Friday, June 2

 

 

Today we planned to sleep in, get up, and drive to Pellinki. I woke at 7:00 and heard the wind howling and things falling. When Irma got up she noticed that the outdoor thermometer said that the temperature out in the garden was four degrees. That counts as a suitable temperature for early March. I looked at YLE news where I learned that Finland has just had the coldest May for fifty years, and that the weather in June might not improve much.

I cycled to Puotila without my winter clothing, which went to the wardrobe in the shed months ago. By the time I arrived I wished that it hadn’t.

At Arcada I marked the final assignments in the final courses in my backlog and put the grades online. I sent out emails announcing this, and finalised almost all my work for this academic year. I still have two students who claim to have theses 90% ready, and insist that they will graduate before midsummer.

I had lunch – pittipannu to you – with Mirko and Niklas. Maria and her mother stopped to say hello as they left with some Amica pastries for her daughter’s graduation.

In the afternoon I caught up on my emails, and a few items connected to Nobanet and the putative partnership Liisa and I have forged with Tallinn University. Then I left for home in a heavy wind under a grey sky.

Once home, Irma suggests that we forget about leaving to Pellinki. When I look at the thermometer on the window it reads two degrees. I agree with her: the weather resembles early March, and I wouldn’t want to spend the night in the summer house in March.

Instead we go for a walk to take the picture we bought yesterday to the framer, whose shop lies about fifteen metres from the gas station. We walk down in the wind, trying to stop the painting blowing away. Ars Longa not only runs a framing service. It has a gallery too. I wander around it and see this painting of a Helsinki tram. I have no idea who painted it, and I can find no information anywhere. I like it though. If I wanted a landscape from the centre of Helsinki, I might well choose this.

We will leave and walk back, before leaping into the car and driving to Itis to do our weekly shopping.