Madness

On the 13th of December I finally got my birthday (which was in October) present from Ollie, I got to see Madness live! We drove to Birmingham to see them as they were performing in the LG Arena.

The concert was great. Extremely packed in the front row but that's what you'd expect. Ok, the intensity surprised me a bit. We stayed the night in this lovely B&B nearby in Bickenhill. Our next door neighbour was a horse! A horse!!! I was very excited about that. I would show you some photos if I hadn't broken my phone. Again.

I have such bad luck with phones. This one had some moisture get inside it on a rainy day, I dried it and it worked perfectly - until a couple weeks ago, when the screen just died. It looks like it's not coming back to life. Sigh.

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The Christmas is coming! It's that time of the year when everyone wants to annoy their neighbours as much as they can by putting as much Christmas decorations and lights on their house as they can. I've got to say the migraine-triggering flashing bright lights first just amused me. Now I wonder how anyone can stand looking at their own house just flashing away, day and night, causing epileptic seizures to the passers-by.

Yes, there is such thing as too much decorations ;P

Now I've got the complaining out of the way, I can't wait for my first Christmas abroad! Christmas crackers, presents on the 25th instead of the Christmas Eve, turkey, no Santa Claus, mince pies...

I'm excited like a kid on Christmas. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Wild Boys

Today was very exciting for me, I got to go riding with Ollie's amazing six-year-old horse called Clive. He just looks like a Clive, doesn't he. HP and him warmed up being extremely naughty and running around like feral ponies where they weren't supposed to.

Clive's a good boy

I even jumped a bit, haven't been on a horse for three months, haven't rode properly for six months... It went alright I think. Didn't fall.

Aaaand the Christmas decorations are up. It's not too early! Ssh!

Joulumarkkinat

Yesterday Ollie and I went to visit the Finnish Christmas Fair in Rotherhithe, London.

It was a bit of a rainy day and of course we didn't take an umbrella with us. The result was soggy socks. Luckily the Finnish Church had warming glögi. Mmm, it tastes like Christmas. 

I had to buy some to take home with me. Chocolate was the main reason for our visit so I got half a kilo of it. It's worth every pound I spent and every pound I'm going to gain around the waist for stuffing myself with it. Oh well, I've got a gym membership now so hopefully it's not going to be that bad.

The Finnish Christmas Fair itself was lovely, it was held indoors which was a bit better than what the Scandinavian Christmas Fair had, they were in outdoors stalls. There was lots of Finnish food and stuff to buy and eat. I had a Finnish-style sausage and mash with ketchup, mustard and rye bread, Ollie had reindeer stew with mash and rye bread. I heard it was 'alright'. It was alright.

Two different people thought Ollie looked Finnish which I found extremely amusing. I made him try some salted liquorice (or salmiakki, pronounced like salmi-yuck-i) which, as every Finn knows, is always hilarious. You're not allowed to spit it!

Look at this bad boy. I can't go to London without visiting Fortnum & Mason. Yummy tea.

Halloween and Bonfire Night

As a Finn I had never participated in either of these 

Thanks to American TV I had a pretty good idea of what Halloween was going to be and the trick or treating part was like our Easter (but obviously late at night instead of running around the streets in the morning thinking that the early bird catches the worm and the biggest amount of chocolate).

I would say the scariest part of the night was the house that was guarded by six cats having a nap on the doorstep.

Ollie took me to watch a bonfire and some fireworks. It was a bit like our Midsummer, except that it didn't rain, The temperature was pretty much the same. Cold.

...and Family

In October it was my turn to visit Finland.

Wave! Waaaave!

I spent about five days in Finland. It was nice to go back home and see my friends and family, I had missed them. I had especially missed my tortoise, it was good to see that he's alive and healthy, he still loves tomatoes and is the king of the house.

These photos were taken by and in the middle of River Kymi. Those rocks are for some reason one of my favourite places in the world. Luckily the water level was quite low so me and Viivi could hop our way to the middle of the river safely.

Photos by Viivi, my personal paparazzi

Funland, Winland, Ginland. The many ways to mistype Finland. Rakkaalla lapsella on monta nimeä, a dear child has many names.

Friends...

Sorry for not writing for such a long time. I've been... busy.

That was a lie.

Actually I forgot I even have a blog.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway.

My best friend Viivi came over to visit me all the way from Finland. We went to Cambridge and did stuff. I think this was in September or something.

Cool as a cucumber.

Horses!

Anyone who knows me at all probably knows that I love horses. The first time I went horse riding was when I was about five or six years old thanks to my Mum. Since then riding has been my favourite pastime and I even had a horse at one point, you know, because it's more fun than just burning all of your money. As an au pair that has been put to a hold although I have been in the saddle once thanks to Ollie and his lovely horse HP.

That doesn't mean I'm completely cut off from the horse world, quite the opposite. Here horses are everywhere!

help I've lost my jockey

The nearby racecourse is a very exotic place for a Finn.

I've been to the Huntingdon Racecourse once with Sarah, we got absolutely soaked and couldn't sadly stay until the pony races. It's only less than a ten minutes walk away.

It's not all horse racing here, they also have the tweed kind of horse riding and the normal disciplines like eventing. Sometimes these two overlap and what you get is Burghley Horse Trials, where the crowd wears the tweed and the apparently quite suicidal riders trust their horses to carry them over these massive scary jumps.

surely you must be mad to be do eventing

Ollie and his mum took me there and it was amazing. He also took me to Weird Great Yarmouth but we don't talk about that.