Crawley

About six weeks ago I got roped into this project to arrange some stupid go-karting thing for the Kråli and Brighton offices in July. I'm not a big fan of go-karting, but I am a good Company Girl so I went and did it. I advertised it, collected money, got discounts and things. I didn't want to drive in it but being the perfect hostess I really rather had to.


Number six looking like he is cornering rather quickly. In fact, I think the race was stopped.

I'm just back from the racing the now. I came about last, and whilst I could have done without the driving, didn't have a bad time.

We had a presentation at work today. I didn't realise how much of our revenue comes from government and military communications equipment. I mean, it's not equipment which would kill people, like guns or bombs or anything like that. In fact, very little of it is for anyhting which remotely resembles warfare. But it still makes me uncomfortable, and I don't know why.

I was hanging out with a couple of my girl-friends on the on the floor. We were sitting around on cushions at Sandy's place, me, Sandy and Anke. The alarm on my phone went off, it took me by surprise. This stupid tune, but so loud, so loud that I had to turn it off right away.

I pulled the phone out from my pocket. The screen was blank, and the phone was silent, but the alarm carried on. Anke said that it may be her phone, as she also has a Samsung phone. I reached my hand up the back of her shirt, looking for her phone. I stroked my hand up and down the smooth skin on her back, which was nice. Anke took out her phone and checked it, but it was not her phone either, and the ringing, the overpowering, crushing ringing of the alarm, carried on. The noise was coming from my phone, my real phone, calling me out of my dreams and into the real world. It was 6.20 in the morning. I was laying alone in a strange bed. It was raining hard outside, and I had to get up and get dressed to go out and run 8 miles.

22 hours earlier, the very same telephone had called me awake far less dramatically. I hadn't been dreaming, only slumbering, and it wasn't the alarm, it was a call from my mother to let me know that they were on their way over, and they would be about two hours. I pulled myself out of bed, and went through my morning routine.

My parents were picking me up on the way to a family party in the New Forest. It was my aunt and uncle's 50th Wedding Anniversary.

I can't imagine being in love any more, let alone being in love for 50 years.


50 years

But it's always nice to meet up with family. I meet my cousins every two years or so. There is one of my cousins who, despite meeting up with him every two years or so, I've never known what he actually did, in fact I don't think that I've even spoken to him before. I did that. I spoke to him. I got to know him a bit.

He has been with his partner for 18 years.

I can't imagine being in love for 18 years.



Sunday morning, and I was out running across the New Forest with my brother. We left at 6.30 in the morning in light rain which got progressively heavier as we were out. 8 miles later and it was coming down pretty hard.

The New Forest is a nice place, although popular with tourists. There aren't that many trees, apparently that's because the soil isn't very good and they don't grow easy, but there are a lot of ponies. Popular tradition has it that the wild ponies scattered in the desolate parts of Great Britain swam ashore from the wrecked ships of the Spanish Armada, but apparently that's not actually true.


The top which I wear for running in the rain used to be a snug fit, now it's really loose. Where did I go?

The best man from the wedding was also there, and pointed out that the two of them actually picked a terrible date to get married, and that they should have done it a week later. This weekend was the British Grand Prix, The London Pride March, the start of the Tour de France (my uncle and his best man are keen cyclists). Not to mention the Wimbledon finals! Shame about the F1, which I gather was a thrilling race, but the rest was OK: I'm not a big fan of road cycling or tennis, and I'm going to Amsterdam Pride in a month anyway.


I love this song.

A quiet weekend this week – I stayed in on Saturday and made a point of not having anything to drink. It was a genuinely satisfying venture: I managed to tidy my room, finish the second draft of this short-story I've been trying to work on since February, and finish the b3ta version of a running website:
Our running website
The website needs more feedback and input from the adrgnr team, but at least it doesn't look as crappy as it did last week. It's php based and written using the Eclipse PDT tool, not that anyone is fussed about these nörtti details.

I spent the whole of Saturday night being creative, and was up until 6am.

I got this completely awesome hat from the shop on Saturday. You can do that when you aren't doing anything else. This is what freedom is about.

