Wednesday, December 2

I had a very restless night. I woke up once thinking about Auo’s last day in Kerala, which was, of course, her last day anywhere. I was having a dream that didn’t go away when I opened my eyes. Once I had gone back to sleep I woke up later having a dream in which I was at a formal dinner where the waiters kept bringing one dish too few and I neither got any food. This also refused to go away when I woke up, and I lay there plotting to get my own back until I had a drink of water and eventually fell back to sleep.

I woke up and remembered that neither Irma nor Naa were getting up at the same time as me. I crept silently round the house and left with everyone, including Sunshine, still asleep.

At 9:00 I was at Diacor to hear the results of my blood tests and the news was that I was in very good health for a man of fifty. The doctor suggested that I might consider losing two or three kilos and doing a bit more hard exercise in the gym twice a week at which point I would be in excellent health for a man of fifty. When I came out the next tram was in eleven minutes, and the next thing I had to do was to thing through something I was going to write, so I decided to walk to Arcada.

At 12:00 Jutta and I went to China Flavor for a lunchtime buffet that, because it was Wednesday, included sushi. We finalised the details of the course we will be teaching in Period 4, which we finalised yesterday. Apparently you just can’t have enough finalising.

From this I walked to Suvilahti to deal with the remaining financial matters from my Sheffield trip, and to tell Petri and Ilpo about the plans for next July. The route to Pixelache has changed again and I missed the new entrance. I ended up walking through building works and across the main road to Happi, and then over into the area around Kattalahalli. I am looking at one of the old gastanks which is now covered in art and graffiti. Two people are being photographed holding up a Christmas banner. I am almost there.

In the afternoon I will have meetings about supervising the MA students’ thesis work, and give my doctoral certificate to Anna Harma, who needs it to award me a small but pleasing pay rise. I will also talk with Lars and write the abstract for the MEVI conference that I had planned on the way from Diacor.

I will show the abstract to Lars just before I leave and he will point out that it is a very nice abstract for the paper I would like to give at the conference, but not very inviting at all as the abstract for a roundtable session. He will be completely correct and I will see this immediately. We will talk for five minutes and I will suggest another approach which he will approve.

I will get home, let Sunshine out, clean the floors, let Sunshine in, and say hello to Naa who will arrive back from Kamppi. I will go and get milk and then Irma will arrive back from her UFC adventure.