The Lottery Winners

           

I am now in Helsinki awaiting my impending nuptial with The Finn Named Axel. The culture shock of adjusting to life in yet another country is still taking up most of my attention and I am continuously surprised by the people of this home that I now call Finland ( see blog post The Chartered Gas Engineer).

A while later into my time in Helsinki I read that Finns consider it a lottery win to be born Finnish. They are seemingly proud of their small country tucked away on the periphery of Europe and on first impression it does all seem rather idyllic. The people Axel has introduced me to have been without exception polite and welcoming, but lottery winners the lot? If I extend this logical chain of thinking then it means that every single person born in this country is by default a lottery winner whereas I myself, not born here, am automatically classified as a lottery loser. Hmmm.. not so sure I agree with them on this one, isn't it a lottery win to be born into a loving family wherever you are in the world? And now, on top of everything else I will also have to tell this to the Chartered Gas Engineer on my return to England. I will have to break it to him that he is not, never has been and never will be a lottery winner. How on the earth will he take it? I am already anticipating his witty reply: 'That’s what they all say to feel better about living in a semi-communist state'. Maybe I'll just skip this part.

   

The Wedding day is now only weeks away. One morning I wake up and its yet another, dark winter's day. Take the darkest winter's day you can imagine in England and triple that. Now, that still isn't anywhere near as dark as what's outside my window. Add to this copious amounts of dirty snow, treacherous ice and finish it all off with blasts of cold arctic wind slicing through you like a hot knife through butter. Then imagine yourself stepping out of your door into that. Not nice and that's my reality. Axel has already left for classes and I venture out of the apartment to go to the local food shop. My journey takes me past the local liquor store, they appropriately call it ‘Alko’. It's only ten in the morning yet already I see a few stewed lottery-winners wobbling around outside. I carry on walking and am suddenly assailed by a terrible yearning for London; ‘I don't like this anymore’, I think to myself and start to make a mental note of what exactly is bothering me;

'I don't like the cold, I don't like the darkness, the only lottery winners that talk to me are the drunk ones and I miss everyone back in England. Maybe that dratted Chartered Gas Engineer was right after all! What am I doing here? ' I ask myself. As I walk around the aisles gathering my food these thoughts continue to trouble me and follow me back to the flat. A cup of tea is in order. If there is one thing I have learned from all my years in Britain it is this: when a crisis hits put on the kettle. As I wait for the water to boil I switch on the radio. Big fat tears roll down my cheeks as Eppu Normaali’s Tahroja Paperille plays in the background and a dark tidal wave invades my mind. ‘I may be making a huge mistake moving here…what am I doing here? Perhaps I should just call everything off with Axel and return back to England’.

Many hours elapse and finally Axel returns home from his day of studies at the Helsinki University of Technology. I run into his arms, he holds me tight and in an instant I feel warm and protected. Then I remember, 'Oh, yes, this is what I'm doing here!' Axel asks me how my day was, and this is a cue for me to expel all the days turmoil in one long and exhausting sentence; ‘I went out today and the weather was awful, and I missed everyone and everything back in London, and I suddenly felt terribly lonely, and I asked myself what I was doing here, and then you turned up and then I remembered'. ‘All's OK then' he smiles gently, and we hug again. The following month we are man and wife. It’s a cold winters day and the wedding is a small and intimate affair at the Huopalahti chapel in the residential area of Etela Haaga. Our union is witnessed by only seventeen persons including Mama, Papa, Sis and her future husband, Harry. Axel and I both decide not to invite the Chartered Gas Engineer. He would only cause trouble. The Finn named Axel has just become The Husband Named Axel, and I in turn become Maria del Carmen Hanninen. After nineteen-years of enforced exile my name is finally restored to its rightful place and it's a safe and warm feeling.

