New Hobbies Arising

The Sports Centre

I applied for a premier membership for Basingstoke Sports Centre. I never thought I would be interested about become a member of the sports club, but apparently this is what happens when you have enough free time to think about how to spend your time. The Sports Centre is located conveniently only 15 min walk from the home, so I can easily go there every day if I wanted. There is a well equipped gym, swimming pool and you can attend to different types of classes there. And what is really the most exciting thing there for me? There is a sauna! Oh, I have to say that this is what I've been waiting for even I never thought that I would miss a sauna at all. When I was in Finland, I wasn't a heavy user of sauna, it was okay for me if I went there occasionally, maybe once or twice in a week. But this new opportunity to have sauna here made me quite delighted. Yesterday I went to the Sports Centre for first time, I spent sweaty one hour in a gym by using cross trainer as it is a device that I used to have at home in Finland. Let's see how my new hobby starts working in future. Right now I'm really interested and excited about it.

Licence to sport, £44 per month with zero contract.

Gardening

Some serious gardening should be done in here?

The other day I looked at our backyard and thought myself that it really needs care. There are basically loads of different plants, flowers etc., which most of them are not familiar to me at all. The climate in British Isles is so different comparing to Finland, that my little knowledge about plants has basically no use in here. Bearing in mind that earlier I wasn't even interested about gardening. The garden in my previous home in Finland basically meant only some unpleasant jobs for me, and I always tried to avoid them. However, now I don't know what is it, but I actually think seriously about doing some gardening stuff in our backyard. I went to a library and borrowed a book about it. And as a proof of my geek level I even installed an app called Grow Your Own, provided by the Royal Hortocultural Society. Actually it is a useful app for learning gardening in a new environment. I will probably start with herbs as they are very useful in food preparing.

Grow your own app.
Wow, there really is an app for
everything you can ever imagine.

A Guitar

Last time when we visited West Midlands, Kayleigh brought her guitar from her parents' house. This acoustic, handmade Rikter & Sierra guitar gives me a great opportunity to start playing a music instrument again. When I was a teenager, I used to play clarinet and piano, I also took lessons on music theory for few years. Unfortunately I quit this hobby soon after leaving my parents' home, and forgot that part of my history for decades. But when I took this new guitar into my hands, I thought maybe this old interest for playing music will start rising again... So I want to learn how to play guitar now. And because I now have time at least a year to do that every day, so why not? So, this is my goal: one day I will play the Love Theme from the Godfather film, just like Michael Mark does in this Youtube video. I believe some of my friends from work will easily understand the reason for why I picked up this particular song for my ultimate goal of this hobby.

English Food

The Sunday Roast (by the White Swan Inn)

Guess what one of my friend in Oulu said when I told him about moving to England for a year? Well, he said with very sarcastic voice that I picked up the worst possible country in terms of weather and food experiences. Is it only Fish and Chips or Full English breakfast that people eat here from the day after day, or is there something else which may be worth of trying? I can tell you YES, there is a full range of different kind of meals, which are actually very good and honestly worth of trying. Like for instance, Sunday roast is a good example of very nice meal which is served in most pubs on Sundays, just like in this randomly selected pub in Newcastle, the White Swan Inn. 

However, I think the biggest difference between Finnish and English meals is the fact that Finnish meals include often salad (lettuce) and other raw vegetables like cucumber and tomato, which isn't the case in here. And secondly, the lunch is totally different, traditional English lunch deal includes just sandwich, crisps and a drink (or maybe a soup), whereas in Finland it is often the most fulfilling meal of the day. I'm not surprised why Finland is the World's biggest coffee consuming nation per capita. Nobody keeps him/herself awake after such enormous lunches there are in Finland, and that happens even in the middle of the every workday.  

It would be very interested to know what English people actually eat, and if it's not too difficult I can learn to prepare English food myself too. Good food (and brave tasting of different kinds of strange things abroad) has always been in my interest. Maybe my new hobbies, gardening of herbs (and other useful plants) in addition to my new sport activities will supplement each other in the end of the day. All in all, I will try to keep these new hobbies in good balance, as I think they can help me to live healthier and more valuable life in here.

The Dishwasher: Final Episode

Oh and by the way: the dishwasher broke again this Monday, this time there was both internal and external water leak. Finally I got our letting agent convinced that machine needs to be changed into the new one. Thanks to Rayner's Appliance Care, they fitted the brand new British made dishwasher into our kitchen. Beko, the devil's machine as I call it, is now in a dumpster and I never have to see it again. Case closed.