I got these honours from Eveluna and Emmie, respectively. Thanks very much girls! I think both of these have pretty much done the rounds in most (Finnish) blogs that I read, so I won't pass them on for now. I'm a little bit busy at the moment, getting ready for our first wedding anniversary present to eachother, an R.E.M. concert. I'm not sure whether to take my camera as these are the first tickets I've seen where it says that they categorically refuse entry from people carrying cameras. :| Not sure whether to be a wuss or not...

Oh and I spent most of the morning putting together this little one-day road trip video from Cornwall. If you're not a fan of driving, you might want to pass. :P

Labels: my life, surveys etc., travel, video

Labels: photoblog, travel

Labels: photoblog, travel

I do love the sea. Everything about it. The fresh, salty air on my face, which makes a sticky tangled mess of my hair. The roar of the waves crashing against the rocks beneath the cliffs I'm standing on. The screams of the seagulls when they fly by. The soft sand between my toes on a beautiful beach at sunset... the list goes on. What I adore about the Cornish coastline is the rugged, primal nature of it. The coarse cliffs scarred with jagged ravines. And the constant movement of the water, the wild crashing of the Atlantic Ocean when it drives itself against the ancient rocks.

I think I'll just have to live by the sea again at some point in my life. It's where I feel such peace of mind, such completeness.

Today was a good day. M felt a lot better (we traced his condition back to a food poisoning caused by some apparently dodgy beaked beans he had, the only thing that was different from our diet) and we managed to cover quite alot of ground. My spirits were dampened a little bit by the mostly grey weather and outrageous period pains, but being by the sea compensated for all of it more than enough. Starting the day, first we went to gawk at the cliffs at Lizard, and after having gotten stuck at traffic heading to the Fish Festival at Newlyn, (the biggest festival in Cornwall don't you know), ended up unwittingly at Land's End (which I knew would be a mistake, it's such a nasty tourist trap). Then we drove some ridiculously narrow roads through Pendeen to St Ives, and later on up to Portreath, finishing with sunset at Hell's Mouth.

I've got a million pictures of cliffs and of sea, which will take some time to go through and process. I also got a lot of film clips of our drive today. Originally I planned to film a little bit here and there throughout the whole trip so I could edit it all together into a continuous road trip showing how the scenery changes while the trip goes on, but with all the drama at the start, I sort of forgot about it. Today's footage should make for a nice one day's road trip video though when put together.

Sadly, tomorrow we'll have to head back to London. I'm going to have one last stop at Perranporth, but after that's it'll have to be the quickest route home. Sigh. Well, I'll have the memories and the pictures, and the knowledge that I will be back. Hopefully sooner than it took me to come back this time!

Labels: my life, travel

Labels: photoblog, travel

Labels: photoblog, travel

Today has certainly had its ups and downs. We've driven through some amazing scenery, but the enjoyment has been dampened somewhat by Miikka being violently sick all over the south west coast of England... Yes, he's in a bad way and we're not quite sure why, as we've all eaten pretty much the same things (and both Stu and I are fine - so far...). It's quite heartbreaking really, to see him feel that bad. We planned this trip for quite some time and I was so looking forward to showing him all these amazing places... We can only hope that he feels better by tomorrow so we can at least have one proper day of full-on tourism.

We did drive through pretty places with beautiful beaches like Teignmouth, Torquay and Torcross (where Layla was just on holiday for a week but they had driven home yesterday, damn!), and one of my all time favourite places, Dartmouth(which involved a rather lengthy queue for the ferry). Finally crossing over from Devon to Cornwall, we did miss out on places like Looe and Polperro as we took a quicker route in order to get the quite grey looking patient into bed. But that's ok, it's still great to be back in Cornwall. I can't believe it's seven years since we were here last, for my 25th birthday! Crikey time flies. After tucking M into bed and arming him with bottles of water, Stu and I went for a quick drive to St Ives, just to make it a reality that we're really here. Oh how I wish it was for longer than one day.

Right now all I can hear is synchronised snoring. I think it's time for me to dive into my book for a while before falling asleep. Here's hoping tomorrow starts in a more positive manner than today...

