My wife remarked yesterday when we were out walking and saw a flock of birds (feathered ones that is) that this means summer is almost over.

Not being particularly interested in wild life (the reason I mostly canoe by myself is to avoid those innumerable pauses when some woman in the party (and, yes, it's almost always a woman) wants to stop paddling and look at some bird or animal). a flock of birds isn't the signal of the end of summer for me.

Instead I have more mundane things that warn me summer is almost over.

Starting the car in the morning for instance ...

Summer is over when you have a slight hick before the engines turns over and when you have to sit in it for about half a minute for the engine to warm up properly before you can set off. (Autumn is over when starting without having plugged it (the motor heater) in overnight to the electric supply is running the risk of it not starting at all).

That (slight hick) happened this week ... (so mid-August)

The other sign (as even if i don't look at wild life, I do keep my eyes open when out) is that women by-and-large stop wearing skirts and dresses and go back to trousers. This seems to happen later than the car signs but that's maybe because  most of the skirt wearers  are hoping against hope that the weather will pick up again.

Sometimes it will too. Usually just (see previous blog) as I'm about to travel abroad to catch the sun.

There are lots of ways to survive Finland as a non-Finn. One, I suppose though I've never tried it, is to be permanently drunk knowing that the social system will probably ensure that you have a roof over your head and just about enough money. (In case you were thinking of this life style then even the Finnish social system doesn't cover everyone otherwise there wouldn't be any homeless here would there - and there are, although not begging on the streets I'm glad to say).

The main method is to make sure that you spend the whole summer (a period of (being very generous) roughly June, July, August) here.

I virtually knew that the stay in Finland of a semi-relation of mine was doomed when she arrived with her kids and Finnish husband in August (so summer gone for that year) and announced that she was spending the next summer in Canada. (and it was doomed as she is now back in Canada and the Finnish house is sold)

We foreigners need the entire summer here in order to put up with the winter and also to give us a respite from the less friendly Finns we meet during the long non-summer. (We also need at least a couple of weeks in mid-winter to get a sun boost - and also the above boost too - but that's another story).

You see the summer is when Finland comes into its own. The people are open and friendly - not closed and not at all friendly which they tend to be in the winter if you don't know them. The temperatures are pleasant wihout being overpoweringly hot; lakes and/or sea are close by; walks in the woods are pleasant; the roads are good quality and mostly empty and in fact the whole place seems empty as lots of the inhabitants disappear off into their (these days you can no longer say "primitive") summer cottages and half of the rest go abroad.

Meanwhile your intelligent foreigner if he/she chooses to go abroad at all apart from that winter trip, goes in early May or September in what often turns out to be a vain attempt to extend the summer. (It's amazing how good the weather in Finland is at the beginning of September the one year you decide to go South then - and of course how bad it is when you decide not to)

So there you are. It's simple. Survive Finland and the Finns by being here all summer.

Or in fact do as many Finns do and live abroad the rest of the year. Now that's a thought ...

In most families in Finland both parents work. They can do this because there is a well-established system of day-care centres at reasonable prices.

These reasonable prices come about because the people working in the day-care centres are, by all accounts, despite (as is typical for Finland) being well trained for the job, badly paid.

If all the places in the official day-care centres are taken then there's a second-level option which is private day care. This is something that seems (from my local experience where we've had two such cases) to be done as a side-earner by fairly new mothers on maternity leave with their own newish children.

But back to the local authority day-care centres. They have fairly restrictive rules for dropping off and picking up times which often leads to one parent dropping off a child on the way to work and the other parent picking them up on their way home. It's always amusing when at a seminar with guest speakers from abroad there are suddenly quite a few people (usually men) leaving mid-way through because it's time to pick up the kids. (It's quite handy actually as cover for when the speaker is driving you mad with his German accent or boring speaking style - but don't tell anyone I told you that).

Most day-care centres are shut throughout the entire month of July when the whole country takes holiday from work even if (as in my case) they'd prefer not to. (In my case the company's customers are all off on holiday so there's not much paid work to do for them and thus we are "encouraged" to have summer holidays then too).

However this week is the beginning of August on Wednesday so (by some very peculiar rule thought up by a Mon-Fri fetishist) the day care centres are open on Monday and Tuesday as well despite those days being in July.

(Don't worry, I'm getting to the mad charges)

So my friend's wife, keen to have the final week of her holiday in peace said she'd take their 2 year-old in on Monday. Luckily my friend had his wits about him and she will in fact now take the 2-year-old in first on Wednesday (1st of August).

