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Stefan is back home again all safe. Faro was of course super happy but he also showed with a few barks that he didn't approve of him being away for so long.

I am also happy he is back, it is nice to speak to someone else than the dog, he's probably bored of my voice already. Also I'm happy my week as single dog-parent is over so we can share the walks again even if I was superhappy having Faro as company while Stefan was away.



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Start of the Weekend

We just came back from an agility workshop with Faro. I was very happy with him as he did the swing well in the end, even if he has been scared of it. Let's hope he got good memories from it now. Faro went straight to bed as soon as we got home and so will I- two hours of agility is pretty intense.

And tomorrow Stefan is back already, the week has gone by quite quick but we have also kept ourselves busy.

Let's see if Stefan will be surprised by how much snow has melted since he left. Today in the dogpark you could really see how deep the layer of snow has been when it has started to melt.












We better clean a bit tomorrow before Stefan gets home as it feels there is sand in the whole flat. During this time even if you dry Faro after a walk there is still sand on his damp paws and when they dry the sand falls off in the sofa and everywhere else he goes. I think I've come to the conclusion that the sand is actually more annoying than the hair that falls off him now when he is getting his summer fur.

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Woooosh

We got soaked today with Faro on our walks-it's been raining and raining. The good thing though is that it seems the snow is melting rapidly. Our small waterfall in the park close to our house looked like this today. Wooosssh, it sounded.







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Dog Happiness

Yesterday I let Faro loose for a bit in the golf. He was happy chasing the birds and afterwards he sat down to take in the view.






Sometimes when we take him to new places where he can run loose you can almost see him thinking "WOW! There's a place this big where I can run free" and he sets off with such speed he almost stumble over himself. This is a pic from when we took him to the dog forest last week.


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Voting

So far we have been fine, Faro and I, alone at home. We had a long walk today to Munkkivuori so I could go vote, the pre-voting for the Parliament elections started today.

I cannot say I have been worried about how any elections will end up before, but this time it doesn't feel quite ok all the demonstrations and writings against Swedish speaking and foreigners in this country during the pre-election period. Suddenly I have the insight that the political climate might not be the same after these elections and this might have an impact on things I've taken for granted.

So for supporting tolerance and openness I'll post this song that some Finnish-Swedish artists made in "We are the World"-spirit:




Vår tid, Vårt land means Our time, Our country. The Finnish national anthem is actually called "Vårt land, Vårt land" and the original text was written in Swedish by a Swedish speaking Finn, Johan Ludvig Runeberg. I wonder if the Finnish speakers ever reflect over this when they sing the translated version.

Anyway, please vote smart and please do vote (if you are a Finnish citizen that is). Pre-voting period from today until 12th April and the voting day is 17th April.

More Sugar

You might remember this post.

Today we had this is the office:



Seems Teneriffe is the top holiday destination for family with kids at our work this year :-)

Location:Poutamäentie,Helsinki,Finland

Manchester Trip

So we went to Manchester because I won two plane tickets and a stay in a hotel for 2 nights. However when we arrived in the hotel they didn't have our reservation. After some calls we found out that the reservation had been canceled but we they didn't know by whom. Great. So as the hotel we were supposed to stay in was fully booked they recommended a hostel just around the corner.

This was our first night, not exactly what we had expected...we hadn't either brought towels as we had thought we were gonna stay at a hotel.

In the end we spent only a night there as they were full the next day as well and the girl in the reception recommended us a hotel 30 min walk away. I quote: "it's a nice walk by the river with some nice restaurants".

This was our walk and the nice river:



The nicest thing we saw during the walk was the smirnoff ice blueberrry add:



Quite soon we also realized that the hotel was not in the center but in another part of the town completely.



Luckily in the end it turned out we were staying where BBC is gonna move their offices from London, the whole area was new but there was not much people around which was a bit spooky.


Our
and we had a nice view and could even see the football stadium so Stefan was happy.


When we were finally settled in the hotel we could start enjoying the town.

We had dinner in an Italian restaurant where they insisted I took a rose

Nice scenery:



We met up with these nice girls that I knew from my Erasmus time in Italy in the Manchester University area, I can't believe it's 6 years ago! It felt just like yesterday.

Saturday night we spent having some nice publife beside the canal:


Sunday we spent in the area around our hotel just walking and looking at some shops. We were both quite tired from all the walking around on satyrday.

Stefan left today again for Germany on a business trip so now it's me and the dog for until Saturday. Let's see how we'll manage :-)