I was out in the forest on Sunday afternoon. I'm in an Adventure Race in two weeks time with my brother, and these are practice runs. I think that my practice has paid off – I can control the bike over the rougher terrain a lot smoother than I could, and I have a better feel for the bike as well. I came back with about 45 pictures from the forest, 5 of which are worth sharing with people. I don't want to post loads of pictures in one entry, so I'll post the rest of them next week or something.

The Ants were out in force in the forest today, and there were some parts where the path was like a little moving carpet. Usually I didn't see them until the bike was just about to go over them. I don't know how many I took out today, I suspect that having a tyre roll across them doesn't hurt that much, they certainly didn't seem to mind.

It's midsummer.

Midsummer is a significant date for me. I decline to mention the main reason, but here is one of the less important reasons:

Just after midsummer I left the city which I love and where I belong, the city where my friends who I love and miss live. I left happiness to come and live in a country which I don't particularly like for the sake of my career.

I was planning on staying about two years. That means I am half way*.

On Puoliaika. It's Half Time.

Also on even less interest, I joined Ooperani just over a year ago. The first blog post was on the 4th June last year, so Happy Birthday to my my opera blog. Yay.

I went back and reread my first few blog posts. Here's a summary of how things have changed in the last year:

I still belong in Oulu. It will always be my spiritual home. A year ago I was umming and ahhhing about returning one day. I'm still kinda doing that – umming and ahhhing – but more in the “I'd really love to, but I understand that it may not be a matter of just turning up and getting a job next time” kind of way. I'd settle for Helsinki, or somewhere in Sweden or Norway.

MY career has actually done pretty well during the last year. I'm known and endorsed by the Engineering Director, and considered a competent and well motivated engineer. I represent the office for one major project, and am currently on the shortlist as a Company Representitive for another. I have even been to dinner at the Managing Director's house, and am pals with the MD's wife... all of that sounds jolly good, but to put it into figures: the standard pay rise this year was 2.2%, and I got 4%.

I have discovered running as a sport. Originally it was because colleagues invited me, then it was because colleagues would laugh at me if I didn't go. Then I got more serious as training for a cross-country skiing trip, then, suddenly, I found myself doing it as a sport (which I love) in it's own right. Now I am the fastest in the office, and have covered more miles than anyone else.

I have rediscovered off-road biking. I try not to use the term “Mountain Biking” because there aren't that many mountains in South East England. I used to do it a lot before I left for Finland. I stopped off road biking in Finland because I couldn't afford a decent off-road bike – the market was dominated by town bikes and second rate off-roaders which I would have smashed up in minutes.

I haven't lost my enthusiasm for cross-country skiing, not by a long shot. I have my cross-country skis in my room, where they have pride of place. Yes, I am that sad.

I have run about 200 miles. Not, as impressive, as, it, seems, but pretty good for someone in their first year.

I am still slightly disappointed with the City of Brighton and Hove.

I am totally comfortable with my sexuality. I do not speak to the people who made my life so ... before, and I don't intend to speak to them ever again.

I am completely out at work.

I have flown to Cyprus.

I am still studying Finnish. My vocabulary has increased, but my pronunciation is not as good as it was.

I have flown to Amsterdam. While I was in Amsterdam, I met this crazy woman called Astrid. She's cool. I'm hoping to go and see her again in August, but nothing is booked yet.

I understand myself and my motivations a lot better than I did. I think that now I can see that people do, actually, like me, and I'm slowly beginning to see why. In time I may even like myself.

I have flown to Finland.

Total takeoffs for the period: 12.

In one of my early blogs I mentioned a primigravida friend having a miscarriage. I don't think I've ever met anyone else who would describe a friend as being primigravida. I'm pleased to say that aforementioned woman is now a secundigravida, and everything is going well. I'm still a nulligravida, and that is unlikely to change.

I still have not been hit by the insane motorists that we have here as I cruise around town on my bike. I have hit one pedestrian – this guy who stepped in front of me on the road. No-one was injured.

I have not found a party crowd, and have come to the conclusion that the best party venue is London. If I had a crowd of party people I would probably go there more often. If I had a girlfriend I wouldn't go there so much, I guess.