Why? Because the payment rules for these day-care centres are that even if the child is only there for ONE day in a calendar month, a full monthly charge (ca 200 Euros or 270 US dollars) is made.

This sort of madness is in fact very familiar to me because in Sweden my son was also in day care but his day-care place was only a half-day place (almost everyone else had full day places but for reasons I won't go into here the half-day place was all the local authority would grant in my case). I had to pay as much for a half-day place as I would have paid for a full-day place!

There have been a few things in the papers recently about the difficulty of getting a job in Finland if you don't speak Finnish.

According to a Polish journalist who was sent here (while other colleagues were sent to other EU countries) while people are quite happy to interview you in English they then won't offer you even a cleaning job if you don't speak and write Finnish.

One of the odd things she reported was that having had an interview she was asked to fill in an application form. She couldn't because it was only in Finnish.

My suspicion is that it IS possible to get a job in Finland if you only speak English, but that it has to be a job in your field; has to be for a multi-national with factories in your country (and the desire to send you back there later). In such a case - and provided you interview while you are still in a quality job in your own country, you might avoid this need to speak Finnish.

If however you are already in the country you are firstly only considered suitable for menial jobs and then there's also this Finnish-speaking requirement.

Of course this is being far too general, but I suspect there's a lot of sense in it.

I, on the other hand, almost didn't get a job in Finland when I applied while living in Germany in a quality job, because I did speak some Finnish (which was worse than I thought it was) and expected this to be an advantage. It was only when I'd clearly messed up one interview by making sure that was known, that I decided that future interviews would be in English only which led to me getting a couple of job offers. But if I'd only had one interview, speaking Finnish would have meant that I wouldn't have got a job in Finland. Ironic isn't it?

The other thing that has been in the paper was a story about the American husband (of someone who had lived in Finland for a while before moving on to the US) greeting everyone he met with a friendly "Good Morning" only to have people look away or look at him as if he were mad.

This was the Helsinki area of course. In the country *and in the summer* people might have replied but not here. I don't actually think that particularly odd. I doubt that people in say New York would regard someone saying "Good Morning" to everyone they meet as particularly sane. Certainly in the large towns and cities in Europe that I've spent most of my working life in, it isn't done.

So that was a particularly stupid example in my view and hardly worth writing about. What does intensively annoy most foreigners is that they get the same response when exchanging a casual sentence or two when at a more common location for such a conversation (or rather when *trying* to exchange a casual sentence or two)

At a bus stop say. In England no-one would take amiss at a normal attempt for a small chat while waiting for a bus. Here you'd speak and they would almost invariably look straight through you as if hadn't said anything.

This is why people in the cash desks in this country always say the same phrases to all their customers. They need to be trained to do so. Casual random chatting with customers just wouldn't happen otherwise.

If you think about it it's also the reason why the "ha ha" semi-humorous small chat between the two (man and woman of course) news anchors always seems so forced. It is forced. They have to practise it for hours as a casual remark to each other at the end of the program would otherwise be beyond them.

A "relative" of mine (by marriage x 2) wrote in her blog before she quit Finland after less than a year of a planned two year stay that maybe if she'd lived in the countryside she could have had more normal contact with strangers. She's wrong, I'm sure, she's mainly (only?) been in the country in the summer - even Helsinki people occasionally speak in the summer ... Just not to people walking towards them and saying "Good Mornng".

When I moved to Finland we had neighbours who spent most of the summer away.

They'd travel on Friday evenings to their summer house; come back on Sunday evenings and spend a solid block of five or six weeks holiday at that summer house as well.

Add to that the fact that all the houses nearby had children who were teenagers (or had left home) and therefore the swing and sandpit area just beyond the bottom of our garden was empty all the time and you had an idylic time most of the summer that I supposed I should have realised was not going to last for ever.

When our neighbours (with one quiet teenage son) moved away they were replaced by a family of five with three young children. They had no summer house and especially that first summer they spent most of their time in their garden (adjoining ours) - unfortunately with a plastic swimming "pool" that their daughter delighted in splashing and screaming in.

For a couple of years it was a nightmare but as always children grow up and start behaving more normally (and especially more quietly) and now for the past couple of years the only minor problem in the summer has been the fact that if I move myself and a couple of books onto our terrace, you can bet your life that within minutes at least of couple of the (five people) neighbours will go onto their terrace which by an amazing feat of bad design (but typically Finnish) is built (like the balcony above it) right alongside ours and thus they are a foot or so away from me (behind a wooden wall/fence)

I'm alone so I'm quietly reading a book and disturbing no-one. They are almost always at least two so talking now and then. Usually quietly but the comparison to the total silence there was just before is noticeable.

