Several Finns and a nice fish pie
Off today to Wimbledon by train and tram to have Sunday lunch with Marja and her family. I'd not seen her daughter Matilda, and her son Lucas for many years, and the youngest boy Rupert never. The children are bilingual and bright and cheery.
They live in an enormous house in Wimbledon Hill. Her husband Dimitri was there, as well as her cousin and his partner. The cousin was a Captain in the Finnish army and was serving in Afghanistan with the UN forces. Fascinating to hear about his experiences there. Massive extremes of temperature. It is freezing now and will be 50 degrees celcius and higher in a few weeks. He was telling us about the various roles of the UN forces, such as "Look and Cook" i.e. standing at an observation post in the blistering heat.
He said the main priority for safety was to make sure that everyone in the locality knew that they weren't Americans. Apparently once this is established, they can go about their business helping the local village communities and so on. Very nice man. The force he is serving with has Danes, and Swedes and Norwegians in it. I committed a faux pas by suggesting that times have changed... "Relax everyone... We're the Vikings!" But it was pointed out that Finns weren't Vikings at all and so my remark made no sense.
Interestingly the English food found most repulsive by the Captain was steak and kidney pie. I'd never thought of this as a challenging dish before, but Marja assured me it was. Sarah Sprinkles thinks it is very English too and something to be avoided. But I remember the time as a student (with slightly mixed feelings) when a snake and pygmy pie with chips was a staple.
Coincidentally I am reading a classic travel book about Afghanistan called A short walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby, which is funny and interesting.
Lovely to see Marja of course. One feature of their house is an grand piano, a Steinway, in the drawing room. Matilda who is now eight played me "The Campbells are Coming" on it, and Lucas played a song called "I'd love to be a teabag", which seemed slightly incongruous on such an impressive grand piano.
Marja served a nice meal, and a fisherman's pie. And we had fun chatting after lunch watching the children bounce with abandon on a big trampoline in the back garden.
Then left for home fairly early, where I had a quick chat with Mum, who is seeing a gallery owner tomorrow, before another long chat with Sprinkles whose English accent is amazingly good despite it making her face hurt.
Off today to Wimbledon by train and tram to have Sunday lunch with Marja and her family. I'd not seen her daughter Matilda, and her son Lucas for many years, and the youngest boy Rupert never. The children are bilingual and bright and cheery.
They live in an enormous house in Wimbledon Hill. Her husband Dimitri was there, as well as her cousin and his partner. The cousin was a Captain in the Finnish army and was serving in Afghanistan with the UN forces. Fascinating to hear about his experiences there. Massive extremes of temperature. It is freezing now and will be 50 degrees celcius and higher in a few weeks. He was telling us about the various roles of the UN forces, such as "Look and Cook" i.e. standing at an observation post in the blistering heat.
He said the main priority for safety was to make sure that everyone in the locality knew that they weren't Americans. Apparently once this is established, they can go about their business helping the local village communities and so on. Very nice man. The force he is serving with has Danes, and Swedes and Norwegians in it. I committed a faux pas by suggesting that times have changed... "Relax everyone... We're the Vikings!" But it was pointed out that Finns weren't Vikings at all and so my remark made no sense.
Interestingly the English food found most repulsive by the Captain was steak and kidney pie. I'd never thought of this as a challenging dish before, but Marja assured me it was. Sarah Sprinkles thinks it is very English too and something to be avoided. But I remember the time as a student (with slightly mixed feelings) when a snake and pygmy pie with chips was a staple.
Coincidentally I am reading a classic travel book about Afghanistan called A short walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby, which is funny and interesting.
Lovely to see Marja of course. One feature of their house is an grand piano, a Steinway, in the drawing room. Matilda who is now eight played me "The Campbells are Coming" on it, and Lucas played a song called "I'd love to be a teabag", which seemed slightly incongruous on such an impressive grand piano.
Marja served a nice meal, and a fisherman's pie. And we had fun chatting after lunch watching the children bounce with abandon on a big trampoline in the back garden.
Then left for home fairly early, where I had a quick chat with Mum, who is seeing a gallery owner tomorrow, before another long chat with Sprinkles whose English accent is amazingly good despite it making her face hurt.
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