Getting settled down in Finland

The return back to Finland in July 2011 was chaotic. Timbermen were still working in the attick, terrace had not been done and we had to walk into the house over preliminary bridge-like structure. Mentally I was battling with the sentiment of being retired - I strongly resisted the fact and was all the time hoping that I would be needed back to Fiji for an assignment. None was forthcoming. I spent at the house only the time which was necessary to push the construction works forward. Mostly I stayed at Mum's place 300 km north of my place.


Electrician finalising his work in the attick.

Beginning of the construction of the terrace around the house













It was also a challenge to get my furniture from Brussels. The units at the Commission took their time to agree on which Directorate was to pay for the removal cost - EEAS, Commission, PMO or which ever unit. Finally the removals section of the Commission in charge of Delegations decided to move ahead and late August I got my two containers over to Finland



.

To get my belongings from Fiji to start sailing home was an even bigger battle. When the stuff finally arrived late September, it was all damaged - wet and moulded.
My car went through three ozone treatments and still today when I leave it stay outdoors during wet wheather it starts stinking.
All my cloths I took to a special laundry to be treated from mold. Bed linen, towles and the like I washed myself. Same for dishes. Five days long the laundry machine and the dish washer were on continuous use.
It would have been all too expensive to have leather wear treated so I simply cleaned them, placed into sauna and put the heating on.
A lot of stuff I had to take to waste depot.
Luckily I had paid only half of the freight bill in advance and could deduct from the remaining balance all the expenses I incurred into.









Things into the sauna and heating on to kill the mold.




















Direction waste depot!













Damaged car tires.














Just a week before the disastrous removal from Fiji arrived, Mum got a serious infection attack which caused her to lose memory, orientation and physical balance. I had just returned from her place a day or two before when my brother phoned me late in the evening on Thursday. I jumped into the car and drove back through the night, took her to the medical center the following morning and from there we were sent to the central hospital. It was in the night to Saturday when I was back to my place and on Monday I had to drive back Jyväskylä (300 km up North) to collect Mum from the hospital and to take her down to my place.
Just in that very moment the removal from Fiji was cleared through customs and taken over to my house. There I was - constructions works going on and requiring decisions, Mum needing continous supervision and care and the moulded stuff all over the house!

I have survived, wonder how. Mum stayed with me until Christmas and recovered surprisingly well. She can't remember anything from Dad's funeral in May 2010 nor from her journey to Fiji in April 2011, but the earlier life is rather well back to her memory, her sense of time is still a bit unsure, but otherwise she is in good shape and can live on her own in her house. We three children visit her every weekend on tours.

On Boxing Day in 2011we had a huge storm which broke the electricity wires and took them down to earth - that is, we had to leave the house. We moved over to my sister's but came back for the New Year's Eve. On Monday after New Year the electricity company ordered us to leave the house immediately - it was dangerous. It was snowing heavily when we drove with Mum the 300 km up to north to her place. The journey took us six hours!

In February I thought I had earned a break, booked the first flight to Hua Hin in Thailand, took my golf clubs with me and did not do anything else than eat, sleep and play my daily golf tours.









Well, the snow melted away and the summer was there again. It was time to start the landscaping works at the house. Since the house is on top of the hill, I wanted the slope down to the lake to be shaped nicely and in such a way that I could easily, also in my fragile years, get down to the summer sauna on shore. I had hired a landscaping architect and she had made preliminary plans for the slope - but then she married an American and left Finland. I was on my own again.

Earth was digged out to build support walls around the sauna building on shore.

In the entrance yard soil had to be changed to get proper soil structure for the tiling. Of course also there had to be challenges. The gravel contractor delivered wrong material. That was discovered only in the middle of laying of the tiles, and so the caterpillar had to be called back to the site to dig out the wrong gravel and to replace it with the correct grade.

The base rock came out where it should not, it could not be exploded anymore - too close to the house, so it simply had to be broken with a big hammer fixed to the caterpillar.











On the lake side of the house we had to build support structures as well to straighten out the slope. It  was done in three step layers. Levelled off paths snake down the slope to the shore.

And of course I wanted a greenhouse as well! Here the concrete is pumped to lay the foundation for it.












It was a rainy autumn and we had to stop the lanscaping works because the ground became too wet. The story will continue in the summer 2013.

In October I participated in the municipal elections. I got elected as last one to a reserve seat to the municipal council. That does not matter, the campaign was great fun. And I got nominated into three boards - I will be chairing the Central Elections Board in Vihti, and will be member in two others, most important being the technical and land use board.

I also learned that my post in Guyana was vacant again. For a while I fancied of candidating as an interim for the post but realised then that I couldn't be away from Finland anyway. Mum needs me here.