Last year I then just moved to the front garden where there were a second set of chairs set up, but that was a nuisance because of course I had to go in; lock the back (terrace) door from the inside; go out at the front door (not forgetting my keys) before I could settle in again.

Now, however, as I discovered yesterday evening I have a new and very effective option.

I simply put on the very effective (and expensive) Boss noise-reduction headphones that my mother bought me for my birthday recently (that ended in a "0" so she wanted to get me something special).

Even though they let some sound through of course, they proved to be very effective in giving me the same level of almost total peace I had many years before. They probably wouldn't work if the neighbours were shouting at each other, but as I wrote above they are considerate and speaking quietly and so the Boss headphones seem to get rid of almost all their speech.

Not bad considering they were bought for air flights ...

(and they are also quite effective (not 100%) in drowning the noise of the neighbour's son praticising the piano [which my normal headphones only succeeded in amplifying the sound of compared to no headphones at all, which was a disaster when I was listening to classical music (in the quieter parts) as the tinkling of the piano came through - listening to rock music was no problem....])

There was a rather charming short 30 minute "visit" by Bettina S. of the swedish-speaking TV here in Finland to the Finnish Ambassador in Athens who in an earlier life was a politician who had been a minister several times and also head of the Swedish-speaking People's Party.

He'd then moved sideways (?) straight into the job of Finland's Ambassador to Norway (by comparison the recent Ambassador to Great Britain was the former head of the larger (four times larger) Conservative party) and after the standard four years there he'd moved to become Ambassador to Greece and he was now into the last six month period of that time - after which no doubt he'll retire (he's that age I suspect).

He is not your typical Ambassador that's for sure, getting up at 6 summer and winter (11C) to swim in the residences pool before taking the bus to the embassy (and as he claimed passing some of his colleagues in their chauffeur-driven cars on the way!) and the clothes he had chosen to meet the film team (Bettina S. + cameraman + sound guy) were slacks and an open-neck shirt worn outside the trousers. (Like most Finnish men of that age he is rounder than he should be).

Still he seemed to know his recent Greek history even though his language claims were quickly put to the test by Bettina S. when they tied a rapid death and he also had selected a park/hill to take them to which indicated he had an idea of its geography (Athens at least too).  His method for quickly learning his way around in Athens was very familiar to me from my early days in Budapest. I'd take out the cinema guide; find a film I wanted to see irrespective of where it was playing at and drive there. Invariably I'd get lost several times on the way and need to stop and pull out a map, but very quickly I found myself doing that less and less often as I soon had the general picture of Budapest imprinted on my brain. Because of the traffic differences (in Communist times in Budapest in the early 70s there were few cars) the Ambassador did his driving and getting lost expeditions mostly on Sundays but the technique was still the same (although they didn't mention on what basis the destinations were chosen).

Now those mis-interpreted statistics ..

During his time in Athens they had moved to a new embassy in a modern high-rise building and he got to design the layout. He decided on an open-plan office for all (actually including the ambassador but wiser spirits said maybe the next ambassador wouldn't like it so he accepted having walls around his own space) because that for him indicated the openness of present Finnish society. (Something we could question in its "openness" to immigrants of which compared to most other W. European and especially Nordic countries the percentage is low)

Bettina S. commented that some people don't like open-plan offices and his reply was that half did and half didn't so someone was not going to get their choice.

My own feeling is that that position is too simplified. People who are against open plan offices will tend to be very strongly against them (as I am following some horror days in such a place) whereas very few of the pro-open office people will be as strongly in favour of them.

In Statistics lectures they called what he didn't do "weighting" if I remember correctly ...

The new Finnish cabinet can be summed up in three phrases

- blackmail pays off

- women majority

- best-looking woman in previous cabinet dropped

I suspect the third one won't be on many people's lists but I thought that she was quite a good Culture minister and not the stupid ex-Miss some of her critics would have you believe. A couple of times I saw welcome signs of a sense of humour where other ministers in true Finnish style seem to be po-faced all the time. There was at one time some talk of her spending time late one night (at a party conference) in the room of the party leader (and prime minister). I think we can safely say that - as was said at the time - nothing happened. Conspiracy theorists would probably say that dropping her was the prime minister's revenge for that lack of "action" whereas in fact it was probably caused by a large loss in her personal vote in the latest election compared to the previous one (although that vote loss almost certainly happened because the PM switched constituencies and was this time in the same one as her, leading them to divide her old vote between them).

