Yodle dodle doo!

May 8

Shopping for necessary equipment in Croydon with flatmate, who unlike me, has done hiking inlcluding places such as Nepal. Good. Get loads of useful advice. Some of it a little bit worrying. “This is a survival bag,” he says, pointing to a silvery-looking thing that looks like, well neatly folded aluminium folio. The bright orange thing that looks like a big recycling bin liner should shield me from water and make me easy to spot in case I need to be. [there should not be too many Dutch football fans around]. If I am are in danger of hypothermia – or get snow-blinded - I should go into both of these things and wait to be rescued. Hmm... do they have any pubs on smaller hills, by any chance?

***

Couldn’t even tie the shoelaces of my hiking boots properly. Damn.

May 11

On top of Zugspitze (2962m), -6C and snowing, snow depth over three meters… Hmm, it seems the summer – in the mountains at least – might be some way off.

May 14

Jogging 45 min, did some spurts, for the first time in a couple of years felt quite ok running. Maybe the fact that I have walked the stairs at work for the past couple of weeks has affected a bit. After all, the office is on the fifth floor and if you walk up there a couple of times, if nothing else, you feel like having prepared a bit for the admittedly bit higher climbs I am supposed to take.

May 16

Shopping basic first aid stuff at Boots, Piccadilly Circus. Leave with wound dressing pads, “sensible, sensitive” SilverHealing plasters and Stops Bleeding Fast – dressings for larger cuts grazes. Hopefully this should be adequate for my purposes ...

May 18

Damn, I am going today. Struggling with the packing of the rucksack a bit, and adjusting all the various straps etc with it (why was I not put in the boyscouts back in Finland in my youth in what a Londoner would call definite countryside [no, I'm not talking of the capital Helsinki which funnily enough does look and feel like a city, but Espoo next to it], why!?) Everything is pretty much set. Well, I will try to take some photos if an eagle does not mistake my digital camera for... a hamster (guess it would still be better than mistaking my head for a hedgehog I suppose)

Will be back! Hopefully after having thrown at least one snowball..

Mobile trouble

Today I came across this handy feature on the Metropolitan Police website where you can report "Non-Emergency Crime and Hate crime"

Unfortunately it was out of necessity. Let me play mr detective ...

Location: Nanobyte Bar, Wardour Street, Soho

What: Having dinner with two friends before the Arsenal-Barcelona football-match, and having the first beer.

The incident (how i reported it online): A well dressed man, probably aged 25-30, dark long curly hair, round glasses with black rims [we did - a bit worryingly - argue afterwards did he wear glasses or not], maybe 6 feet to 6 feet 2, came to ask me and my friend [his girlfriend was in the loo] if a certain chair in our table was free. We said it is not but pointed to another one. However, he did not accept the offer but left. Soon afterwards I noticed my mobile phone had disappeared from the pocket of my coat, that was on the back of my chair. I reported this incident to the bar staff and they said there is nothing they can do. When I asked if I should call the police they recommended me not to bother as it would cause hassle (the theft took place just before the Barcelona-Arsenal match). Evidence; the battery of the phone was full and charged, there was signal but when I tried to call it with my friend's phone got the automatic not reachable message.

Conclusion: What could be a more aptly named place to have your mobile phone stolen than Nanobyte bar? There is an obvious association to technology. They do have megabyte meals as well (the pizza at £6.50 was pretty good). Well, someone got 4 megabytes of a Nokia for a dessert, with some strange Finnish-flavoured content in it, also featuring some videoclips from Greece.

The challenge: If anyone can return my Nokia 6170, serial No. 355016002645262, I will provide him with 256megabytes of laptop RAM (seriously).