Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The holidays! Finally!! Have a nice relaxing couple of days off whereever you are!

Hyvää Joulua ja Onnellista Uutta Vuotta!

Vihdoinkin loma ja vuoden loppu! Toivottavasti voitte viettää nämä muutamat lomapäivät rennosti, missä tahansa olettekin!

Simo & Piritta

Traditional christmas deco - perinteisiä joulukoristeita

Traditional christmas deco
Originally uploaded by shuopio.

Here are couple of examples of common Chirstmas decoration in Finland. Hyacinth and "Tuomaanristi" (Thomas' Cross).

Hyasintti ja Tuomaanristi ovat perinteisiä joulukoristeita Suomessa.

Our christmas tree - joulupuu

Our christmas tree
Originally uploaded by shuopio.

Today, after thorough cleaning of the flat we did set up the christmas tree. Here's a pic of it with its sparse decoration.

Tänään suursiivouksen jälkeen toimme joulukuusen sisään.

too easy commuting? - liian helppo työmatka?

too easy commuting? - liian helppo työmatka?
Originally uploaded by shuopio.

Simo: For me the commuting is really easy and simple now, maybe even too much so.. I have the choise of less than 10 minute ride in a bus or a train (pictured). The time is so short that I have to keep myself from reading a paper too intensively, otherwise I might miss the stop - like today 8-)



Simo: Päivittäinen työmatka sujuu todella vaivattomasti, jopa liiankin.. Valittavana on alle kymmenen minuuttin pysähdykset joko bussilla vaikka paikallisjunalla (kuvassa). Matka-aika on niin lyhyt että minun pitää erikseen varoa syventymästä liikaa lehden lukemiseen etten missaa pysäkkiä - niinkuin tänään 8-)

Autumn continues - Syksy jatkuu

Last night the weather was very windy and rainy, however not nearly as serious as those massive hurricanes we have seen on the news happening around the world. No damages were reported in Finland, despite there has been some in Norway, Sweden and Estonia. The temperature seems to be almost stuck at +8 Celsius - so the autumn continues. It has been relatively so warm autumn we have been thinking will we get snow at all here at southern Finland?

Despite the weather it has been ok otherwise. We're already looking forward to the Christmas time and a moment of relaxation. Actually, we might have a possibility for a short weekend visit at the UK at the first weekend of December. Should we be able to come it will be veeery busy, but still better than nothing! At Mid-December there is also one-week work trip to India coming my way (Simo).

Viime yönä pyyhkäisi reipas myrsky- ja sadealue yli Suomen. Näitä skandinavian pikku puhureita ei tietenkään voi verrata suuren maailman hurrikaaneihin. Norjassa, Ruotsissa ja Virossa oli kuitenkin tullut jonkinverran myrskytuhoja, Suomessa niiltä vältyttiin. Lämpötila on jumittunut +8 Celsiusasteeseen. Syksy on ollut suhteellisesti niin lämmin että olen miettinyt että näinköhän tänne Etelä-Suomeen lunta saadaankaan..

Säästä huolimatta on muuten mennyt ihan ok. Selvästi on ilmassa jo joulun ajan ja sitämyöten pienen hengähdystauon odotus. Itseasiassa ennen sitä meillä voi olla mahdollisuus käydä Englannissa joulukuun ensimäisenä viikonloppuna. Mikäli se onnistuu se tulee olemaan erittäin kiireinen pyrähdys, mut silti! Joulukuun puolivälissä miulla (Simo) on myös tulossa viikon työreissu Intiaan.

Night at Leppävaara - Yö Leppävaarassa

Night at Leppävaara II - Yö Leppävaarassa II
Originally uploaded by shuopio.

A photo taken near our home during a late walk with my brother Kauto (in picture).

Öinen kuva kotimme läheltä Leppävaarasta kävelyltä Kauto-Veljen kanssa.

Grandpas special clock - Papan pahkakello

Grandpas special clock - Papan pahkakello
Originally uploaded by shuopio.

We got this very special clock from Pirittas grandpa as a wedding present last year. Finally we succeeded to carry it to our home.

Saimme tämän erikoisen hienon pahkakellon häälahjaksi Pirittan Papalta viime vuonna. Viimeinkin saimme kuljetettua sen omaan kotiimme.

Laughing haircut - Naurava hiustenleikkuu

Laughing haircut - Naurava hiustenleikkuu
Originally uploaded by shuopio.

We decided to cut at least my (Simo) hair once in a while ourselves. As you can see from the picture the process is fun. ;)

Päätimme leikata miun (Simo) hiukset itse ainakin silloin tällöin. Kuten kuvasta näkyy hauskaa on. ;)

Sports day at school

Sports day at school
Originally uploaded by shuopio.

Tug of war was one of the activities at sports day at Pirittas school. Before that there was a track and field competition. The whole school had a lovely day.

Köydenveto oli yksi liikuntapäivän ohjelmanumeroista Piritan koulussa. Sitä edelsi perinteisemmät yleisurheilukisat.

Sauna

Sauna
Originally uploaded by shuopio.

We have enjoyed this a LOT: our tiny little built-in sauna of our new flat.

Tästä olemme nauttineet kyllä paljon: Kerrostalokämppäämme rakennettu pikkusauna.

Busy Start

As we expected, the September has been very very busy. The fact that I am posting this from Bangalore, India, could give you an hint. :-)

Anyway, I just heard from Piritta that the broadband connection is finally installed. As the out-of-work Internet usage becomes again possible, we will be reachable by the msn, skype etc. and even a simple things like replying a private emails becomes more likely. 8)

The moving of the stuff within Finland is mostly done now. That is, we have sofa, kitchen & coffee table, more than two chairs, TV (!) etc.. Back at our home-homes where we had stored the furniture, there is some work to do - the boot sales next springtime will have loads of stuff form us that we do not need anymore. Saying this means that we tried to stay firm not taking any items that we did not really need back to Espoo.

