. I started the day by working on the cartoon for our podcast. The concept and most of the line art was ready so it was mostly polishing the final drawing and coloring it. With a cup of coffee and a smoothie. After that a light breakfast - two slices of bread with German salami sausage. 

Onwards! To work!

Then we walked to work and there I rigged the podcast recording studio. Joni arrived and we had our weekly meeting with the national broadcaster and then we recorded an episode about status and money. Joni left after we went trough some administration. 

Arrival of podcast host

I started slowly editing the episode and had some lunch, coffee and fastlagsbulle (bun with whipped cream and almond paste). I was done with chopping the structure at around 21:30. I walked home via buying groceries. I sat on a Persian mat, brushed my teeth and went to sleep.   

Late at work

26.1 Tuesday - I woke up exceptionally early. 4:45. I got up 5:30. Since then I have been sitting in our blue sofa and writing. The city hasn't still woken up and it is 6:25. I just read an article about a report on how our political systems are unable to deal with climate change. Feels like I've been there. 

Now it's 14:20 and I have edited the podcast episode ready and read through a contract.

The snow is here

11.1 Monday - On Monday it was back to the office. I have difficulties grasping memories from my head. Let's see if I can tease something out. Was it snowing already then? I stayed quite late at the office and looked as sofas for the office. Titus had made up his made an forced his will upon us. A new co-office person was at the office. 

12.1 Tuesday - On Tuesday the snow had come. It continued to snow. We walked to the office and Titus was waiting already there. We bought a sofa for 110. It was completely overpriced and uncomfortable. We took it inside and we felt how uncomfortable it is. The day I worked. At home I fried some sausages, potatoes and boiled carrots. After that I went snow riding with Titus, Ellen and Sara. There was a good amount of snow.

Shopping sofas from van


13.1 Wednesday

There was even more snow today. I recorded a new episode with Joni and after that we walked to our place and dag out the car from the snow. It was snow crazy. We made it to Joni's, I dropped him off and drove back. I edited the whole day and managed to get the episode ready for mixing. 

Clearing paths.

Buried cars

Lunch at the desk

14.1 Thursday

I worked from home in the morning drawing on a comic. In the afternoon we worked on a documentary we are working on. 

15.1 Friday

On Friday was a normal day at work. We had a meeting about another show and in the end of the day I made a tiny bit of music before going home. At home we ate something nice but I forget what it was. 

Office lights alit

16.1 Saturday - On Saturday I slept a bit longer. I had bread and egg for breakfast. Maria had porridge. I washed up, tried to figure out how the car heater works and checked the apartment I would need to start renovating. 

Time to fix this place

Then I picked up Maria from the office, Titus from his place and a package at Mall of Tripla

Package

We drove via Kirkkonummi center to our parents and had a nice pizza meal. We were concerned that there wouldn't enough but we were wrong. In the evening we went sliding and it was -20. Sleeping.

17.1 Sunday

We had breakfast and then we went out to take of snow from the roof. The snow had wrecked the boat cover. 

Snow work

Snow away

Abandoned potatoes

The view of my childhood

We went to have a look at a house that is for sale at our village. Then home for food. 

Food

In the evening we went to sauna and drove back to Helsinki.

18.1 Monday - Woke up from a slightly uneasy night. I woke up at around 7:30 with the same feeling. The toilet floor was warm. At 8.10 I meant to leave our house but the gate to the street wasn't opening. It was some snow that was in its way. I cleared the snow and arrived 10 minutes late. With Joni on board we drove to the office and set up the podcast studio. We recorded episode 10 and had some hard biscuits. I drove Joni back to the suburbs and drove back to the office. I had a meeting on line and ate muesli with a melon from Brazil and Turkish yogurt presumably from Finland.  

At the office I edited the episode in a disciplined fashion so by the end of the afternoon I was done with the episode. We had a weekly meeting and the day was done. We drove to Lidl and bought dinner ingredients. It was snowing again and the streets were bumpy. At home Maria made delicious chicken Iranian way and I washed up. After dinner I have been resting. Like real resting with a big R. Now is now.

Delish

 

End of 2020 - start of 2021

2021 - time to lose weight, photo by Maria

So, I see I have been waiting for too long with updating the blog. I have come up with a solution to ensure timely, detailed and frequent posts. I will not share any details of my plan.

On the 22nd we drove to my parents place. It was Titus, Maria and me.

23.12 Wednesday

In Lidl, photo by Maria

We went for Christmas food shopping and that included Lidl, Prisma and K-City market. We drove back and prepared Christmas foods. Casseroles and ginger bread. We brought in the Christmas tree and decorated it. Earlier in the morning we also covered the motor boat in the garden for the winter. We played Koehandel in the evening. 

Make making his traditional bread

Preparing for Christmas

Gingerbread in the making

Entertainment by Titus, photo by Maria

IT-support

24.12 Thursday

Christmas Eve! That is fun but I have to admit that I have worked so hard that I didn't have enough time to slow down for Christmas. My dream is to start enjoying Christmas already on the 1st of December. 

