Robin and the Jokerit jester

Robin and the Jokerit badge
Originally uploaded by athens2004blog.

To make up for the slightly dodgy picture below, here's a picture of Robin with the Jokerit badge (Jokerit means jester in Finnish).

Jokerit were bought by a rich owner in the mid 90s which has made them a little unpopular with other Finns who don't agree with the way he's injected money to make money (modelling the club on the razzmatazz of the NHL). There are even anti-Jokerit websites online. But the rich owner's money obviously isn't working this year - as the team lie fourth from bottom of the league (having finished second last season). Apparently they got quite a few players from the NHL last season when there was a shut-out in America, and lots of them went back to the US when ice hockey started again, leaving Jokerit with a much weakened side (their star goalkeeper, for instance, joined Boston one day before the Finnish season started).

Robin at Jokerit!

Robin at ice hockey
Originally uploaded by athens2004blog.

Apologies for the slightly dodgy quality of this picture, I took it on my phone cos they don't really allow cameras into the ice hockey games - but here's Robin at our first Finnish ice hockey game, featuring Jokerit (the home side, from Helsinki) against SaiPa. Sadly, despite my purchase of an over-priced woolly Jokerit hat, they lost 3-1 (didn't take their chances and the SaiPa goalkeeper played very well). But, despite the score, there were 8,400 very passionate Finns there and it was an enjoyable evening out.

The sea is frozen!

Robin In Helsinki
Originally uploaded by athens2004blog.

Hey up

So here's a picture taken in Helsinki, just near my wife's parents' flat. This is a harbour that would be filled with boats in the summer, but, at the moment, the sea is frozen! It's been very, very cold here in the past few days and weeks, getting as cold as minus 15 Celsius (about 20F). It's very odd to see a frozen sea, but very beautiful too. Literally all the ice you can see in the background would be normal sea in the summer.

This evening we're off to see ice hockey - a massive sport in Finland. Naturally, I shall take Robin along to document it...

Robin in frozen Finland!

Brrr! Robin in Finland
Originally uploaded by athens2004blog.

Hey up folks

Yes, we're out here in Finland for a few days, visiting my wife's parents who moved to Helsinki in August.

This picture was taken in a beautiful little town called Porvoo, about 50 minutes' drive from Helsinki. We're actually standing on a bridge and that long white thing behind Robin is the frozen river! A few minutes before the picture was taken we saw a cross country skier skiing along it!

It's a very pretty town - in the background you can see some of the wooden houses the town is famous for. It wasn't actually as blue as it looks in the picture - but for some reason all my pictures came out blue. Must've been something to do with all the snow and my camera not being used to it!

Hope you all had a good Christmas. We're off into Helsinki itself in a few minutes, so I'll try to take another picture there...

Happy Christmas!

Robin the wrap star
Originally uploaded by athens2004blog.

Yes, it's Christmas Eve and me and the missus and Robin will be offline for a few days now. So, before we go, we wanted to wish you a very, *very* happy Christmas.

Hope you all have a great one.

Christmas in London #2

Robin and a tree
Originally uploaded by athens2004blog.

Hey up folks

Here's another picture of Christmas in London for you. This is Robin in Trafalgar Square, standing in front of the 25 foot Norwegian Spruce just next to Nelson's Column.

Every year since 1947, the people of Norway have given a Christmas tree to the people of London to show gratitude for Britain's support of Norway during the Second World War. A nice tradition and a very nice tree.

Hope you're all having a nice build-up to Christmas.

Robin parties with Dave Grohl!

robin and dave grohl
Originally uploaded by athens2004blog.

Yes, last night Robin bumped into rock legend Dave Grohl - former drummer with Nirvana and current frontman of the Foo Fighters - at a party in London.

As you'll see, they were partying rather hard and Robin woke up with quite a hangover this morning.

Christmas in London #1

Robin and a bow
Originally uploaded by athens2004blog.

Hey up

So, as promised, this is a picture of Robing with some of London's Christmas decorations. This is a building around the corner from where I work and they always seem to go to town decorating their building. This year, as you'll see, it's a giant holly wreath. And very nice it looks too. Not exactly sure what they do in the building, but I'm guessing they're not short of a few quid.

More to follow...

Caution!

beware the squirrels!
Originally uploaded by athens2004blog.

Hey up folks

Sorry it's been a while, but me and the missus (and Robin!) have been away for a lovely relaxing week in the Lake District, in the north of England. No mobile phones, no internet, just lots of relaxation and walking and good food. And now back in London and back to work tomorrow. Sigh...