And with this warm memory of a wedding day still cursing through my veins, the Tenerife plane lands in Helsinki. Over six hours have elapsed since we departed the island of my birth. Six hours of contemplating the twists and turns of that river of life and how I came to live the third part of my existence in this beautiful arctic country on the periphery of Northern Europe (see post A Girl Named Audrey). The marriage to Axel will last exactly twenty-five years, two months and two days until its spectacular implosion many years later on a sunny May 13th. Forty-four years earlier on another similarly sunny May 13th, the six-year-old that I was stepped on a plane with Mama and Sis taking us to new lands called England. On this May 13th 1970, a chapter of my life closed and in doing so it made way for another still to be written (see post Share The Moon). As it was back then, it also came to pass on May 13th 2014. Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end. After collecting my luggage, I leave the terminal and walk out into the bright sunshine. It feels good to be home and already tomorrow I return to work; for not only am I, A Girl Named Audrey, I am also A Guide Named Audrey. Welcome to my world!

The world of The Guide Named Audrey will continue in due time with new adventures. 


In the meantime immerse yourself in the original saga from the very beginning !  Share The Moon

Note: All written content is the intellectual property of this Author. Image material is drawn largely from Pixabay with some additions from private family archives.

The Chartered Gas Engineer

 

It's late January 1989, and I am now living in Helsinki. After a childhood in Spain’s Canary Islands and an adolescence in England, I have now moved onto my third country. This country is called Finland and it is here that I will spend my adult life and in doing so take on new roles as Wife and Mother. And all of this will be with The Finn Named Axel (see post A Finn Named Axel). The dire warning of the Chartered Gas Engineer that I am moving to semi-communist state, and that I may never be able to return to England has not served to deter me in any way. On the contrary, it has strengthened my resolve to find out for myself if this is indeed so (see post Farewell England). Mama’s pleas to convince Axel that he should be the one moving to England and not myself to Finland have also fallen on deaf ears. The Finn Named Axel and I have fallen in love and we will soon be getting married. Nothing and nobody will stop us, and I have been in Finland just a few short weeks as the preparations are made for our impending nuptials.

The Finland that I arrive in still has the Soviet Union on the other side of the long 1400 kilometer border dividing the two countries, and it will still take another two years for this great Eastern Power to crumble and sweep away with it a world order that has been in place for the past fifty years. But this unimaginable future is still waiting to happen as I settle into Finland’s cozy and compact capital city. Compared to the bustle of London that I have left behind, Helsinki at just 185km from The Iron Curtain and nestled on the shores of the Gulf of Finland is charmingly provincial and imbued with a certain Eastern feel. The city that I arrive in bears little resemblance to that which I live in today: Kamppi Shopping center is still but a twinkle in the eye of the city developers and so is the Kiasma Museum of Modern Art. The shopping center of tomorrow still houses a large bus station called Simonkentta, and the place that the Kiasma museum will occupy is but a large open space opening out behind the Mannerheim statue.

Eppu Normaali and Juice Leskinen are big in the charts and their songs play in the background at the student parties I am taken to by The Finn Named Axel. At these parties I meet future doctors, nurses and engineers. In the beginning Axel’s Finnish student friends talk to me in English, but after a while their enthusiasm wanes and they eventually revert to Finnish and then I am totally lost. But I don't care too much because I have invited a bunch of my own party friends along. Their names are Shogun, War and Peace, The Rise and fall of the Third Reich, and anything else in English from Axel’s bookshelf that I can get my hands on. Whilst everyone parties around me in Finnish, I happily immerse myself in thousand-page books of epic proportions. Next on my list is the Holy Bible. I dare not tell my friends in England this is how I spend my evenings at wild students parties, and especially not the daughter of the Chartered Gas Engineer. She would tell her father and he would just shrug his shoulders and say, 'that's what happens when you go to a student party in a semi-communist state'.

  

 This country really is quite different to Spain and England in so many ways; The ladies public lavatories I visit have dinky hand showers right next to the sink in each cubicle. 'Why the Finnish womens' obsession with washing their hair in public places', I ask myself? Axel later explains that it is not for washing your hair, rather it's a type of hand-held bidet and that they are in all the lavatories not just the ladies. So it's for washing your bottom and now I am beginning to feel even more perplexed. Can they not just wash at home before leaving in the morning and then again once after they return? Clearly not, having a spotless undercarriage at all times seems to be a national obsession. I guess if the Russians invade they will at least all be annexed into the Soviet Union with clean bottoms. I make a mental note to share this with the Chartered Gas Engineer when I next go back to England. He's dead interested in all things Russian. 

