Lapinlahti

I was going to blip another version of the view, but in the end this photo won out.

The photos of the view are here, here and here (decided I had better not use any more extras...). I like them - the silvery quality of the melting ice is something that will only last a few more days. But in the end it seemed more important to use my blip to tell some of the story of my day.

I had been thinking about using the city bikes, for which I signed up yesterday, to get to work, but in the end I chose to walk. Just as well as there were no city bikes to be had in the local "station". At work, I had lunch with a couple of colleagues, including one visiting from another institution, and then joined them and another speaker from the Finnish Prime Minister's office for a seminar on Brexit. Everything you've read about the UK not having a clue in the negotiations, and conceding everything because it doesn't have a strategy. All true.

Afterwards, it being a beautiful day, I thought it might be nice to take a circuitous route home on a bike. So I secured a city bike from outside the Porthania Building, where there were plenty to be had, and came home via the station, Baana (which is a long pedestrianised/bike friendly cut through the centre of Helsinki which used to be a railway line - shades of the North Edinburgh bike paths), and the sea front at Lapinlahti, where I stopped to take my blip. It's been a wonderful early spring day here, and the ice is melting fast. In comparison to how it was before, it's now practically "taps aff" weather for Scots, as Mr A remarked. I went to work wearing only a shirt and my down gilet. No coat needed! Quite a change from last Monday - a day of fresh snow (about 10 cms of it...).