Interesting fact – Helsinki is the second most northern city in the world.
And it is just a lovely place to go for the weekend. Partly this is because you don’t wake up on your first morning with an enormous list of must do, better do and well… if I have time will do. But also it is a quiet city with trams and the most enormous, delicious pastries ever. 
The other win with Helsinki is the water. One of the down sides about living in London is the sense of being land locked. So, it is heaven to go to a city where the sea laps at its edges. Where boats sit in the port and you can catch the ferry to the islands just off the coast.
It was a lovely weekend and mad this week just gone survivable!
Some weeks flash by don’t they? This week has wiped by with some work wins as well. Yeah! Starting new jobs can be tough. I am pretty sure you have no idea quite what is coming when you start and then of course you are hit by a tidal wave of expectation……
Well I am prepared to state that I am feeling cautiously optimistic as I come to the end of my 3rd month. We have a new website launched today which is quite a lot better than the last one, we submitted 3 bids for £150K which I hope comes off and I have 3 people starting next month! I can’t wait to have a team of people working with me. Imagine 3 extra people to worry about stuff!
Briliant
I am also hoping that their appearance will mean less weekend working, less lists and generally a better sense of control!
So only a few more weeks…..
Occasionally in London, well it is such a great big city so maybe more often than occassionally, you make a new little discovery. My recent stumbled-upon-delight is Highgate Cemetery. Could be a creepy place I guess? …. Grave yards do have a reputation for being homes to ghosts and ghouls.
However, I am easily persuaded that they are bit more like a history book. And with a bit of Imagination you can marvel at the 100s of lives that are there.
Highgate Cemetry, it is quite wonderfully disordered with Ivy covered graves 
in the main. Possibly the most famous person to be interned in recent times is Karl Marx. While for most of the other famous people you have to read head stones and climb over trees…. it is hard to miss Karl! On top of the pedestal is an enormous bust of his head. It is honestly absolutely enormous.
Anyway, a new little gem to wonder about in the dying London summer.
“God it was busy!”
That appears to be the Pavlovian response of all people in their late 30′s. Life buzzes by and we hurtle along checking emails on hand helds, chatting on mobile phones, tapping in to keyboards day after day. Monday to Friday, and for an unfortunate few on the weekends to.
How is it that suddenly your entire life is defined by how busy your work week is…… I met some friends last night for a post week drink… and honestly no one answered the ‘how was your week?” question with a rave about a restaurant, play or exhibition! It was all about how busy busy busy we all are.
This is probably the product of our age, the city we live in
So today, as a Saturday, I am going to figure out something so that when I am asked how my week has been I will have something interesting to say!
I know an odd title for a blog. It can all be explained though. Every now and then in London, there are things that appear. Some stay, some go. This year it is all about Mazes, Bikes and Ping Pong.
It would seem that the major of London, believes that Ping Pong is to be the major contributor to the UK medal tally in 2012. And as part of the apitals contribution ping pong tables have sprouted on corners, coming with the odd talent scout and probably a good dose of hilarity, to inspire and invigorate the down trodden London worker! Although this is not the first time their has been a sprouting of odd things – last year it was Pianos which was slight more intimidating then ping pong in my view. Although I have no real talent in either let it be known.
The Bike thing is also ever so slightly hilarious. Suddenly there are lots of wobbly adults out in the traffic using Boris’s Bikes. Rather cumbersome looking things that come with advice for tourists to stay on the left side of the road – you can imagine how that is going to work out – especially since it is written in English and not exactly in enormous writing!
And the final odd thing to sprout is the maze in Trafalgar square. I have no idea about the hidden meaning but it does look like pretty good fun……
So that is London I guess in summer – things that appear on street corners!
It would seem that Mother Nature has called a sudden halt to summer in London. For a while there it was quite exceptional – warm in the shade, hot in the sun. I even striped to bathers in the local park (clearly an indication that I may have been here too long!) .
However, sadly in her wisdom the sun has been wrapped in a long grey fluffy cloak and the heavens have started to scatter us with water. It is getting darker in the evening, although strangely the sun is still popping out ridiculously early in the morning.
I will, though, not start a full mourning period for the sun until I start reaching for my boots and that handy extra layer!
I went along to a lovely and very grown up dinner party on Friday night. I felt like a square being jammed into a circle shaped hole!
My accent sounded so broad against their smooth, plummy accents. My stories were tinted with a sense of Australian sarcasm. And they were sooo grown up compared to me! It is curious how different Australians and the English are. Same language but different outlooks on life!
My other reflection on the evening, which was good fun, was the holding pattern I seem to be sitting in. The people round the table were certainly older than me, and so their achievements were quite grand, and not necessarily the direction I would seek to achieve in. But…….I have been living here for over 5 years and I do have some pretty major career changes to claim but really has any other part of my life moved? Probably not. Is this some sort of failing? Is there something I should be doing to have a more rounded list of achievements?
Tough questions for which I remain without a satisfying answer.
England is not having much luck on the world stage at the moment – despite their extreme optimism with just about every sporting endeavour.
The World Cup loss against Germany was close to catastrophic. Each and every paper and TV show had a montage of desperate pictures of English fans and the crumpled English team.
Then poor Andy Murray – who I know is technically Scottish when it suits people but since he hit slightly better form he is being embraced by the English. Anyway, out in the Wimbledon semi-finals. Poor chap.
It is interesting to think about how different nations react to wins and loses. It seems that England always loses – implying no matter how improbably they were in with a chance. I do think though that more likely is that they are beaten by a better side or opponent.
Language is certainly an insight into a countries psyche!
Living in Europe is great – there is absolutely no escaping that religion has played a massive role in what we see and feel when we swan about the gorgeous cities. Just about on every corner there is a church, mosque, site of some sort of sacred building.
And while I am not much into God or religion the buildings are just amazing. The Sagrada Familia in Barcelona looks like a sand castle on the outside with just the most amazing windows and pillars. And then you have Canterbury Cathedral – where there is just so much English history a dead Black Princes & the site of Thomas Beckett’s murder. In addition to using Post-its as a way of requesting a prayer. Do you think that was what the inventor of post-its envisioned!
On Friday I went along to see a friend sing up a storm in his local pub. Possibly not unusual to have musically talented friends. But what I think is curious is that ‘aspiring lead vocalist in a cover band’ is not quite what you expect this person to be doing in their spare time. Your thinking maybe along the lines of BBQ with the family, Friday night drinks with other people in suits.
So how many people do you think don’t conform to the stereotype in your mind? That have these wonderful and surprising secret lives.
I know of an Executive Director who likes to Salsa. A Head of Information who has a thing for middle distance running. A retail consultant who likes patchwork. Another who shoots things for wales!
So why is it that we don’t know what our work buddy’s spend time doing? Why do we neglect to really get to know people we spend tonnes of time with? Are we to busy to care?