A while later into my time in Helsinki I read that Finns consider it a lottery win to be born Finnish. They are seemingly proud of their small country tucked away on the periphery of Europe and on first impression it does all seem rather idyllic. The people Axel has introduced me to have been without exception polite and welcoming, but lottery winners the lot? If I extend this logical chain of thinking then it means that every single person born in this country is by default a lottery winner whereas I myself, not born here, am automatically classified as a lottery loser. Hmmm.. not so sure I agree with them on this one, isn't it a lottery win to be born into a loving family wherever you are in the world? With exasperation I now realize that, on top of everything else I will also have to share this to the Chartered Gas Engineer on my return to England. I will have to break it to him that he is not, never has been and never will be a lottery winner. How on the earth will he take it? I am already anticipating his witty reply: 'That’s what they all say to feel better about living in a semi-communist state'. Maybe I'll just skip this part.

To be continued ......

Next post: 5th December 2021: The Lottery Winners

Note: All written content is the intellectual property of this Author. Image material is drawn largely from Pixabay with some additions from private family archives.

Farewell England

 

                                       

             
         The inconceivable has come to pass; Axel and I are an item. Four months have elapsed since we met in England (see posts Canada, A Finn Named Axel, My language Versus Yours, Spanish Omelette, Toronto), and soon I will be moving to Finland to be with him. Romance finally blossoms between us during the weekend in Brentwood just before Axel returns home to Helsinki (see post Spanish Omelette). Sat in the dim lit theatre of London’s West End watching its longest running play, The Mouse Trap we finally hold hands, and by the time we visit the ancient Greensted Church in Ongar the following day we have kissed; our destiny is sealed. Everything preceding is now forgotten including the awkward detail of a girlfriend awaiting Axel in Finland, as well as the exhaustingly unpredictable behavior of the man himself. This must be what Love does to you. I have already been to Helsinki for a two-week vacation to visit Axel, and besides a leafy birch tree leaning into the water on the shores of the beautiful Lake Kaitalampi he casually proposes and I respond in the affirmative. I am thrilled and soon Axel and I will marry. Mama is not at all happy. She is not happy for three specific reasons:

Number one; I will be marrying a person that Mama and Papa have met all of once and who they know virtually nothing about. They are alarmed. In addition to this, no-one in the family knows a thing about Helsinki, let alone Finland. The country is one big unknown up there on the map of Europe somewhere close to the Arctic Circle, seemingly frozen over most of the year and if that were not enough of a deterrent, next door to The Soviet Union, an even bigger unknown. Do I have any idea of what I am letting myself in for? I am constantly asked. Besides all this, Axel is only twenty-one and I am already twenty-four. Can I not find someone nearer to my own age Mama sarcastically asks me? I wisely choose to ignore this comment.

Number two; I have resigned my stellar job at Ford Motor Company so that I can move to Finland to be with Axel. Mama is more than annoyed, she is cross. How can I renounce a career with such potential?  She cannot understand the way my mind works. I have the job and Axel is the student, so logically thinking he should come to England to be with me and not the other way around!

Number three; The Roma fortune teller’s prediction indeed came true! I am leaving England and moving abroad to begin a new life with a mysterious foreign man (see post Canada). She said that she saw Canada, not that I was moving there. Mama is now more than annoyed or cross; she is fuming with irritation and would like  to box the ears of said Fortune Teller if she were ever to cross her path again. How dares she predict a future that came so terribly true? Roma Fortune Tellers are now being very wise and firmly staying away from our home at 51 Crescent Road. Perhaps they can predict that if they come anywhere near to it, they will be on the receiving end of boxed ears? After a while, Mama realizes that it is futile to try to dissuade me; my mind is made up and I am leaving.