As there has been couple of spam comments appearing on the blog (done by some bots), I turned on bit more security measures for posting the comments. If the image verification prevents you from commenting please let us know by email!

We are now in Finland!

Today, Wednesday morning we arrived to Finland. The road trip over here went smoothly, despite the quite long distance - 2645 kilometers! On our way we did stop overnight at Amsterdam, Hamburg and Kopenhagen. The last night we did spend on the ferry from Stockholm.

We have already received the keys for our new home and start moving there during the next few days. In order to do that we need to haul our furniture that has been scattered throughout Finland. 8)

More updates and pictures soon!

Earlier this week the removal guys came to pack all of our stuff for the move. So, couple of the last days I've been at Woking on rather simple surroundings.

Tomorrow (Saturday) morning we're going to start our journey through Europe to Finland. I'll keep you posted, at least after we arrive to our destination!

Piritta left for Finland already today morning. Her work starts already tomorrow, so this has been her shortest summer holiday - ever!

Status Update

It has been a busy week and a half with all kinds of stuff going on. Here's short status update:

- Piritta decided to accept a teacher position at her old school at Pornainen, 50km north from Helsinki. As the school year for the teachers start already at Friday 12th August it means that she's leaving for Finland this Thursday!

- Mainly because of Pirittas absence we have decided to cancel the Saturday 20th event. I will contact those who had registered interest and suggest some alternatives - I will still be here!

- We still do not have our own/rental place to stay at Helsinki but the search is on! The rental market at Finland is hot which implies that inexpensive and decent is the combination that is hard to find. Its still two-three weeks to go.. 8-)

The trip to Scotland

We spent last week touring Scotland with car. Here are couple of pictures from the trip:



After staying overnight at Nottingham, we did pay a visit to Newcastle-Upon-Tyme. The town was preparing to the Tall Ships Race which was due in couple of days.



At this point we have reached Scotland, as you can see the weather has turned better!



The first look at the Scottish castles was the Castle of Edinburgh, on our first anniversary!



Checking the water temperature of Loch Lomond.



The Scot Architecture seems to have a twist sometimes. This detail is from a small church.



Because of the amount of rivers and water alltogether we did pass quite a many bridges.



Loch Ness and a artists impression of the famous monster.



Landscape near Fort William



Castles and the wide spaces make sometimes very pictoresque settings, especially in the good weather we did enjoy.



Isle of Skye and the Cuillin hills, the view from a lunch break.



After some semi-serious hill walking it is time to take a break.



We decided that some signs need to be obeyed, at least without any equipment.




The principles of Scottish Whisky.



We were able to visit two distilleries on the way back home. This picture is from the huge distillation hall of Glenfiddich Distillery.



The last castle we visited was a Stirling Castle. The weather had turned to rain, which definitely affected the Castle Experience (tm).



We did also pay a short visit to stretch of Hadrian's Wall.



Home at last. We do like to drive a lot during the holidays, this time the odometer reached 2893 kilometres in a week.. 8)

Last but not least here are couple of panoramas stitched together from multiple pictures, click the stripe to see a bigger image!






(Hmm.. found a restriction of blogger image store while twiddling with these panoramas. The images over 1024 pixels of width seem to be scaled to that size.. I will eventually find a way to show the proper images.)

Get-together at Saturday 20.08.2005 - Cancelled! 8-/

EDIT 11.08.2005/Simo:
I am sorry about the late notice. We had to cancel the get-together at Saturday 20th. The reason is twofold: Piritta had to leave for Finland already and she would not been able to be there. Secondly I will most probably have to spend most of the Saturday afternoon looking after what the moving company is doing.

In any case, thanks for all the emails you have sent! Hopefully I can arrange things so I can see you all in some circumstances! Those working at Nokia Southwood I will soon send more information about the daytime leaving do.

Old text of this posting:

Just a week before we are actually leaving the country we have planned to have a get-together where you all are welcome. As our flat will be a Big Mess at that time we decided we will go for some restaurant at London and book a table or a room. The time we have to planned to start the early dinner is around 6-7 pm.

So, please let us know if you are interested so we can book the table. Please click here for the contact information.

Should the weather be good, we could gather together a bit earlier in a park or a pub with a beer garden earlier that day. This will be clarified naturally only just couple days before. Watch this space, I will edit this as we have more information!

Contact information

This posting will hold our contact details. I will put a permanent link to this information so you can reach this and check the latest updates.

Address in Finland: Hansakallionkuja 12 A 6, FIN-02780 Espoo, FINLAND

Phone numbers in Finland: +358407366793 (Piritta) and +358405847470 (Simo).

Old phone numbers in the UK are not valid anymore.

E-Mail: Piritta.Huopio(at)iki.fi, and Simo.Huopio(at)iki.fi (please replace (at) with the @-character).

UPDATE (05.11.2006): Oops, I have left the old contact information here.. Now it should be correct!

Yes, we are moving to Finland! After a bit over two years of life in the UK we decided it was time to head North. The actual relocation process is just starting, so the feeling is a bit like on the signposts we found above - headless chickens?

This blog is ment primarily for our friends everywhere who want a glimpse of our life "up north". We will also reflect here the feelings Finland and the changes in life will bring.

Please do feel free to comment. At first we keep the commenting open without registration.

Some links:
Basic information of Finland