Labels: my life, travel

Labels: photoblog, travel

Greetings from Exeter! We have a long day of driving behind us, most of which was spent at various traffic jams on the M3, one of which was cause by a car catching fire and burning to a crisp. But we did manage to break through from the worst traffic after The New Forest though and drove through some lovely scenery. There was the hustle and bustle of summery Weymouth, the cliff top view at Abbotsbury, and taking a break so some of us could have a beer - in Beer, the name of which provided hours of entertainment in the car. We got to Exeter sometime before 7pm and went out to eat the biggest portion of fish & chips known to man. Hence all three of us are still feeling quite uncomfortably full.

Since I took my laptop with me I'll write little updates here and there, but I'll add pictures to the entries once I get home. I don't have any appropriate software on the laptop to process my pics, and the screen isn't really big enough either.

The whether today was mostly lovely and sunny, with little spells of drizzle here and there. It's raining now but tomorrow it's supposed to be 28C in Cornwall, which is where we're heading.

Oh by the way, there's loads of rabbits outside our motel window, just sitting there! Jenni would be in bunny heaven. :D

Labels: my life, travel

Labels: photoblog, travel

Labels: photoblog, travel

Since it was effectively our last day of holiday, we decided to rent a car on a whim. Financially not the most viable option but it was so worth it. It was lovely to have that sense of freedom, not being dependent on anyone to get us from point a to point b, even if it was just for a few hours. We drove to Kuusijärvi to enjoy the sunny day and silence. Had a little picnic by the lake.



Then we drove to Järvenpää to see Johanna and the gang. Olli and Aleksi are growing way too fast! It's scary. Aleksi was already speaking, to the extent of correcting Stu's Finnish pronunciation. :D



All in all, the day was a perfect ending to our little Finnish trip.

Labels: my life, people, travel

Went for a trip down memory lane with Miikka. Was quite nostalgic to drive around the places of my youth.



The video is probably pretty boring to anyone else but me. Don't care. :P



Then we went to visit Annis and her growing bump. It's so strange how much has happened already while we've been away! Got treated to a lovely meal, as is always the case with Annis.

Labels: my life, people, travel, video

It was strange coming back to Finland. At the same time so familiar and normal, but also freaky as the fact that we don't have a home here any more really hit home and the whole thing became that much more real. I don't really regret any of the choices I've made in life, I've always believed that all the things you go through shape you into the person you are, but I can't deny that I felt a huge sense of loss when driving back from the airport and passing the junction to our old home. I had all these plans for the future and the visions always included living in that flat for some time to come. Letting go of it meant I had to let go of a lot of dreams. I think leaving that flat was ultimately a lot more difficult that leaving Finland 'for good'.



The weather has been gorgeous so far. We had a barbecue and a belated Vappu celebration on mum's patio with sima and tippaleipä. Mmmm lovely.

Labels: my life, travel

Holidays are a lovely thing, but they somehow make returning to normal life awfully difficult. Our trip to Oulu was brilliant. It consisted mainly of sightseeing, (a LOT of) eating, watching films and just relaxing. I had a very good time indeed. Thanks so much M&M for having us!

Below are some mobile snaps from the trip.















Today feels so weird. Paul left this morning and suddenly being all alone feels strange after having people around all the time for the last days. I can't seem to get my head around the work I'd need to be doing. Feel very disoriented.

Labels: my life, people, photoblog, travel

This has been one of those days where nothing wants to go right. Or is it just that nothing to do with computers never goes right, or at least not the way you've planned it. We were on a mission to sort out my mum's temperamental computer once and for all today. We were (maybe a bit too) eager to install her new printer and other toys, like a webcam, and were in quite high spirits when embarking on the mission. However, we never got very far since it turned out that either the CD drive on the machine is fucked or there's some other serious hardware problem with it, which prevents you from installing pretty much anything. Despite Stu going to heroic efforts, even driving back home to burn new versions of CD's just in case they were the problem, it just wasn't to be. A highly frustrating waste of a day.

I can't believe I have to go London on Tuesday already. Where the hell did the time go again?

I did manage to bake a rather nice chocolate birthday cake for Pauli though. And also, Rome pictures are finally up. They're not in a very logical order however, as I ran out of patience half way through sorting them...

