Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Christmas came early

IMPORTANT: nothing interesting is happening this Saturday 22nd October as previously promised. Unless, that is, you yourself have an interesting life outside sub-24.

There will be NO pikkujoulu party this Saturday.

However, we will be having a private hyrdrospinning lesson in English at 14:30 on Saturday 12th Novermber at Mäkelänrinne swimming hall. 50m pool, nice saunas... and bars close by, it should be a good evening.

14:30 is a touch early, but maybe a swim after, some relaxing in the steam room and saunas (and the 8 degree cold pool), there's a nice cafe overlooking the pool which some say serves the best munkki in Helsinki. Then what? The velodrome is just around the corner, I'll call them and see if we can get a tour. The city is a short tram ride away. Some games of pool, a spot of dinner, cocktails and then... the walk of shame to the taxi queue.

See you on the 12th, if not before.


(this is for X)

Monday, October 17, 2011

Christmas is nearly here...

Well, it seems like we've got a pikkujoulu party this weekend. Or maybe not. I'm waiting to hear about hydrospinning - which we are all keen to try, right? But if we can't get that booked before Christmas, then we'd better do something nice this Saturday. Is anyone coming? Ideas, please.

The next sub-24 should be on Friday 4th November. We're not on winter holiday yet. Tents, lean-to, cabin? We were talking about Rastila at some point? Or adventure...

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Sub 24 is good for you...

...most of the time!

Unfortunately yesterday things didn't quite go to plan. It all started beautifully. The autumn sunshine and colours were stunning and the road to Porkkala is a perfect cycling road!





 

We then arrived on the Porkkala dirt track and were nearly at the camping spot when Zuzanna fell awkwardly. I started to think all may not be good when she wouldn't answer my "are you ok?" questions. When I got next to her she pointed to her left arm. It was twisted the wrong way. Ouch.

The good thing was there were three of us to handle the situation and we handled it well. Lee called the ambulance, while Dima and I stayed with her. Everyone stayed in control and she was doing remarkably well given the situation. She responded to jokes and seemed calm. It was pretty cold by then though and the wait for the ambulance seemed to take an age. In actual fact it was barely more than 20 mins, great stuff considering where we were. 

They performed emergency care, before embarking her and I into an ambulance to the hospital all the way in Helsinki. The fact that her main concern was that she needed to pee shows she could have felt worse! Eventually we got to the hospital and the scan revealed a nasty double fracture of the forearm. She wasn't surprised. I was!

They consolidated the arm in a safe position into a cast and will operate her on Tuesday. So we got to go home for the night, via the 24-hour pharmacy to pick up some real strong meds!

Overall she really feels fortunate that things weren't worse. The rest of her body's fine, the nerves and veins in her arm are unharmed, no internal bleeding, and she has very supportive friends all around her. She kept saying how nice the ride was up to that point and how she wants to come back there as soon as she's better!

Thank you to Dima, Lee and Xavier who took good care of our stuff once we were gone and got it back to us so soon the next day! I hope you managed to enjoy yourselves despite the circumstances.

Speedy recovery Suzie!

After the ambulance left...

We switched on all our lights, rode slowly through the dark and stopped at the first camping and grilling place we could find - crashing quite a cosy party that was going on there. We were tired, cold, hungry, oh, and depressed.

In other circumstances the roads and the camping would have been perfect. We'll try again next year, right?...