A few weeks before I move to Finland I pay a visit to my childhood friend, Jennifer to share with her the exciting news. Jennifer’s father also happens to be at home, so he too is privy to this thrilling development and I expect him to be as equally captivated by my news as his daughter. I am disappointed. ‘Don’t do it!’ comes the immediate reply delivered with a tone of measured concern. ‘You will be going to a semi-communist state bordering with The Soviet Union and once you are there, chances are that may not even be able to leave.’ Now Jennifer’s father is a Chartered Gas Engineer and the epitome of all things British and educated, so I must presume that he knows what he's talking about. But I am not quite convinced; 'That's funny'. I think to myself, 'I was there just a few months ago, and they let me out at the end of my holiday.’

Of course, I listen to the Chartered Gas Engineer as much as I listen to Mama, which is not at all. In fact, he makes me want to move there than ever. In any case, what does he know about Finland all the way from England? He has never been there, so I value his opinion as much as that of ex-Norwegian boyfriend Anders (see post Spanish Omelette). There is only way to find out if there is any truth to what he says; I must go there and see for myself. And so it comes to pass that, on a cold December’s day in 1988 and with my most precious valuables crammed into one suitcase, I  bid farewell to Mama, Papa and Sis and board the Finnair London to Helsinki flight. 


History is once more repeating itself; Just as Mama bid a tearful goodbye to her own Mama many moons before in May of 1970 to move to England, I will be doing the same but this time to Finland (see post Share The Moon). Along with this farewell I also bid goodbye to the name that has identified me for the duration of my time on this emerald island. Upon arrival in Helsinki my name will revert back to Maria del Carmen; Marie will remain behind on English soil. The plane soon disappears into the clouds and along with it vanishes the only home that I have known since the age of six; after many years spent in exile it is time to move on. The Little Bird has finally spread her wings and learned to fly. Great Grandma Celia looking down on me from her place in Heaven would be proud (see post Little Bird).

To be continued ......

Next post: Sunday 7th November 2021   The Chartered Gas Engineer

Note: All written content is the intellectual property of this Author. Image material is drawn largely from Pixabay with some additions from private family archives.

Toronto

 

I am half way through a picnic with The Finn Called Axel (see post Spanish Omelette) who has just produced the most enormous knife I have ever seen. Petrified, I think back to an earlier conversation with former Norwegian boyfriend;


The Norwegian boyfriend in question is called Anders and we date briefly during our mutual time as students at Surrey University just last year. I am Mathematics and Anders is Mechanical Engineering, so I guess that on paper we are a good match. But that is just paper. We also live in the same Student Halls of Residence called Battersea Court so Anders often collects my mail along with his and brings it over. One morning I am handed a letter and curiously asked, 'Why is someone writing to you from Finland?' I patiently explain the story of meeting a Finn called Axel on a ferry crossing a few years ago and our resulting correspondence. Assuming a tone of measured concern, Anders looks at me and shakes his head, ’Be very careful. Finns have a reputation for carrying knives and heavy drinking, so whatever you do, do not get on the wrong side of one', he solemnly advises me. I look at him and burst into laughter. What does he know about Finland all the way from Norway? He is clearly jealous, so I do not dignify this silly comment with a response. 

After a while I am no longer dating gorgeous Norwegian boyfriend. I have been replaced with Jonathan from Metallurgy. Why did I not see that coming? How could I have been so innocent? It's the Bromance of the century and I am powerless to impede its stealthy advance. Anders and Jonathan soon become inseparable and after a while everyone on campus knows they are an item. The new couple look genuinely happy together, while I am left inconsolable; my only comfort is the knowledge that I have been passed over in favor of a man and not another woman. That would have been even worse. But Anders is long-gone history, and as I sit on the banks of the river awkwardly eating my sawdust-tasting Spanish omelette with knife-wielding Axel all I can think of is, ‘drat Norwegian boyfriends and their uncanny knowledge of all things Finnish’. How on the earth am I going to get through this ordeal? A big part of me wishes that I had never met Axel in the first place. He is exhaustingly unpredictable, you never quite know what outrageous thing he is going to do next. As if from nowhere, a wave of nostalgia suddenly washes over me and with it materializes ex Norwegian boyfriend, Anders. In spite of differing backgrounds our meal times together were relaxed and predictable affairs, and on a day such as today I miss him.

