DannyBoy

Read 26 2 12 for Today's Avanto, i.e. the action taking place yesterday! I had just left t "Koppe" our changing room on the Ladies' Beach where the town has its Swimmers' hut above rocks with a heated staircase in winter to preclude the steps freezing over with any water draining from the sea dippers: ladies' thru the right swinging door men to the left... As usual I was all pumped up with feel good chemicals be they endorphins or adrenalin running across this sun glasses wearing man, smart phone in his hands, straddling his Mountain bike, taking pics of our Koppe or its surroundings...clear we should exchange the greeting "Morjesta"(meaning "from the sea!") Very soon he was complimenting me on my "excellent Finnish", not so excellent it didn't betray an underlying foreign accent, but good enough for his not to have started speaking English, before I admitted to being English by birth... Then when he switched into English, ...

Aged early 30's, me in my early 50's. Me, 2 years into my 4 year contract, they replacements for 2 guys I had eating out of my hand, based in the fact I had been visiting this company for 10 years before I arrived, and in a sense had been head-hunted to join them owing to a superior knowledge of the Industry, garnered as it was by visiting all their competitors in a development-coordinating role for some years past... The one a "Tavallinen Insinööri" as a opposed to a full Diploma Engineer, tavallinen meaning "Ordinary" as opposed to top notch: the other a bean counter, according to his own addmission, an Ekonomi or Economist on the top grade. The former a Trumplike figure, a narcissist with a personality disorder which had it that everything he did was okay, whilst everyone else wasn't. Whilst the other guy would run a mile rather than enjoin battle in an argument. I don't know which of the two was worst, but probably the latter who was noted as ...

A poem by Dylan Thomas sited by my nephew ex-Royal Marine Nick on WhatsApp in the UK yesterday, regarding my exploits this last week at our Avanto (Ice hole) Then his siting this poem was commented on by his youngest brother's wife, Claudia in Penang, who said she had just been teaching her students the same poem, reproduced here for my readership in the rest of the world... 1 Do not go gentle into that good night 2 Old age should burn and rave at close of day 3 Rage, rage against the dying of the light 4 Though wise men at their end know dark is right 5 Because their words had forked no lightning 6 Do not go gentle into that good night 7 Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright 8 Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, 9 Rage, rage against the dying of the light 10 Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, 11 And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, 12 Do not go gentle into that good night 13 Grave men, near death, who see with blin...

Imagine being able to borrow these two pics from a blog I wrote on another site in 2016 but almost a month earlier... The thing this year is that it's the first winter since 2021 I can recall being able to walk on the frozen sea and exceptionally I have been the only visitor to our changing room to keep the AVANTO that's Finnish for "hole in the ice" open, by daily hacking the over-night build up of ice away, and these last 2 days making sure to throw as much of it away onto the surrounding ice, in order that it doesn't become joined to the fresh over-night ice build up. Back in 2016 I have to think there were many others one could rely on to perform this task because I'm thinking today the average age of the daily visitors is much older than then, as the population of the town has got older..? That's leaving aside the weekend visitors but not so many to brave the deep freeze conditions as I do because as a permanent inhabitant who has been...

On this Runeberg's Day 2026, the day we buried my Appi-ukko, father-in-law, in his family plot in Pernaja, in Swedish Pernå, always known by his affectionate pet name, Jalle. Me, marrying into a family abroad, my Gentleman Farmer father-in-law with cows and "karjakko" or milk maids living on his farm to tend their flock, back in the days in the 1960's when we married in the same family church in Pernaja, with a sumptuous wedding reception in their yard: between the Shippen, the main house or manshion, and out-houses used to store vegitables and fruit on the ground flours, which doubled as guest rooms on the first floors, a second dwelling, all ready for the retirement of the elder generation, to vacate the farmhouse in the fullness of time, one generation following the former, a square of turfed garden and Flag Pole flying the national Flag in our honour wherein the guests from different parts of Finland and England, on my side because of my past history of working h...

The lady commedian in the long running Holywood series Sh*ts Creek just the latest in having her longevity termiated aged 71: life's great leveller maybe? Whoever you are, rich or poor, famous or unknown, the termination of the human condition is where its at, come the day that has one's termination date to the fore. And along the way all the other stuff going down: at no time in the history of the world are we as a group of ppl more aware as we are today through the media outlets, the social net-working platforms, books, newspapers, the internet, tv and radio, its all taking note. Aged 86 I am becoming an ever rarer specimen in the sense that the older one becomes the fewer there are left of the ppl one used to know: get to be 118 like one lady, and you might get to be unique as the one living person aged 118! But now I'm going to pause this snippet while I go take my daily dip in the sea. These last 5 days, since the 31st of January I have been the most visited person ...