Labels: food, my life, travel

I'm currently sitting in an internet cafe in Rome. We're just about to head out for something to eat, but I felt like coming in and checking out what's happening in the world. It's been very hot here indeed, aircon is a lifesaver! Our hotel is nice enough and we even got a complimentary bottle of champers last night because the travel agent had let the hotel know it was our honeymoon! Oh and we also have a little fish in the bathroom. It seems rather scared of us though and hides in the plant thingy in the middle of the bowl every time we go in.

We've been out and about a bit; on foot, on the metro and on the bus. There's a lot of sweat involved in getting around the city, but it's worth it. Rome is as beautiful and bonkers as ever and I'm really glad to be back.

Righty ho, off to eat some pasta now. Ciao!

Labels: my life, travel

I shot a lot of really short clips so I could delete some if I ran out of space on my card, hence the final product is a bit more jerky than I'd like. Oh well.

Labels: my life, travel, video

The cruise was very nice indeed. The ferry was done up all christmassy and the weather in Stockholm was sunny (and cold!). Somehow we ended up on 'Finland's funniest homevideos gala cruise', which entailed recording a gala which will air on TV on friday. We didn't go to that one, mind. We did sit in on a 'workshop' where people could bring in their funny home videos. So not funny. :| Umm. But yeah, at least we learned that the presenter bloke is tiny in real life!

This trip was quite a revelation in terms of how much better I'm feeling. I really felt like my old self again and even stayed up late drinking margaritas in the night club and all sorts. Might not sound like much to most people, but I can't personally remember the last time when I would have been in a bar drinking into the night without feeling absolutely horrible and exhausted. So yay.



I shot a lot of video clips and will edit them together shortly. Tonight maybe.

In other news, I bought three pairs of shoes from Stockholm. :D And I love them all.

And it's like 4 days till Christmas!

And we're finally going go see The Devil Wears Prada with Jenni today. We've only been planning to see it since she was still in Canada. :P

Labels: my life, travel

Great... All UK airports are in chaos and a critical security alert has been issued after a plot to blow up planes in mid-flight from the UK to the US was foiled. According to MI5's website, critical threat level means 'an attack is expected imminently and indicates an extremely high level of threat to the UK'. :| Nice one.

Heathrow Airport has been closed to all incoming flights. But still, at the moment BA is saying I should check in on my flight in the morning as normal... Another thing is do I really want to! :o Pfft. I expect some excruciating waiting around at packed airports...

There's also a nice new hand luggage policy in place:

Passengers may take through the airport security search point, in a single (ideally transparent) plastic carrier bag, only the following items. Nothing may be carried in pockets:

- Travel documents essential for the journey (eg passports, tickets and visas)
- Pocket sized wallets and pocked sized purses plus contents (for example money, credit cards and identity cards). Handbags are not permitted.
- Prescribed medicines essential for the duration of the flight, except in liquid form unless verified as authentic.
- Spectacles and sunglasses, without cases.
- Contact lenses, without bottles of solution
- For those traveling with an infant: baby food, milk and sanitary items essential for the flight.
- Keys (but no electrical key fobs).

Every other item must be carried in customer'’s hold luggage.

For clarity, passengers are advised that no electrical or battery powered items including laptops, mobile phones, ipods, remote controls etc can be carried in the cabin and must be checked in as hold baggage.

Any customers not complying with this Government instruction will not be accepted for travel by British Airways.

We expect severe congestion in and around all UK airports and possible delays to flights.

I can hardly wait! :|

Labels: my life, travel

After an arthritis-inducing amount of time spent scanning and sorting out images, a selection of the holiday pictures is now online here. I even tried to throw in some captions. All the square images are taken with a Holga and scanned from print, in case someone wonders.

Ack, I can't stand the thought of hols being over tomorrow. Sucks so bad.

Labels: my life, travel

Well ok, I can't go to bed without revealing this much. On Thursday 20 July (at 22:55), Stu proposed to me on San Marco's Square in Venice. And I said 'OK'. :D It was all very romantic and the scene around us looked like from a movie (even if we didn't, in the +38C heat). It did take me completely by surprise, even though I might have had some romantic ideas about being proposed to in Venice, I didn't have a clue he'd actually do it! I guess nearly 7 years of training on what I'd like finally paid off. :P Just kidding. But it was perfect in every way. More later...