   

  

  

After a while, the sun peeks out from behind the clouds and Axel and I resume our conversation. There is not a drop of alcohol in sight, and my appetite gradually returns as I realize to my immense relief that the knife is really only to be used as a kitchen utensil; Axel is not a crazed maniac after all. If I were still in touch with former Norwegian boyfriend, which I am not, I would inform him with an air of superiority that he has got it all wrong. Despite his enormous shortcomings, there is still something comfortable about Axel; he is in possession of a deep maturity which I find surprising and is one of the most intelligent persons that I have ever met. Once the annoyance with his searching questions subsides, I am actually beginning to enjoy his company. 

As the train finally pulls into the platform, along with it arrives my guest. Axel is now in my territory. I am determined that this weekend will go smoothly and I have accordingly planned a program full of marvelous cultural activities - none of them involving hunting knives; a day trip into London's West End to watch its longest running play, The Mouse Trap, lunch at some cozy countryside English pub, as well as a visit to Greenstead Church, Britain's oldest wooden church in nearby Ongar. But before we can do anything I must drive to the nearest fuel  station to fill the car with fuel. Still all-knowing, Axel studies the car in detail from all angles as I hold the fuel nozzle and then asks with an air of expertise, ‘when did you last have the tire pressure checked?’ I look at him in bewilderment. What on the earth is he talking about? The vehicle in question has been mine all of four weeks, so it cannot be unreasonable of me to assume that the used car dealer has supplied me with a ready-to-drive roadworthy specimen; Besides all this, I am technically incompetent and driving the car and filling it up with fuel is about as much as I can take in at the current moment; having the tire pressure checked can go down on the to-do list as something way in the future along with the oil. Of course, I do not share this information with Axel, and in response to his irritating question I simply kick the tire nearest to the fuel cap as hard as possible with my foot and drily respond, ‘Done’. 

Axel rolls his eyes in disbelief. ‘You can’t do that! You must take it to a gas station and have it properly checked'. I am having none of this and tell him so, ‘It's my car and not yours, so stop telling me what to do. Besides, fuel stations charge for this service and right now I cannot be bothered‘. Axel then shows a gallant side incompatible with the oaf who made me sleep on the floor of his hotel room just the weekend before. Out of his wallet he produces a crisp five-pound note which he then hands to me saying, ‘here, take this and promise to have the tire pressure checked next time you go to a large fuel station'. I do not really want Axel's charity and tell him so, but he is most insistent so I eventually capitulate and accept this generous gesture making a make a mental note to spend the money on make-up; I am in need of a new lipstick and the fiver will cover that nicely. Axel will never find out from Finland. How wrong could I be. 

As I continue to fill the tank, I casually ask Axel if all people in Finland speak as good English as he does. ‘Mostly’, he replies, but he lived in Canada as a child so his English is also good from there. His younger brother was born in Toronto and the family only moved back to Finland from Toronto when he was older. Axel’s words stun me, and in an instant the fuel station and everything else around me recedes to the immediate past as my thoughts return to the fortune teller who called at my door just one year earlier; as she read my palm, she confidently informed me that I would meet a handsome stranger from Canada and move away with him (see post Canada). Can it be possible that this person is indeed Axel? That the person I have been searching for has been right here all the time? This impertinent twenty-one-year-old who thinks that he knows virtually everything? Impossible thought! Or is it?

To be continued ......

Next post: Sunday October 3rd 2021  Farewell England

Note: All written content is the intellectual property of this Author. Image material is drawn largely from Pixabay with some additions from private family archives.