Anyway, thought you might like this sign, which we saw just outside the village of Patterdale. The Lake District is one of the very few places left in England that still have red squirrels - as, sadly, their grey cousins have taken over. As Wikipedia puts it:-

"Although not thought to be under any threat worldwide, the Red Squirrel has drastically reduced in numbers in the United Kingdom. Under 200,000 individuals are thought to be left, approximately 70 to 75% of which are in Scotland. This population decrease is likely to be due to the introduction of the Eastern Grey Squirrel from North America as well as the loss and fragmentation of its native woodland habitat."

If that above stat is right, and most of them are in Scotland, then there are less than 50,000 of them in England - so naturally we have to look after them, hence the crossing! We saw two of the little cuties outside our cottage, so it seems to be working.

So, onto your 'off-topic' questions. At the moment, no, it doesn't look like we are going to the Winter Olympics. We were toying with it for a while, but now we've got my wife's 14 year old sister coming to stay with us in London for one of the two weeks, so it doesn't look like we'll make it. We will though, be going to the World Cup in Germany (the soccer tournament) so Robin will definitely be there.

As for pictures of Robin with Christmas trees and lights - yes, we go pretty big on that here too. I shall get onto it when I'm back in central London tomorrow...

Hope you're all well and that you've managed to get most of your Christmas shopping done.

Don't worry, it's only a drill...

Robin takes shelter
Originally uploaded by athens2004blog.

Hey up folks

Hope you chaps in America had a lovely Thanksgiving - I tried to remember to post something on the day, but we don't celebrate it over here and, um, I forgot. But I hope you all had a nice one.

I took this picture this morning down by London Bridge (breaking news: it isn't falling down). The sign is on the side of a WWII museum that commemorates the air raids that London had to put up with during the war. I didn't actually know the museum existed until I walked past it. Might have to visit sometime...

Shakira bites Robin!

Shakira and Robin
Originally uploaded by athens2004blog.

Yes folks, today Robin met Shakira, the bona fide pop superstar whose last English-language album sold 13 million copies around the world (and her current Spanish language one is the biggest selling Spanish record in US history!).

Although the fact she's biting Robin;s wing might make it appear she didn't like him, she was actually very fond of the wee bird and seemed quite reluctant to give him back. Lovely woman. Me and Robin were very impressed by her niceness.

1of4: In York

robin and a minster
Originally uploaded by athens2004blog.

Hey up folks.

As ever, sorry not to have posted in a while - but I've been busy. I know, I know, I always say that. But it's true. Honest.

So, here are four pics of Robin from the past couple of week - three in York, where my dad lives, and one in Cologne in Germany (see below for the rest, obviously).

This first picture was taken of Robin last Saturday night in front of York Minster, which has been on the site since the year 627AD when a wooden structure built was hurriedly built to provide a place to baptise Edwin, King of Northumbria. Edwin wouldn't have lived to see it blossom into the structure you can see today. Well, not unless he lived to be 802, which seems unlikely (let's face it, the health care back then wasn't anything like as good as it is today. Chances are Edwin didn't make it much past, um, 500).

2of4: At the Castle

Clifford's Tower
Originally uploaded by athens2004blog.

This is Robin at the bottom of York Castle - which is known as Clifford's Tower. This structure was built between 1245 and 1265 replacing a wooden castle built by William the Conquerer in the previous century.

That castle was burnt down in 1190 when the following tragic story unfurled (taken from Wikipedia).com:

Richard de Malbis of York was a debtor of Aaron of Lincoln, an influential Jewish banker of the late 12th century. When a fire broke out in the city of York, De Malbis used the opportunity to incite a mob to attack the home of a recently deceased agent of Aaron of Lincoln named Benedict of York, killing his widow and children and burning the house. Joce (Joseph) the leader of the Jewish community of York obtained the permission of the warden of York Castle to remove his wife and children and the rest of the Jews into the castle, where they were probably placed in Clifford's Tower. This was surrounded by the mob, and when the warden left the castle the Jews in fear would not readmit him. He appealed to the sheriff, who called out the county militia; and Clifford's Tower was surrounded for several days. On 16 March 1190 the Tower was set on fire, and many Jews either perished in the flames or took their own lives rather than be attacked by the mob, those who did surrender were killed. In all around 150 Jews died.

Quite a chilling history. They still have memorial services to this day and Jewish groups have fiercely opposed redevelopment of the site.

3of4: Minster from the city wall

York Minster in the distance
Originally uploaded by athens2004blog.

So this is York minster again, taken on a glorious late Sunday afternoon from the York city walls.

