Concerts

Regular Elk's Street followers will know that the little boys have music as one of their hobbies. Recently, there have been a couple of concerts.

For those of you who don't believe that Thomas really does play French horn, below a video as evidence.





Thomas was playing a Russian folk song (Korobeiniki) about an itinerant trader and was accompanied by Henry.

There were a couple of wobbly bits in the middle but for a first major performance Thomas did well. The boys are very different - Henry plays horribly at home but generally pulls off a good performance when under pressure; Thomas, on the other hand, plays much better at home than in public. Apologies for the lousy video quality, your correspondent is not the world's best cameraman, and the position of my seat meant the piano rather overshadowed the horn.

If you want to hear a more professional version of the song, click here for the song in Finnish, and here for the song in Russian. And the styles are very different!

For the little boys the next performance was at a concert on Fathers' Day in aid of diabetes research. The choir of the primary school's music classes, grades three to five, sang a few songs and some of the children in Henry's class had instrumental solos.

Below, a few photos.

The choir with Henry's teacher at the front. (Thomas in the front row on the far left.)


Henry standing tall in the back row.


Thomas in the front row.


Thomas one more time.

Thomas is really not keen on being in the limelight - and then they put him in the front row, poor chap!

(Close-up photos courtesy of Tuomo)

Floods

Followers of world news will have noticed that a few weeks ago northern Malaysia and southern Thailand suffered rather bad flooding. Although it is the monsoon season and heavy rain is normal, this year things were particularly bad.

Below a few photos of Kwan's house.

The entrance to the house.

The garden.


The road and the neighbour's compound.

Luckily, the water didn't enter the house, as it is slightly raised, but the compound was a mess. And the snakes fleeing the water were no doubt a little scary!

(Photos stolen from Kwan's FB)

Autumn Migration

Every autumn Elk's Street is a stopping-off point for waxwings (bombycilla garrulus) on their migration to warmer climes. They are very pretty with their dun colour, the yellow flashes on their wings, and their 'tufty' hair style.

Below a couple of photos of our yearly visitors.






The birds rest in our garden, snacking on any apples left in the apple trees and gobbling berries in the hawthorn hedges. After a some minutes' rest they then continue on their way. In the past they would arrive in their thousands, but recently their numbers have dwindled.

We wish all waxwings a safe journey and hope to welcome them back next year.

Mushrooms

There are many styles of management, for example, seagull management. The prevailing style at the Elk's Street workplace is mushroom management - keep people in the dark, cover them with compost, and threaten to cut off their heads.


In honour of that fraudulent art, management science, a couple of mushrooms:

In case you are wondering? Yes, they are poisonous.

Camping 2

Elk's Street followers might remember from the posting here that Henry found camping with the scouts rather tiring.

Thomas went on his first camp in the forests recently and the result can be seen below.

A clean but tired and cranky cub scout resting on the tiles of the Elk's Street sauna.

It's a tough business, this scouting!

Summer cottage

The truth about this trip is difficult to ascertain; nobody knows exactly what happened. There are, however, rumours that Henry was involved in the persuasion process and it had something to do with fishing. Anyway, at the end of the summer, Tiina booked a summer cottage for Elk's Street.

The cottage was about 40km from Elk's Street HQ. The location, as can be seen from the photos below, was very nice.

The cottage.

The 'little house'.

The sun setting over the lake. The sunsets were very spectacular, courtesy of the massive forest fires in Russa.


The morning sun.


H-M doing her morning meditation on the jetty.


Henry chopping wood for the sauna.


Lilli and Tiina relaxing with the newspaper.


A simple meal.


Lilli enjoying her meal.


The head chef.


The head chef relaxing.


Fishing off the jetty.


H-M swimming.

Like mother, like son! Henry meditating.

You may wonder where Thomas is. Well, he's a real summer cottage person; he spent most of the time in the lake, going from sauna to water and back, and was consequently without clothes for about 3 days - hence the lack of photos.

Butterflies

The summer in Finland was a so-called 'summer of the century'. It was very dry and hot - global warming according to some, normal weather fluctuations according to others. Your correspondent was not complaining much, although the dry weather did have a rather bad effect on the garden.

One positive effect was, however, that it was a wonderful summer for butterflies. For your enjoyment, a few photos.

Butterfly 1


Butterfly 1 again


Butterfly 2


Butterfly 2 again

Not having any Lepidoptera experts, Elk's Street has no idea what butterflies these are but we enjoyed all the butterflies throughout the summer.

Summer Fishing

Professor Wu invited Henry fishing. Also on the trip were Hong and his mysterious 'young lover'. Needless to say, the only person who caught anything was fisherman Henry.

Below a few photos.

A small perch to get started.

Something a little more substantial, a 1.5kg pike-perch.

The fisherman preparing his catch.

The fried fillets were very tasty (cook - Daddy) although Elk's Street head chef was of the opinion that the fish should have been steamed whole.

The fisherman is getting rather ambitious and thinks that Elk's Street should get a boat, preferably a good boat for fishing like the one here. Your correspondent is somewhat sceptical of this idea, although something like the rowing boat here might be possible. The Chairman of the Board, who of course has the final say, thinks this whole boat idea is nuts and is pleased that nothing can happen until the ice melts next spring.


What do the readers of Elk's Street think?

Wedding

As mentioned in the post Stockholm Trip, our return home was to a house containing three best men; this because our neighbour's daughter was getting married. I'm not sure why three best men were needed - was the groom just making triply certain that the ring would be well taken care of, or did the bride want to ensure that enough persuasive power was present should the groom change his mind at the last minute.

