Thursday, August 23

 

 

Yesterday at Terveystalo I got a prescription for some tablets that I have to take once a day, half an hour or more before breakfast, for two months. These will allegedly cure my cough, which almost certainly (allegedly) stems from a technical form of burping that passes bile from my stomach up to the back of my throat where it upsets my delicate little membranes. Or so I understand.

I woke up for no obvious reason at 6:40 this morning and decided to take my tablet and fall back asleep, which I managed successfully; waking up again when my alarm went off at 7:30.

I listened to Prince on the way to work, and walked from Kalasatama to Arcada, while the weather still permitted this kind of thing. I listened to an anthology of his overlooked material from the nineties and noughties. Some of it seemed fantastic.

I spent the first part of the morning researching how to get to Pärnu in September for the final Nobanet meeting. I worked out a fairly pain-free way using Tallink ferries and Lux Express coaches. I emailed this to Eija. I then did a complete back-up of my hard disk to make sure that nothing gets lost while I run around England. This, in turn, meant that I had to remember to back-up some things like Firefox bookmarks that I had to download first.

Once of the things we learned during Arcada Day concerned the enormous benefits of taking a break every now and then. I decided to take one right now.

I walk out of the building with the intention of restarting my Pokemon Go career, because I learned last week that the game has grown into something completely different from the game Jutta and I used to play. Once I have left the building I realise that I do not have an up-to-date copy on my phone, and so I walk along in a completely unaugmented reality.

I come across a stall selling berries outside the mall. I remember feeling surprised in my first years here. I now accept them as a traditional part of late summer and early autumn in Helsinki. Berry stalls appear everywhere, followed by mushroom stalls, followed by silence.

At midday Sophie and I will record a first take of episode one of our podcast, using Zoom. I have booked Oasis, so I will set up a proper backdrop. It will all look fine but when I play it back later I will immediately spot three things. The lighting in my room looks terrible, especially in contrast to Sophie’s. I keep looking off-screen when I think, and the result will prove impossibly distracting for anyone who watches. We go on too long.

I use We Transfer to send it to Sophie and then write her a long critique. In two weeks time we will record the second episode, and I will suggest that we should rerecord the first one at the same time.

I will spend the rest of the afternoon working on the grid theme I have decided to build for the CMS course. While I do this, Eija will reply suggesting an alternative route to Pärnu via Riga, using Air Baltic and Lux Express. It looks better until you factor in arriving at the airport ninety minutes before take-off.

I will decide that I like my plan better.