Christmas cake
Originally uploaded by Greygriffin.

I baked the Christmas cake a couple of weeks ago. It’s 25cm (10″) in diameter, so plenty for everyone. I wrapped it in foil in an airtight container until I added the marzipan and icing.

Leaving it late
Originally uploaded by Greygriffin.

In Helsinki you need to take your small boats out of the water for the winter, or they’ll be crushed by the ice. These people left it a bit late, and had to push aside the ice to make it out to their winter storage yard.

Car covered in snow
Originally uploaded by Greygriffin.

A car outside Eve’s father’s place. Her mother’s car was even more embedded in snow, and I had to dig it out with only a brush. Luckily for me it was Eve who was doing the driving, as we got caught in a heavy snowstorm on the motorway.

Trees covered in snow
Originally uploaded by Greygriffin.

In Eve’s father’s inner courtyard, the trees were prettily covered in snow.

Snow swirling in courtyard
Originally uploaded by Greygriffin.

A few weeks ago it snowed heavily, about a foot of snow in a few hours. This is the view of the snow swirling in our appartment block’s courtyard.

First ice

Icy reeds at Vartiokylänlahti

Vartiokylänlahti

Sunday was Finnish Father’s Day, and we spent the afternoon with Eve’s family at her parents’ place in Rastila. On the way there we walked around Vartiokylänlahti, and I took these photos of the season’s first ice forming among the sheltered reed beds. They’re forecasting the first snow in the next few days, so winter is really arriving.

RoboRally
Originally uploaded by Greygriffin.

Last Tuesday we had another board games evening, this time at Michael Webster’s. One game we played was Robo Rally, a great favourite of mine. There are reports that a new version will be coming out next spring – something to look forward to!

Keskiviiko
Originally uploaded by Greygriffin.

Years ago, a group of us used to meet regularly on Wednesdays at William K in Annankatu. Mike made a Yahoo group for reminders; unfortunately he spelt the Finnish name wrong,and hence we have Keskiviiko.

Now Mike’s back in Finland after some time in Geneva, and we’ve started to meet again. Only this time it’s probably just the first Wednesday of the month, and we’re meeting just round the corner from William K. in Black Door.

Present yesterday were Nathalie, me, Mike and Michael. Hopefully more of the old regulars will drop by in the future.

Halloween
Originally uploaded by Greygriffin.

I saw a pumpkin in our local supermarket today, and couldn’t resist buying it to make a Halloween lantern. I’m rather satisfied with the results – not bad for my first try!

New card games
Originally uploaded by Greygriffin.

On Saturday I bought some new card games. I’ve been waiting for Reiner Knizia’s new Circus Flohcati for a while now, and Safe Haven finally announced on their site lautapelit.fi that they had it. While I was there, Eve noticed that they had Spank the Monkey, which we enjoyed so much a few weeks ago, so of course we had to buy that too. And then somehow I found myself buying Katzenjammer Blues, which I vaguely remembered reading a good review of. To cap it all, Eve & I bought a couple of the latest Magic prepared decks, which we’ll play in a pub some evening soon.

And I wonder why it’s so hard to save up for things…