We reached another couple of stages in the approach to winter.

First there started to be items in the newspapers about changing to winter tyres/tires and the various car magazines had their yearly test of winter tyres/tires,.

The rules in Finland are "simple but". Simple is that you must change to winter tyres by the 1st of December. Simple too is that the first day you are allowed to change is the 1st of November. Simple that is but for the fact that you can change to winter tyres earlier than that "if weather condtions demand it".

This has led to the commonly known statement if you are stopped by the police (and my experience of the Finnish police is that you have to be doing something seriously wrong if they stop you while *they* are moving (speed traps and alchohol road blocks excluded therefore) and hearing that you have winter tyres on 5 days ahead of the deadline isn't likely to stop them in their tracks) you just have to say that you are driving to Lapland at the weekend. What could be more "weather conditions demand it" than that?

Anyway that was one sign. The other was more mundane. For the first time since summer I had to connect my car to the electric motor/car warmer in the middle of the morning. Usually I leave it on overnight when there is a risk of frost and it is set to start heating at around 5 for two hours and then stop. Today I knew I was going to leave at 10:40 and didn't bother so at 9:30 I had to head to the car port and plug the thing in (and change the time so it would start right away).

I've followed the way trades unions negotiate in Finland with interest and over the years I've noticed one thing.

The fattest and ugliest trades union bosses are always the ones who are the most extreme.

I suppose it has something to do with them not being loved for themselves but only for the pay rises they screw out of the companies.

The previous example of this was the guy behind the paper-makers strike in the summer of 2006 (2005?) which must go down on record as the most unnecessary ever because they were trying to stop the inevitable closing down of money-losing mills.

Usually the theory has applied to men as most trades union bosses *are* men.

But occasionally you can apply the theory to women and this year we have a real humdinger.

The trades union Tehy (led by a very large woman) has just demanded a pay rise of 24% over 28 months where everyone else has been satisifed with a still high ca. 10-12% over 2-3 years.

Now everyone is aware that the nurses (who they represent among others) need their pay adjusted upwards, but not all at once.  A thinner better-looking woman might have realised this and taken a sensible long-term approach but not of course the leader they have.

All she's achieved so far is to lose most of the public goodwill her members had and the method of "strike action" which is mass resignations isn't likely to get that public goodwill back as hospitals lose all their ability to cure.

Most nurses are nothing like her size. Pity their leader isn't too.

P.S. I wonder at these 12% (over 3 years) figures. They then say 3.5% in the first year; 2.5 in year's two and three. (something like that anyway). Wouldn't that in most countries be called a 3% pay rise ? Is it just a way for the companies to give relatively little and the trades union people to say "look how much we got for you" ?

P.P.S Of course these opinions of female beauty (and male uglyness) are mine only, as is the above "theory". I remember going to dances at University with a guy from Nigeria because his idea of a fine looking woman was a somewhat (!) larger woman than mine and so neither of us had problems in deciding which girl (of 2) was for each of us.

They said there might be snow in Southern Finland today (12th October !) - now doesn't that make you want to come and live here?! - and I suppose we can say they were just right.

I went namely to the shops in Tapiola and more specifically to Stockman where it was the third day of their semi-annual Yellow Days where they *theoretically* have specially low prices and the store is packed.

Even it seems on a Friday morning, although my wife tells me if was even fuller on the first day (Wednesday) at about 10. She wondered where all the people came from because the crowd wasn't composed of obvious pensioners but of people you'd expect to be at work or at school at that time.

These days I go once; buy a packet of biscuits that you maybe can't get during the rest of the year and that's about it. As I wrote above the prices are only theoretically cheaper. I saw a TV in their catalogue and went straight to the web site of a computer/video store to check it out and it was cheaper in that store by a couple of hundred.

Where was I? Oh yes, snow. We finally left the Yellow Days and headed across the small walking area outside in the direction of the second department store (during the Yellow Days at Stockmann, empty!) and then we noticed that the rain we had been walking under to get to the bus to get to Tapiola had now changed to snow. Very wet snow that wouldn't have stuck on the walking area's surface even if that hadn't got heating under it, but snow (of a sort) nonetheless.

It didn't last long there but a bit further away from the sea (and thus a bit colder) maybe it lasted a bit longer because there were a few reports on the radio of the inevitable minor traffic accidents.

Not a problem for me. The bus got us home again and on the same ticket too (valid up to 60 mins after getting in the first bus - or is it 75 mins, I can never remember).

P.S. The comments are about the fact that "Yellow Days" is wrong and the translation is in fact "Crazy Days" or "Mad Days". Yellow is the prominent colour with them packing everything you buy in very garish Bright Yellow bags with dark black letters and the personnel wear Yellow T-Shirts and the ceiling hangings are bright yellow too. (An easy mistake to make, in other words )

No, there's still no snow and, No, the temperatures weren't below zero overnight so I didn't have to put the car on the heater (but I did anyway because it's really nice to get into a warmed up (motor and inside) car at 6 o'clock (AM) rather than one that isn't).

In fact the real sign that summer is over and that winter is just around the corner is that I didn't have a hat on when going for a walk at about 7PM yesterday (or even in my pocket) and I realised i should have had.

This also makes me realise that I also have a number of hats (bobble hats) of different thickness and covering different areas (more/less) of my head (and of course easier or less easy to push into a pocket). They don't take up quite the space of those 10 or so jackets, but I should have mentioned them yesterday I suppose.

By the way, did I mention the different material; thicknesses and length of my scarves .... ?

The last blog (in August) was about the signs that the summer is really over.

It's worth considering that there are benefits to the fact that there are four clear seasons here.

The main one being I suppose that you don't need the Christmas holidays to remind you that you are getting a year older.

The disadvantage is that you have to keep an amazing amount of clothes to be able to cope with them all. I must have about 10 jackets/coats because there has to be something for 20C or so (0F) and there also needs to be something for plus 25C (72F) but windy and just about everything in between. (Not to mention underwear, sweaters etc. ...)

At the moment we are in the short autumn period. This seems this year to mean that it rains ALL the time. Today it excelled itself and any coat would have been soaked in minutes and any umbrella (apart from a very large golf one) would have meant that your head might have stayed dry but not much of the rest. (I drove)

The other fun part of this autumn period is that it always ends with an unexpected snow storm leading to chaos on the roads. (Chaos being somewhat of an overkill description compared to the situation in the UK or even in most parts of Germany when it snows for the first time - has anyone else spent several hours heading up the hill to the Roman ruins after Bad Homburg that first snow day? - but even so).

I've written before here that this unexpected snow storm always seems in the Helsinki area to occur on the 1st of November, but yesterday (and it was only the 7th of October!) the TV weather forecast promised snow for Central Finland on Wednesday and a risk of snow in Southern Finland (which includes us) on Friday/Saturday. I'll believe that when I see it, but if it does come and I'm at work when it happens, the best thing will be just to leave the car here and head home by bus - either that or leave very early or very late. Of course that isn't really an alternative on a Friday (as like most people I need a car at the weekend) so naturally that's when it's going to happen if at all.

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Meanwhile on a completely different note, I see that Daimler-Chrysler have - after an extensive study I would guess, anything else would be very un-germanic - made the bold decision to change their name to, uhum, Daimler.

This reminds me of something a friend sent me about his international company's name change

"Over the last few years we have taken a number of important steps to create a leading European XXXX XXXX company with a strong international network. Read more about what XXXX writes regarding our company name change."

That change (= important step) was a similar one to changing Daimler-Chrysler to Daimler! So now you know why management gets the big bucks ...

 

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!