Spanish Omlette

 

The train will soon be arriving at Brentwood Railway Station on this sunny Saturday afternoon in August and with it will arrive my weekend guest, The Finn Named Axel (see post A Finn Named Axel). My car is parked just around the corner from the platform where I am waiting for Axel to arrive. Indeed, I am complying with the decision I made the previous weekend when we met in Leamington Spa (see post My language Versus Yours); that unless Axel did something truly awful, I would consider inviting him to my home for the weekend. But the problem is that he is on his way to meet with me despite behaving awfully. How Axel has managed to retain this invitation in spite of less than exemplary behavior is something that puzzles even me.

The past weekend in Leamington Spa has been challenging to say the least. Axel is like no-one I have ever met and strange is still the best adjective I would use to describe him. For a start, at bedtime instead of gallantly offering me his bed as a chivalrous gentleman should, he happily dozes off leaving me to maneuver my unweildly sleeping bag into the postage-stamp floor space in his tiny shoe-box hotel room. ‘What an utter oaf! Are all Finnish men this thoughtless?', I think to myself. This is after he pulls a knife on me. You indeed hear correct, a knife. Mama being a typical Spanish Mama has packed me off to Leamington Spa with, what else but a Spanish omelette, so that Axel and I can enjoy a picnic lunch without the bother of shopping for its contents. Mama also sensibly sends me off with all required accessories for said lunch and in the back of my car alongside the omelette I also have plates, forks, cups, napkins and even drinks. However, as we unpack our lunch sat on our blanket on the river bank alongside the other picnickers, I soon realize that Mama has forgotten the most important of all the utensils for serving the omelette; a knife for cutting it. What are we going to do now? I ask myself. How on the earth are we going to manage without a knife?

Observing my dilemma, Axel instantly comes to the rescue. ‘Here, take this’, he says and calmly pulls out from, I don’t-know-where, the most enormous knife with a blade I would say is roughly twenty-five centimeters in length. I am in shock. Where on the earth did that come from? Axel is impervious to the fact that he has committed an offence by carrying a concealed weapon. On the contrary, he is dead smug that he can now chop us both a tidy slice of omelette. 'It’s a hunting knife', he proudly tells me. Hunting for what? Does Axel not realize that in Leamington Spa there is no need to hunt for neither lunch nor dinner? If Spanish mothers are not around to supply ready-to-eat picnics, then we have something called a supermarket to fill that gap. Beginning to feel ill at ease, I glance around at my surroundings; the river bank is crammed with jolly groups happily munching away and all oblivious to this crazy knife-wielding Finn in their proximity. I myself have never been happier to live on this overpopulated island called England. This is my first thought. For all I know, I could be eating with a madman, there is no knowing what he is capable of and I tell myself to stay calm and behave as if having lunch with a possible maniac is something I do on a regular basis. This is my second thought, and as I uncomfortably eat my omelette which by now tastes like sawdust (Axel has seen to that), the third thought makes its appearance; the Norwegian boyfriend was right.

The Norwegian boyfriend in question is called Anders and we date briefly during our mutual time as students at Surrey University just last year. I am Mathematics and Anders is Mechanical Engineering, so I guess that on paper we are a good match. But that is just paper. We also live in the same Student Halls of Residence called Battersea Court so Anders often collects my mail along with his and brings it over. One morning I am handed a letter and curiously asked, 'Why is someone writing to you from Finland?' I patiently explain the story of meeting a Finn called Axel on a ferry crossing a few years ago and our resulting correspondence. Assuming a tone of measured concern, Anders looks at me and shakes his head, ’Be very careful. Finns have a reputation for carrying knives and heavy drinking, so whatever you do, do not get on the wrong side of one', he solemnly advises me. I look at him and burst into laughter. What does he know about Finland all the way from Norway? He is clearly jealous, so I do not dignify this silly comment with a response. 

