Smashing Sunday

Today can be clearly divided into two distinct halfs: the first part of the day (noon to four) and the rest (from four onwards).
The eagerly awaited picnic at Martin's which Sanna has been advertising for the past month was a success, although, sadly, not many people could come. In fact, the only ones along were Sanna, Martin and me. This, however, did by no means spoil the feeling of going out to sea on the Richters' boat and having a packed lunch on an isolated, unexplored island far from inhabited land (well, okay, it was Iso Vasikkasaari and just about 5 kilometres from the mainland... and we had a hard time finding a place to anchor the boat). Especially Sanna's avocado-tuna fish- cheese- cucumber- pickle-tomato-sandwiches were just the thing on this breezy and cloudy day. In fact, Sanna's efforts were doubled by the fact she apparently only slept 15 minutes last night. On our way back to mainland Espoo, we made friends with a duck mother and her SIMPLY ADORABLE!!!!!!!! children. Sanna's sandwiches came to the rescue and we fed bits of the bread to the little birds, who swam so quickly after them they almost took off from the water. Martin couldn't start the boat because we would have run over them, and so a sad parting followed: the last bit of bread was thrown far away, and the birdies swam after it in a flash. Lovely pictures can be found at Martin's blog! (Skip the pictures from their beach party and scroll down to the second half of his today's entry ;)
In the morning, I was being pushed by Sanna via Microsoft Messenger to "make a move", "leave the computer and get ready to go" and asked "how on earth I was going to be at the Richters' on time"... Sanna was supposed to catch the 11.31 bus, but she called me at 11.45 and told me she might not make it to the 11.51 bus. Change of plans, apparently! Anyway, just as I was running out of the Ruoholahti metro station to the bus, Sanna called again to tell me bus number 132 left infront of her nose. In a panic, I ran to the bus station at Ruoholahti, expecting the bus to appear there any minute. I was just as unlucky as Sanna and the bus made a dash past the stop just as I was breathlessly emerging from the underground passage in Ruoholahti. That's right, breathlessly. Maybe joining Anna and Mikko for their morning swim tomorrow wouldn't be such a bad idea.
Instead of leaving for the island at 12 o'clock sharp, Sanna and I made our entrance at Martin's at around 12.45. After the island picnic, Martin and Sanna stayed to watch the DVD of Finding Nemo (after we told her the whole story of the movie she felt like she should watch it herself - apparently she fell asleep instead) and I left towards Meritulli, where we had a CMS rehearsal for our open-air concert on Thursday. The concert will be held in the courtyard of Cafe Engel (opposite the Cathedral) and as it probably will be packed (everyone has invited at least ten friends, many even more) we are now considering moving the concert to nearby Senaatintori. We are already contacting the police so they can make preparations, such as halting the traffic and preparing for a mass onslaught of people. There's only one thing I can say: be there, or you just might not get that best seat.