The first item in the list above refers of course to the unbelievable act of the PM in proposing the former many-years Foreign Minister (in the era of the Soviet Union) for the job of Foreign Trade minister. This amazingly big-headed ex Foreign Minister (Paavo Väärynen) from Lapland had first of all been a candidate for election to the Finnish parliament at the same time that he was an elected member of the European parliament but had then once elected to the Finnish Parliament as well had refused to register as a new member of that parliament unless he was given guarantees that he would become either Speaker of the Parliament or a Minister - otherwise he'd abandon his membership and just carry on as a Euro MP (you can't be both so registering for the Finnish parliament would have compelled him in a few days to give up the Euro seat). Everybody - including most of his own party - was disgusted by this tactic and were glad to see the back of him (as they thought) as he went back to Brussels. However the PM put him on his minister list and it takes a bold Center Partyist to vote against the PM so Väärynen made it (but only just - there was still a large minority prepared to stub party discipline in order to try to get rid of him).

I pity the new Foreign Minister because (theoretically) big-head as Foreign Trade minister is his junior in the Foreign Ministry. Now that guy (Kanerva of the Conservatives) not only has pressure from "below" but also doubly from above as the PM likes to dabble in Foreign Affairs as well and then there's the Social Democrat President who also has a Foreign Affair role to play as well when she feels she wants to (she can pick and choose which EU meetings she attends (with the PM) and only if she doesn't want to does the FM get a look in. Still it's hard to be sorry for the new FM because a couple of years ago there was a scandal about the guy sending explicit text messages (SMS) to young girls and women (he's 59 now) and of course in typical Finnish politician style nothing happened and he was kept on as deputy Speaker.

Finally the second (more women then men) is only a surprise because of the numbers of female ministers. Most people expected political correctness (50%) in all parties except the Greens and that's what happened with the Conservatives and the Swedish-Peoples party. The Greens as expected voted in 2 women [0 men] (to my relief as their women are better than their men) but then rather than the 4/4 split the PM had been suggesting for the Center party, his list (5 women; 3 men including himself and big-head) was topsy-turvy too so now the Cabinet has 12 women and 8 men (although to no-one's surprise the men get the very top posts PM; Foreign Minister; Finance Minister; Super Minister (Labour+Interior(?)).

Meanwhile it's already been announced that one of the new female ministers will be going on maternity leave in a few months (just as she spent several months off during the previous 4-yr government). She's one of the stars of the Center party and has been moved from the Foreign Trade post (that she did well) so the Environment Minister post which the PM is said to regard as an important one these days (it never was before). If it's that important why give it to someone who's going to take time out in a couple of months ? (or is that just the old MCP in me speaking?).

P.S. I suppose we can all be grateful that Kaukko Juhantalo wasn't re-elected otherwise given the Väärynen thing the PM would no doubt have given him a minister job too. (For newcomers to the Finnish political scene, said Juhantalo was forced to leave the parliament because of a scandal involving his time as a minister and connected to loans for a bank and bank loans for his own company [I'm not saying any more). After it took well over a year for the process of running this expulsion from parliament through channels and he finally left, the voters of his constituency virtually immediately voted him in again at the following election and so we saw him (on TV) wandering around in the parliament as if nothing had ever happened. Really really sickening but would have been beaten by him becoming minister again. The PM is obviously capable of completely stupid choices (Väärynen) so we can be thankful that even Juhantalo's voters finally decided to pull the plug just in time.)

Yesterday's paper reported that the average temperature for December 2006 in the Helsinki region was +4C whereas the average for December for the period 1900-2000 was -2.1C

It always amazes me that when they come out with such statistics they never say what exactly they mean. How do they calculate the average temperature ? Is the daily figure the average for the entire day; based on four (or two) readings (night and day) or is it I suspect based on the temperature at one daytime hour like 12:00 or 13:00. I guess we'll never know but I suspect it's the latter - that would better match the month even though it was minus degrees at night, by no means as often as usual.

Today was minus degrees but luckily we've recently had so many days of plus degrees that the gravel paths were able to soak up the recent days rain in time before the minus degrees would have frozen it to ice, so the paths through my local woods (walking which with an MP3 player in my ears [Archos 401 with 20GB] is my main winter exercise so it's pretty important I can do it at a quick pace) were very easy to walk on for once.

Aside: Why is it that four guys running together or three people walking with those ridiculous "Nordic Walking" sticks are always so boorish as to assume that any single walker walking towards them will make way for them [=step off the path] instead of them sticking to their own side of the path when there is meeting traffic ?

Just another example of people not being used to living in places with more than a few hundred inhabitants I guess although surely not all of them are "just off the farm"?