After a while I am no longer dating gorgeous Norwegian boyfriend. I have been replaced with Jonathan from Metallurgy. Why did I not see that coming? How could I have been so innocent? It's the Bromance of the century and I am powerless to impede its stealthy advance. Anders and Jonathan soon become inseparable and after a while everyone on campus knows they are an item. The new couple look genuinely happy together, while I am left inconsolable; my only comfort is the knowledge that I have been passed over in favor of a man and not another woman. That would have been even worse. But Anders is long-gone history, and as I sit on the banks of the river awkwardly eating my sawdust-tasting Spanish omelette with knife-wielding Axel all I can think of is, ‘drat Norwegian boyfriends and their uncanny knowledge of all things Finnish’. How on the earth am I going to get through this ordeal? A big part of me wishes that I had never met Axel in the first place. He is exhaustingly unpredictable, you never quite know what outrageous thing he is going to do next. As if from nowhere, a wave of nostalgia suddenly washes over me and with it materializes ex Norwegian boyfriend, Anders. In spite of differing backgrounds our meal times together were relaxed and predictable affairs, and on a day such as today I miss him.

   

To be continued ......

Next post: Sunday 3rd October 2021 Toronto

Note: All written content is the intellectual property of this Author. Image material is drawn largely from Pixabay with some additions from private family archives.

My Language Versus Yours

 

It has been a few hours since I arrived in Leamington Spa to spend the weekend with Axel, the Finn whom I have met on a ferry crossing between England and Sweden three years earlier (see post A Finn Named Axel). It’s an awkward friend-stranger reunion. Having interacted only for the briefest of moments on that twenty-four-hour journey years earlier, as the afternoon takes shape we are both realizing that we still know very little about one another. Seated at our table with drink in hand and waiting for our lunch to arrive, we attempt to cover the missing gap in the past three years.

Axel has begun to fill me in on his life, but I have stopped listening because once again I am reminded uncomfortably of the fact that I have still not read The Unknown Soldier. I cannot possibly admit that I have still not read the book he so generously sent me as a gift, was it now two Christmases ago? Even worse I do not know of its location. I could have sworn it was languishing somewhere on my bookshelf at home, its virgin pages still untouched, but I now fear the distinct possibility that I accidentally-on-purpose left it behind in my university locker at the end of term. How was I to know that the book's generous benefactor would turn up out of the blue as Axel has done and possibly demand an impromptu on-the-spot synopsis? How will I explain this monumental faux-pas? Simply put, I cannot.

Best to steer the conversation towards a new safer topic. But this is easier said than done. Axel will now simply not stop talking. How can a person veer from compete  inarticulation to a flood of verbal information bordering on the irritating? Is it anything to do with the pint of beer in front of him? Are there many people like him back in Finland? Besides all this, I have noticed that he has yet to ask me a single question! Does he not understand the most basic rules of social interaction? Once again, I am glad that after this weekend is over we need never, ever again meet. Eventually the right moment indeed presents itself, and when it does I wrestle away from Axel the topic of conversation. Now it's going to be my territory: hobbies and more specifically sports. And what's more, this time I will talk, and Axel will just have to fall silent and listen.

I proudly tell Axel that one of my long-term hobbies is martial arts, more specifically judo, and that I hold a blue belt, that’s two from black. During my time at Surrey University I was a member of The Judo Team, but I conveniently choose to omit the small but important detail that there were so few women Judokas at Surrey University that the Team Captain, Tim, would have sniffed us out from within a two-kilometer radius and drafted us into the team even with a beginner’s white belt. He had no need to, we all bravely volunteered. All three of us; that’s myself from Mathematics, Anita from Civil Engineering and Martha from Material Science; blue, blue and green. Surrey is a largely technical University and while it has an abundance of Engineering and Science departments, the Humanities are rather thin on the ground and so are the women. Anita, Martha and I are under no illusion that we are on the team, not because of our skills, rather because there are no other women to fill the slots.