Labels: my life, travel

Soo, the cruise to Stockholm was much fun (see, there we are in our cabin). We even managed to miss the riots (which also involved the fellas with funny hair in one of my moblog pics - saw them on telly later :P ) where shop windows were being smashed etc. in oppose to globalisation. I think. Anyhoo.

The weather right now is glorious - all sunshine - and it's Friday. So that's all good. For someone who travels as much as I do, I can't quite understand why it takes me such a long time to regain a sense of control after returning from a trip. It happens every time I go away for work, but it looks like only a couple of days of holiday have the same effect. Last week I felt so on top of things, I had re-arranged the furniture, had a clean home and a tidy kitchen, was staying on top of the laundry, not to mention diet, bills etc. routines. Now, after being back for four days, the flat is in complete chaos, I'm yet to unpack completely, I haven't even managed to do a proper foodshop and I just feel like I can't get a grasp of anything. I'm sure the weekend will fix things, but still, it's bloody annoying. I really ought to be able to just return and slip into normal routines just like that by now.

After a gruelling day at the tax office on Wednesday (why did our tax office have to move into the arse end of the universe) it looks like I might even get a bit of a rebate at the end of the year. That's absolutely brilliant and a complete 180 to the feeling I left the tax office last year with. Fingers crossed there is no huge mistake in the calculations. In any case, it's nice to just breathe a sigh of release that that's done for this year. God I hate tax returns.

I feel like I'm going through an extremely busy period at the moment. And busy in a mundane, not very exciting way. I can't seem to muster much time or energy to my normal past time activities, like shooting. Mind you, I do have a huge backlog of older shoots to process and a gigantic amount of pictures in need of sorting out for printing for portfolio or to models etc. :| Should probably get to all that at some point. Uhh, I hate feeling useless.

Bring on the weekend (and a little cleaning lady if at all possible).

Labels: my life, travel

No-one goes to Hanko or Tammisaari in March. Apart from us that is. :|

God damn it was cold and windy.

Labels: my life, travel

Blah, not really in the mood for writing. Had another doctor's appointment today, have another wisdom tooth pulled out next Friday, blood tests next week... more doctors and dentists when I get back from England. I wouldn't mind if I never saw another doctor's or dentist's surgery again in my life. Pfft.

Anyways, I thought I ought to put a little glimpse of our Stockholm cruise up. The coolest thing was the location of our cabin. It was right at the end of the ferry, which meant we sort of had 'our own' balcony and a bloody huge window-wide screen that showed the Olympics. That was actually the sport bar's screen outside our window, but it was just such a weird and wonderful thing to have, I didn't even mind it was just sports. Check the pic of me watching 'our' widescreen telly. :D See, we're easily pleased.

Anyways, lots of good food, a bit too much to drink, some tax free shopping and one drunken shopping spree in the perfume/makeup shop made sure we didn't stick to our budget at all. But ho hum, it was sort of our 5-year anniversary cruise so we decided not to think about money. Well not too much anyways. :P

Labels: my life, travel

And so we are back in reality with a bang.

The holiday was absolutely perfect. Italy was as beautiful as ever and at +37C and over 60% humidity it certainly wasn't chilly. If you want to see some piccies click on the door below.

And as Stu has written a rather conclusive review on the trip you could always go read that as well. Saves me from writing it up. :D

Labels: my life, travel

We're all packed (I think) and ready to go. Have to get up at
4am, which seems a bit harsh... but at least at the end of it we'll be
in Italy. Yayness. We're flying to Naples and then it's a boatride from
there to the island of Ischia.

We'll be back a week from Sunday, on my birthday (i.e. 25th July), quite possibly with a crispier skin. Erm.

I think I'm gonna try to get some sleep then... although the sun is still up. And I'm too excited...

Labels: my life, travel

Back in the city. *sigh*

Midsummer was lovely. The weather was perfect, the company good and the time spent away from work, the computer and stress just heavenly. But, I'm back in reality and the rain now. Not really ready to take on the world tomorrow again... but oh well. Perhaps I'll just sit here for a bit, trying to prolong the remains of the holiday...

To see more pictures click (my nose) below.

Labels: my life, travel