Anyway, everything went very well, with the ceremony held in the local Lutheran church and the reception in the Pentecostalist church hall in the town centre.

Below a few photos.

The vow - I (name) take (name) to be...

Three tenors - sorry, best men.


Outside the church.


The happy couple at the wedding reception.

Well done, Maarit and Kimmo!

Tervetuloa Lucas!

I'm probably not supposed to do this but never mind.

Congratulations to Sarah and Ben. And hello to Lucas!

Stockholm Trip

H-M went off to the Full Moon Dance Festival to do some dance courses and watch some modern dance. Despite the name, it does not involve baying at the moon werewolf-style, although with some choreographers this would be entirely plausible!

Since modern dance is not really the boys' thing, we decided to go on a quick 4D3N trip to Stockholm. This was relatively easy as Lappeenranta Airport now has international flights, with Air Baltic flying to Riga in Latvia and Tallinn in Estonia, and Ryanair flying to Weeze in Germany. Our route was: Lappeeranta-Riga-Stockholm-Tallinn-Lappeenranta.

Below a few photos of our most enjoyable trip.

An Air Baltic Fokker of the type we flew in. The photo is of YL-BAA at Riga Airport, whereas we flew in YL-BAZ for three of the four legs of our journey.


The little boys enjoying the flight.

Air Baltic is a so-called low-cost airline but seems to be one of the better-run ones. While on-board services had to be paid for - we celebrated the last leg of the journey with a beer (Peter), juice (little boys) and crisps - luggage goes directly to the end destination, and connections are guaranteed. (A friend going from Lappeenranta to London Gatwick had weather problems and Air Baltic paid for him to be put up in a hotel in Riga - shame on you, Ryanair, the most miserable low-cost airline, who treat travellers in an unbefitting manner.)

Touchdown

Once in Stockholm Arlanda airport we bought Stockholm Cards, cards that allow tourists to use local transport in the Stockholm area and give free entrance to a variety of museums. To save money we decided to use SL's services to the city centre rather than take the airport bus. This meant going by bus to Märsta and commuter train into central Stockholm.

Having reached T-Centralen in Stockholm, we immediately started testing the local delicacies, in our case, 'grillkorv med bröd', known elsewhere as a hot dog.

The little boys enjoying their 'grillare'.

Suitably fortified, we set off to our hotel, the Elite Palace Hotel, Stockholm. The hotel was part of the Air Baltic package, was conveniently located, a few hundred metres from the St. Eriksplan underground station, and was, for our purposes, very suitable.

Little boys relaxing after a hard day's sightseeing.


Our hat rack.

Thomas waiting by the lifts.

The first evening we went out to dinner at the Restuarant Malaysia in Luntmakargatan. Henry had his favourite, Char Kway Teow, while Thomas was content with fried rice. Somehow the food, while ok, was not really up to our standards. (Shredded lettuce instead of bean sprouts, who are you kidding!) Mind you, being Penang-influenced we have very high standards regarding Malaysian food.

Henry about to tuck into his Char Kway Teow,

Our trip, although short, was action-packed. In two days of sight-seeing we managed to see 6 museums. On Day 1 we went to the Pippi Longstocking museum, looked at the long queue at the Waasamuseum and decided not to bother, saw some boats in a couple of warehouses belonging to the Maritime Museum, went to the aquarium, and then finished our sight-seeing by going round the harbour on the hop-on-hop-off boat.

Thomas posing with the strongest girl in the world.


Tropical fish.


Henry coming up a manhole having investigated the sewers.


Swedish Royal Yacht used a few weeks earlier for the wedding of Crown Princess Victoria and Daniel.


Thomas tucking into a well-deserved meal after a tough day's sight-seeing.

After a hearty breakfast in the hotel, Day 2's tourist activities began with a visit to the Technical Museum. The little boys had great fun with the exhibits, although I'm not sure how educational the whole thing was.

We also went to the 3D theatre where there was a film about flight. The film was very interactive; as well as the seats moving, and the audience being squirted with water and various odours, there was a quiz with a little gadget to answer the questions. At the end of the quiz, there was a fanfare and the spotlight was focused on "the winner in Seat 36" - Peter. My five seconds of fame! I think I was supposed to wave and cheer but true to my northern heritage just sat there looking embarrassed. Mind you, if I win in a science quiz, the education system really needs some working on!

Astronaut Thomas

The Technical Museum was followed by visits to the Police Museum and the Swedish Sports Museum. Tired and hungry we headed off back towards the area of our hotel. On the menu this time; Italian food.

The next day we had to head off back to Finland. This time, for convenience's sake, we took the Airport Bus. A word of warning - it does not accept cash; all payments must be made by card.

Our journey included a long-ish stop in Tallinn but this was no problem as my friend, Sergei arranged to meet us for a quick sight-seeing trip. We got the bus into Tallinn centre and walked around the very nice old town. Tallinn had changed a lot since the last time I was there - just after the restoration of Estonian independence.

Looking over the rooftops of Tallinn city centre.


Looking over the rooftops of Tallinn city centre.

On the way back to the airport we popped into a supermarket to buy a load of Estonia's premier delicacy - chocolate-covered quark snacks. Our favourite being the 'Jänks' brand (but avoid the chocolate-flavoured one, it's far too sweet).

Tallinn has a nice airport, but it's very under-utilized, as the photos below show.

A deserted airport.


The same deserted airport.

Henry is a modern traveller; here seen looking at his Nokia 5230 to make sure he knows where he is.

We got home rather late, but still earlier than H-M, whose train had been severely delayed by fallen trees from one of the worst summer storms Finland has seen in recent years. Waiting for us at home, there were not three tenors but three best men, but more of that later.