Meeting with 2 fellow Icy-Sea Visitors..? 26 2 21
Yeah, this am just after I had taken my dip but upon arriving to our Changing Room hearing these ladies' voices after their taking their respective dips in the ice cold sea before me.
Which to say I didn't take the trouble to descend the steps with giant ice-pick and spade, one in each hand, before stripping off to my nothings, on this day because the women's voices had flagged up everything was cosher, in order to take my dip... when to my surprise it was as if the opening was covered in ice, with water flowing out of its southern rim, since overnight the Sea level had risen... But because I knew the women had visited, I descended anyway, when sure enough the surface ice simply moved away, as I too descended the depths to sit and flap about in zero degC, to get my endorphin/ adrenaline shots for this day of Saturday Feb 21st 2026...
So here's the thing: as I'd dried off and dressed, I hear footsteps approaching the outer door, so open the men's inner door to acquaint them of the foregoing experience, just in case like me they take a peak at the havanto (ice hole) and decide it's not possible to visit it without ice pick and spade work to free it of ice before dipping...
When all pumped up with my feel good-shots, in my most fluent Finnish I deliver my spiel, without any reticence: how I am the one person who has kept it open since the 30th January and the only person to have signed in, though I am aware of others who daily visit and also help to keep it open, but haven't signed in because the message on the outer door claims visits have been suspended owing to the pump to keep it open being raised up out of the water, the sea level having fallen so low...
When exceptionally I am not switched into English, but rather after awhile they interrupt my flow to ask my native language, for its almost impossible for a non-native Finn to speak Finnish without an accent, if only the accent of Swedish speaking Finns.
When it then transpires I tell them how I have lived in Hanko 36 years, and how before that I had a customer here, who after 10 years invited me to join them, because I was an asian-tunteija (in English not so commonly used as in Finnish meaning "a peron with specialist knowlege") qualifying, what I was saying by adding "since all their competitors were also my customers (so pursuing my specialist skils and knowledge). Adding also how I first came to Finland and worked as a harioitelija (student summer worker at Kymi-yhtiö, one of Finland's biggest, if not the biggest Wood Pulp and Paper manufacturers) in 1960, when the man told how he had first visited this town in 1960, staying at the Belle Vue Hotel as it was then, and putting him in the same age category as myself, although his lady appeared somewhat younger.
Then he asked my name, when I had to repeat my unusual Sunday surname, I rarely use ******, when he reponded his name was Didrrikson (mispelt to avoid any algorhythm picking up on it, together with his Christian name, Peter, his lady Maria (?)
Thereafter followed some small talk about the Company I came to work for, when I asked them to guess how this Company's business had grown since I first visited, when his guess was 10 times, whilst in point of fact it had only grown 5 times, from 50 million units to 250 million making it one of the world's biggest, when it was one of the smallest when I first visited.
And who are they? I'll leave you to Google who they are, just about one of the most successful families, and themselves not native of Finland, lol.
Which to say I didn't take the trouble to descend the steps with giant ice-pick and spade, one in each hand, before stripping off to my nothings, on this day because the women's voices had flagged up everything was cosher, in order to take my dip... when to my surprise it was as if the opening was covered in ice, with water flowing out of its southern rim, since overnight the Sea level had risen... But because I knew the women had visited, I descended anyway, when sure enough the surface ice simply moved away, as I too descended the depths to sit and flap about in zero degC, to get my endorphin/ adrenaline shots for this day of Saturday Feb 21st 2026...
So here's the thing: as I'd dried off and dressed, I hear footsteps approaching the outer door, so open the men's inner door to acquaint them of the foregoing experience, just in case like me they take a peak at the havanto (ice hole) and decide it's not possible to visit it without ice pick and spade work to free it of ice before dipping...
When all pumped up with my feel good-shots, in my most fluent Finnish I deliver my spiel, without any reticence: how I am the one person who has kept it open since the 30th January and the only person to have signed in, though I am aware of others who daily visit and also help to keep it open, but haven't signed in because the message on the outer door claims visits have been suspended owing to the pump to keep it open being raised up out of the water, the sea level having fallen so low...
When exceptionally I am not switched into English, but rather after awhile they interrupt my flow to ask my native language, for its almost impossible for a non-native Finn to speak Finnish without an accent, if only the accent of Swedish speaking Finns.
When it then transpires I tell them how I have lived in Hanko 36 years, and how before that I had a customer here, who after 10 years invited me to join them, because I was an asian-tunteija (in English not so commonly used as in Finnish meaning "a peron with specialist knowlege") qualifying, what I was saying by adding "since all their competitors were also my customers (so pursuing my specialist skils and knowledge). Adding also how I first came to Finland and worked as a harioitelija (student summer worker at Kymi-yhtiö, one of Finland's biggest, if not the biggest Wood Pulp and Paper manufacturers) in 1960, when the man told how he had first visited this town in 1960, staying at the Belle Vue Hotel as it was then, and putting him in the same age category as myself, although his lady appeared somewhat younger.
Then he asked my name, when I had to repeat my unusual Sunday surname, I rarely use ******, when he reponded his name was Didrrikson (mispelt to avoid any algorhythm picking up on it, together with his Christian name, Peter, his lady Maria (?)
Thereafter followed some small talk about the Company I came to work for, when I asked them to guess how this Company's business had grown since I first visited, when his guess was 10 times, whilst in point of fact it had only grown 5 times, from 50 million units to 250 million making it one of the world's biggest, when it was one of the smallest when I first visited.
And who are they? I'll leave you to Google who they are, just about one of the most successful families, and themselves not native of Finland, lol.
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