York has been protected by a city wall since back in the Roman times, with most of the surviving walls built in the 12th to 14th centuries. There's still a couple of miles of walls more or less circling the city - it makes a lovely walk. And, as you can tell, you get some great views.

4of4: Robin in Germany

robin in cologne
Originally uploaded by athens2004blog.

So this is a picture of Robin in Cologne, Germany taken by my wife when she went there with work a couple of weeks ago.

This is outside the sprawling cathedral (known to locals as Kölner Dom) in the centre of the city. Apparently it took over 600 years to finish (they started it in the 13th century and frankly didn't work as hard as they could have). When it was finished, the spires were the highest structures in the world. That was until 1884 when some Americans went and built the Washington monument in DC.

My wife describes the cathedral as 'vast, absolutely huge, you can't get an idea of how huge it is.'

So how come Robin is about half as big as it?

Robin in NYC #1 of 3

Robin at the Empire State Building
Originally uploaded by athens2004blog.

Hey up folks

Sorry I've not posted for a while - I've been a busy bee - but here are three pictures I took of Robin when I was in New York this week.

You might remember that he's been before - there was a picture of him at Time Square - but we had a little bit longer to look around this time (although it was still only a Monday to Wednesday trip). I've been quite a few times now, and developed a real fondness for the city.

This one is Robin at the base of the Empire State Building, which I've been up before, but which we didn't have time to go up this time around. But I did get plenty of time to wander the streets and visit some friends.

Actually, talking of wandering, about 3 weeks ago I was brushing my teeth at our flat in London and walked out into the hallway and felt a massive pain in my foot. I'd obviously stood on something sharp - it felt like a nail or something - and, sure enough, whatever it was had gone through my sock and punctured my foot, which started to bleed.

So, my good lady wife had a look at it, said it looked like whatever it was had just made a hole, cleaned it up and that was that. We had a look on the carpet to see what might've done it, but there was nothing to be found.

For the next couple of weeks, it was still hurting, but it didn't look like there was a splinter in there or anything, so I just assumed it was healing.

But then, after walking from Time Sq to E65th and 2nd (about a 40 minute walk) the other day, my foot was numb with pain! It clearly wasn't healing.

So, the next morning, in my hotel room, I resolved to investigate what was happening in there. So I managed to pick away at the skin, dig around a bit and soon managed to push out...... a jagged shard of glass!

Ah, so that would be why it was hurting! (Mum, if you're reading, no, it didn't cause an infection and, yes, it feels much better now thanks!)

Hope all you folks are well and that you're managing to ignore the spam comments that have been appearing recently. I actually got a spam email from one of them offering me the chance to spam the comments of other people's blogs for a fee! I'm hoping the folks at Blogger.com will be sorting out a way of preventing it before too long.

Right, now check out the other two NYC pictures, below...

Robin in NYC #2`

Robin looking over upper Manhattan
Originally uploaded by athens2004blog.

This one was taken from the roof of my friend Bernadette's appartment block - quite a view!

In the distance you can see the trees of Central Park spreading from left to right. Really shows how you've got a park right in the middle of all the hustle and bustle.

Robin in NYC #3

Robin in Central Park
Originally uploaded by athens2004blog.

This last picture shows Robin in Central Park, one of my favourite places in New York, where I went for a lovely walk with my friend Bernadette and her gorgeous 6 month old baby Andrew.

I love that there's such a beautiful park in the middle of such a massive city. You feel like you're lost in greenery and lakes, and then you look up and see the skycrapers towering over it all, reminding you where you are!

Robin at Stonehenge

Robin at Stonehenge
Originally uploaded by athens2004blog.

Yes, here's Robin at Stonehenge - the ancient stone monument in the south west of England which is thought to have been used for some sort of religious ceremony and was built 2,800 years ago!

We took the picture as we drove past it (hence the fence) on the way down to visit some friends who live not far away. But I'm sure nobody minded that we didn't stop to look properly - the site gets over a million visitors each year!

(Doesn't the phrase 'hence the fence' just trip off the tongue?)

Robin at Bristol City FC

Robin at the Robins
Originally uploaded by athens2004blog.

This is Robin at Ashton Gate - home of Bristol City Football Club, where we went yesterday. There are 92 professional football (soccer) teams in the four major leagues in England and I'm gradually trying to get around to all of them - this was my 74th out of 92, so I'm getting there....

Bristol City's nickname is The Robins (nobody seems too sure why) and they had a giant Robin mascot wandering about on the pitch. Sadly he didn't come near us, or I would've got him to pose with his namesake!

Naturally, with all those Robin mascots in the ground, Bristol City got a much needed 1-0 victory to climb out of the relegation zone...