Today's Avanto and t Captain in our Special Forces..? 26 2 13
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, his betrayed a fluency uncommonly good, when it transpired he had to speak English in his job, these 30 years a member of our special forces, most recently much to do with Norwegians, who don't speak Finnish, whilst he and his colleagues rarely speak Norwegian.
Not wishing to engage in a military discussion, I began by telling him what a good feeling I had, after sitting in our hole in the ice, air temperature -2 degC., after many days much lower, when he used the word Hurjaa meaning bowelless demonic fierce frantic frenzied, such an exclaimation, when I corrected him with the word "Ihanaa" meaning "No, its wonderful!"
But with the compliments came explanations: how I had been living here 36 years, and before that as a supplier for 10 yrs more, before getting an invitation to join the company in question. At first turning them down but how I was visiting the company once a month, as a vetaja (leader) when he understood, I'm guessing, that I came for an important job?
That was perhaps when I switched to asking about his background when he told how for 30 years he had been a soldier, aged 56 or 7, with one more year to serve before being retired out.
For some reason I then began to tell of the two fellows in my British Comany with whom I got to visit Finland: brothers-in-law Dick and Phillip, the former Britain's yougest Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Navy, WW II, and the latter an acting Wing Commander in the Air Force.
Adding, the ppl I knew here in Finland with a military background, like my now diseased friend Peter, whose father was the Colonel at Dragsvik, who among other things founded Amnesty Internationals' Finnish branch; his grandparents' generation prominent ppl leading the Reds in Finland's civil war. Plus the guy who commanded nearby Russerö, for 5 years whose name he knew when I told him, filling in the background branch of Finland's armed forces, to which the duty befell...
By this time the word "Sir" had crept into his conversation, which if I'm not mistaken signifies "respect"...only later because as the coldness of the day began to bite (especially so from so soon after my dip in the freezing sea, I needed to get moving again...
Guilty of injudicious name-dropping to an extent, memorising his name repeatedly immediately thereafter, so taken with this random guy I'd met, and then when I was about to pass the Apteekki, popping in to buy something, so I could commit his name to paper, so unblievably inept at remembering ppl's names I needed to write it down before losing it forever.
Thereafter seeing his account on Instagram, but refraining from inviting him to be my friend, with my own account (and perhaps cleverly introducing myself with my pet name only, adding my surname later, without my proper name, so not being so easy for him to track!): old (desperate for new ppl as the old die with ever greater frequency)
But "semmoister" (that's how it is) for this day's blog: sweating as I am this morning, after maybe drinking too much coffee, or is the ADT I've been subject to these past 2 - 3 months? Have a good day everyone I'll return later to edit today's offfering, with a spelling check at least, and note that another recent blog about Dylan Thomas has been re-worked in the light of later events...
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, his betrayed a fluency uncommonly good, when it transpired he had to speak English in his job, these 30 years a member of our special forces, most recently much to do with Norwegians, who don't speak Finnish, whilst he and his colleagues rarely speak Norwegian.
Not wishing to engage in a military discussion, I began by telling him what a good feeling I had, after sitting in our hole in the ice, air temperature -2 degC., after many days much lower, when he used the word Hurjaa meaning bowelless demonic fierce frantic frenzied, such an exclaimation, when I corrected him with the word "Ihanaa" meaning "No, its wonderful!"
But with the compliments came explanations: how I had been living here 36 years, and before that as a supplier for 10 yrs more, before getting an invitation to join the company in question. At first turning them down but how I was visiting the company once a month, as a vetaja (leader) when he understood, I'm guessing, that I came for an important job?
That was perhaps when I switched to asking about his background when he told how for 30 years he had been a soldier, aged 56 or 7, with one more year to serve before being retired out.
For some reason I then began to tell of the two fellows in my British Comany with whom I got to visit Finland: brothers-in-law Dick and Phillip, the former Britain's yougest Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Navy, WW II, and the latter an acting Wing Commander in the Air Force.
Adding, the ppl I knew here in Finland with a military background, like my now diseased friend Peter, whose father was the Colonel at Dragsvik, who among other things founded Amnesty Internationals' Finnish branch; his grandparents' generation prominent ppl leading the Reds in Finland's civil war. Plus the guy who commanded nearby Russerö, for 5 years whose name he knew when I told him, filling in the background branch of Finland's armed forces, to which the duty befell...
By this time the word "Sir" had crept into his conversation, which if I'm not mistaken signifies "respect"...only later because as the coldness of the day began to bite (especially so from so soon after my dip in the freezing sea, I needed to get moving again...
Guilty of injudicious name-dropping to an extent, memorising his name repeatedly immediately thereafter, so taken with this random guy I'd met, and then when I was about to pass the Apteekki, popping in to buy something, so I could commit his name to paper, so unblievably inept at remembering ppl's names I needed to write it down before losing it forever.
Thereafter seeing his account on Instagram, but refraining from inviting him to be my friend, with my own account (and perhaps cleverly introducing myself with my pet name only, adding my surname later, without my proper name, so not being so easy for him to track!): old (desperate for new ppl as the old die with ever greater frequency)
But "semmoister" (that's how it is) for this day's blog: sweating as I am this morning, after maybe drinking too much coffee, or is the ADT I've been subject to these past 2 - 3 months? Have a good day everyone I'll return later to edit today's offfering, with a spelling check at least, and note that another recent blog about Dylan Thomas has been re-worked in the light of later events...
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