Floating away

We headed into town this morning to have breakfast/brunch with PM and EK - very nice it was too. One of the things we discussed was what was open and available as an activity over Easter weekend, as we have some visitors. I also asked PM whether he had been to listen to Carles Puigdemont, the controversial Catalan politician, as he had been speaking at the university the previous day. He said not, but then told us that yet again the Spanish authorities have been trying to chase Puigdemont unsuccessfully with their European Arrest Warrant, and that the Finnish authorities - although officially willing - had shown some reluctance to do the Spanish dirty work for them, by sending in a series of further questions to the EAW at close of business on a Friday (while indicating they didn't work on a Saturday...). Another YLE story gives some more explanation. I had been interested to know whether anyone had given Puigdemont the same hard time a Danish professor in our acquaintance had done when he popped up in Copenhagen in January. Marlene Wind is now the darling of the Castillian press. But it would appear that didn't happen, but he seems unlikely to be detained whilst here (and indeed is unlikely still to be here). Eventually, even the Guardian picked up the story.

There was some hilarity afterwards as we discovered that PM is much more of a shopper than we had ever imagined. He introduced us to a lovely shop where I struggled to keep my wallet in my bag, but was successful in the end. I would love to equip our new kitchen entirely with Finnish design items :-)

But even before that we popped down to the market square quay to see how things had changed since we were there with norfolkdoc and W a couple of weekends ago. The ice is breaking up, as the weather gradually warms up, and thanks to having the long lens on the camera I was able to capture these lovely soft colours over the islands of Luoto and Valkosaari that guard the entrance to the harbour. Those are restaurants and yacht clubs out there, all reachable only by boat (in the summer). I looked that up when norfolkdoc was here.

Around lunchtime we walked back here via the end of Töölönlahti, where there were still a few people walking on the ice and doing some fishing right up at the end of the bay, even though apparently someone has fallen through the ice and died already this winter somewhere in the Helsinki area. YLE in English is carrying a story about a boy being rescued on the ice, and generally warning about the risks of the ice in spring. I certainly wouldn't go on the ice now. Anyway, I've decided to open a new flickr album to capture the shift from winter towards spring over the next few weeks.

After chilling for a bit, we popped back to our favourite bookshop for a guitar music concert and then finished the day watching a bit of rugby. Some interesting news from Singapore (well, actually Indonesia) in the evening. At some point in the future I will need to be on my best behaviour!

An excellent chilled Saturday.