I also conveniently omit this small detail from my conversation with Axel who now clearly thinks that I have used up my allotted time and proceeds to further elaborate on the skiing that he so filled me on in his long and rambling letters. He tells me that there are two types of skiing; downhill or alpine skiing and cross-country and that he does both rather well. He too belongs a university sports team; namely the Helsinki University of Technology Ski Team called Skipoli. After a while I am bored with his stories of how much he has skied and how cold it was, so I interrupt and tell him about my other hobby which has nowadays taken over martial arts; long-distance running. In doing so I smugly add that that I have run one-hour-and-thirty-minute half marathons, as well as three-hour-and-twenty-minute full length marathons. Now, most people are in awe of this last detail, but not Axel. He puts his beer down on the table, stares at me with a most perplexed look and asks ‘Why did on the earth did you do that for? Don’t you find it boring it boring running for hours on end?’ What an irritating individual. I think I prefer him silent. ‘No more boring than hours of skiing in sub-zero temperatures’, I drily respond. Time for a new topic of conversation.

Axel has told me all about his studies and work, but I have yet to share with him details of the fantastic graduate job that awaits me. In September I will begin my post-graduate career at The European Headquarters of The Ford Motor Company in the Department of Finance and more specifically, The Audit Division. There I will be trained to audit the various European offices of the Ford Motor Company, including most probably Finland. But Axel is not impressed by the seemingly stellar career I have landed and with a renewed perplexed look on his face utters, ‘but you don’t have a degree in Economics nor Accounting, how can you work as an Auditor? In Finland this would not be possible’. What impertinence! I have been with him all of two hours and already he is already beginning to annoy me with his searching comments. 

How dare he question my suitability for a job that I was selected for from among an abundant number of applicants! Does he not understand, that there is an invisible code of behavior governing also this type of social interaction and that you simply do not ask such questions? Well, we are not in Finland, we are in England and we can do it that way. Besides, I am not even going to tell Axel that in England, Mathematics is looking pretty good for Audit work: During the third year of my University studies I spend a year of industrial training in the Audit Commission assisting seasoned professionals in the auditing of various London Boroughs, and among our varied academic backgrounds are graduates of History (Jenna), Geography (Mark) and, wait for it, Zoology (Roger). During our sacred English tea breaks, Roger never tires of regaling us, indeed, how lucky it was for the Audit Commission that London Zoo was not hiring!

But I do not say any of these things to Axel, the thoughts just reside within me. Instead I stupidly attempt to impress on him the concrete qualities I exhibited for the job which must have made me such a clear candidate. Why am I doing this? I also speak four languages; English, Spanish, French and German, I tell him. Perhaps this was one of the reasons that Ford Motor Company hired me and not someone with a degree in accounting but with only with a knowledge of English. Once again, my companion is not seemingly impressed, and his reply reflects this; he also speaks four languages I am told; Finnish, Swedish, English and French. I almost choke on my beer as I listen to this futile attempt at outwitting me: I am way too polite to tell him, but any impartial outsider listening to our conversation would unanimously agree that my languages beat his languages hands down any day. I mean, Finnish and Swedish; how useful is this? Who even speaks that? If all the languages of the world were represented by a bucket full of water, then Finnish and Swedish combined would cover, let me see, um...three thimble fulls? That's two for Swedish and one for Finnish. If I were Axel, I would be very quiet indeed.

I am beginning to see that the conversation is gradually degenerating into a competition of my-sports-versus yours, my-language-versus-yours, and is going absolutely anywhere; time for a break. The pizzas  conveniently  arrive and we begin our meal, at least for the moment in much-appreciated silence. As we eat I realize that, even though Axel is only twenty-one and three years younger than me, there is a deep maturity about him which I find surprising. He is clearly not easily impressed, and this also leaves a deep impression on me. Once the annoyance  subsides, I am actually beginning to find the searching questions and straightforwardness refreshing. Why indeed do I run marathons? I also uncomfortably ask myself. What am I running away from? Who am I trying to impress? These are profound questions that even I cannot answer. As we eat our pizzas I decide that, unless Axel does something truly terrible to upset me within the next twenty-four hours, I will seriously contemplate inviting him to Brentwood and London the following weekend before he leaves for Finland. That way he can see the destination of his multiple letters, and after that we need never meet again.

 

 To be continued....

Next post : 1st August 2021 : Spanish Omlette



Note: All written content is the intellectual property of this Author. Image material is drawn largely from Pixabay with some additions from private family archives.