The only dykes I know in Crawley are Angie and Chippy. I don't talk to them much as they are too butch for me. I don't see why I should be a stereotype, and I don't like the way they pick on me.

I have been paid 10 times since I came here. That's ten whole payslips which I may not have had in Finland. The wages are better in the UK than they are in Finland, but you don't get to keep the money here.

I still spell Crawley as 'Kråli', or more often 'Kåli'. I have stopped spelling it CRAWLEY.

I have seen the England Women's Football team play twice. The first time was a slightly dull walk-over match against Belarus, the second time was a more exciting draw against the Czech Republic. I spoke to Jodi Handley's dad after the match, and saw Karen Carney at breakfast – exciting

I have been offered one other job, and headhunted by several other companies. I don't think it would be in my interests to leave my current employer.

And I still think that Rachel Brown is just dreamy.

Rachel Brown during the England – Belarus match at the end of last year. She was called upon to save precisely 0 goals. What a boring match.




If I didn't have a plan for the future, and an idea of where I am going next and when, I really don't think that I could bare living here.





*Technically the date is the 28th, but I don't think I'll have a free evening to drink, unwind and write stupid maudlin posts like this one next week.

It's 10,30 and I'm on the train out of Kråli. It's not the fastest train to Victoria Station, London, but it's not the slowest either. I'm 30 minutes late because I couldn't get to sleep quickly the night before. In today's Britain there is usually weekend engineering work on the railways somewhere, and this weekend it's on the Victoria line through London and on the train line to Birmingham - I finally arrive in town about 2 hours late. Pretty good for a Saturday.

First thing was to meet an old friend from University. All of a sudden he has two children! Very cute. Rest of the evening quite - watched a movie (City of God, amusing but not realistic) with Brother then went to bed and slept pretty badly.

The next morning we were up bright and early for the Kenilworth Rotary Club's Two Castles 10k Run. There were about 2,500 runners there - the weather was fantastic, although not as hot as it was in Oslo. A nice course from Warwick Castle to Kenilworth Castle and through some of the Warwickshire countryside. I've never done the run before, it's mostly slightly uphill, which is a nice challenge - I'd like to do it again, it was a fun race. I kept a nice even pace for most of the race and didn't try to push myself too hard, managing to stay at a pace which I was happy with for the whole course.


537 Coming into Kenilworth Castle. Picture by my sister in law, who would have done me as well but I was on the wrong side of the track where she couldn't really see me.

The time. My training run is (ironically) 11.3 km, and my best time for that is 1.06:43. This means a 10k should be 57 minutes, or there about. I thought that because of the crowd I may have to slow it down a bit. My time came up as about 54:10, better than I'd expected, and a personal best. The time is approximate: we were running with these ankle chips, so I didn't time that accurately, but I'm sure that I'm not far out. The numbers will get published soon enough. It's the fastest pace I've made for that distance at about 8:45 minutes to the mile, although at the start I was going quicker. I know that I can do it faster, and I felt a bit bad for not keeping the pace for the whole course, but I'm still a rookie runner with only 10 months running. Heroics next year.

My brother finisehd in about 48 minutes. My running buddy Rick was in Southend doing the Southend-on-Sea Half Marathon.


Cool news: we have our final two races for the rest of the season planned out and booked!. July 12th we are Adventure Running in Bracknell Forest. This means cross-country running for 5-10 miles and mountain biking for anouther 10-20, with a mystery challenge that is revealed on the day. It's the first Adventure Race we've done, and it sounds really cool - I love going off-road!

Our final outdoor event this year is the Great North Run on October 5th. It's a half-marathon, and we are running for Epilepsy Action. We're working on a website which I'm hoping to have up and working this time next week, so folks can check it out and see what we're doing, and why.


Team "Low Fliers", next in action on July 12th.

I got back late Sunday night because I had to stay and watch the Canadian GP with my sister-in-law. My sister-in-law Lisa is a huge GP fan - more than anyone else in the family. It was a pretty exciting race - the track was falling apart, Lewis Hamilton screwed up and crashed into Kimi Räikkönen in the pit lane, Polish racer Kubica won his first ever GP for BMW Sauber, and David Coulthard finished on the podium. Cool.