We had a light breakfast and then my older brother and his family arrived. I sent my last work email 11:59. Then the traditional Christmas peace was declared on the radio. We had some rice porridge and I got the almond so I had to wash up. After that Isak, Titus, Maria and me went for a walk in the forest. The kids declined. We saw some forest and some fields. There was a nice mist laying low over the land. At home we had some bulla and other sweet things. We went to sauna and after sauna we had our Christmas dinner. Everything was the same as previous years and it was lovely except the herring was rotten. Father Christmas arrived (me) and all presents were handed out. We danced and then the kids and grown ups unwrapped their gifts. I got too much sweets. 

Reading a letter from the past

Father Christmas

Christmas dinner table

After the food 1

After the food 2

After the food 3

25.12 Friday

Christmas day. We woke up and had a traditional breakfast that included different patés. After breakfast we went for a walk to Masaby. There we found a ball and played football. It was a real match and it was the highlight of the Christmas. We walked back and had lutfisk (google it if you are interested). After that we had some tasty dessert. 

Breakfast time

Fixing problems

Need for speed

Need for speed 2

Need for speed 3

Isak hurt his knee

About 96 kg in air

Official team picture

Walking home after football match

Isak and his family went back in the evening.

26.12 Saturday

The next day we went to the Meiko area, which is a natural park, kind of. We walked around the lake and it got dark before we came back.

Here we come 2021

Project man

Pristine nature

Taking time off

Snack time

Snack time

We walked to the car and drove back home. We had Christmas left overs and it was delicious.

27.12 Sunday

On Sunday Ellen's parents visited us.

Childhood landscape

Presenting to the world - my parents bedroom

Me. Photo by Maria

After the visit we relaxed. We went for a walk and looked at a house Titus would like to buy. In the evening we played Ticket to ride. I got last. 

Recovering

Inspection

My hometown

 Narrow escape

When we come home the walk a tasty turkey was waiting for us, dead.

End of days

28.12 Monday

It was Pekka's birthday and we woke up early. We sang for him and then we drove to our parents cottage in Fagervik. We fixed on the place the whole day. We cut down some treas and we cut the hedge. A lot of good work done.

Preparing for a days work

Lunch break

Barbered hedge

When we came back Isak and his family was waiting for us. We made quickly some pizza. Titus had made the sauce and dough the day before. It was tasty. Isak and Jonna left but the kids stayed with us.

Reading a book about fishing

Contemplating the wonders of life

Brushing teeth

29.12 Tuesday

We woke up in the morning and after breakfast and cleaning up and attaching the boat cover properly we were going to Helsinki. We packed up, ate tortillas and sat in front of the TV.

Breakfast time

Breakfast time 2

Breakfast time 3

30.12 Wednesday

We decided to go to my parents cottage in Porkala for the new year. We got in the car and drove to Kirkkonummi. We got the key at my parents place and had a big feast at Mc Donald's. We had little inspiration for food but bought some thing.

Driving in Helsinki

At the parking lot

We heated the house, threw out 3 dead mice and dried the sheets and mattresses. We went to sauna and swimming in the cold sea. Time to sleep.

31.12 Thursday

I went for a long rowing trip to open sea. I felt someone was watching me and then I heard breathing. It was a seal. It was a connection with nature. I only saw to other small boats. It was raining and I was fishing but I got nothing.

The seal

No fish

The cottage

The swans were fighting in the bay. We went to sauna and swimming. For new years dinner we had a three course meal.

1.1 Friday

It was a new year. We went for a rowing trip to the island Linlo. We saw seals again. They are curious when it comes to people rowing. 

Maria rowing

Pause

We went to sauna and had dinner. Relaxing indoors is cozy. 

2.1 Saturday

We drove back to my parents place after having cleaned the place, including emptying the toilet. We stayed over night at my parents place. It started snowing in the evening and it felt finally that winter was coming. We went for a walk and enjoyed the snow fall. 

Winter is here

Urban's cozy place

We also checked a place that I am a little interested in.

3.1 Sunday

We went back in the morning to Helsinki. I went on my first run of the year, 4.69 km

4.1 Monday 

This was the first day back after Christmas holidays. The day was spent in the office and in the evening we went for a walk, 6.44 km

5.1 Tuesday

On Tuesday we recorded a new episode for the blog. In the evening I went for a 2nd run, 8.59 km.

6.1 Wednesday

7.1 Thursday

8.1 Friday

On Friday we went shopping for supplies for the office. We bought some lunch and had a pizza party at the office.

Secret celebration

The rest of the day and until late, like 22:30 we were fixing the office.

9.1 Saturday 

Yesterday was the last day of fully fledged renovation mode. We finished most of the things. I ruined a lock that we were installing so I need to find the piece I broke. After some longer sleep we arrived at the office with car and Maria and Ellen started making curtains. Titus and me drove to Mall of Tripla to buy some construction supplies. We drove back and renovated until 19:00. We had some tasty soy-honey fried salmon with beans and rice and watched a cool documentary about USA and Elvis Presley. Then ice cream, tired and sleeping.  

10.1 Sunday

Woke up at around 09:00 and wondered where the world is going. We had some nice and slow breakfast with grapes, rye bread, white bread, honey, tomato, cucumber, tea, strawberry jam and cheese. After breakfast I continued to select photos here. We went for a walk, 13.10 km, 2 h 35 min. We had some miso soup, dumplings and pork bao. The Kamppi mall was dead, like a quiet airport late at night. We walked home and went to sauna and had some dinner. Since then I have more or less been writing.