Yes, as expected, July was generally more chilled out workwise. No, I didn't end up doing much cycling :). With the exception of a nice 45k ride today that is. Which was great! And left me hoping for some more cycling in August... I guess we shall see how that goes.
It is a bit disconcerting (although in a good way... what's a feel good version of disconcerting?) to think that at the beginning of the month we ended up taking a detour through Helsinki to get back to Oslo from London! Yup, the flight chaos in Europe did catch us even though we weren't really travelling all that much.
But let's rewind a bit. The trip to the UK was actually really great! Seeing some of the more distant members of family after years. Some for the first time! (This was aided somewhat by a proliferation of Covid babies :D.) Despite the short duration of the trip we did manage to stay with all the close family for at least a night.
But when we got back to Heathrow to catch our flight back on Saturday, having checked in successfully and all that, we found "flight cancelled" notices on the boards. Long story short, the quickest way back to Oslo seemed to be Finnair flights via Helsinki :). I'd never been to Finland, so we decided to make the best of it and try and get as much time as possible in a new country!
We ended up walking around Helsinki in amazingly sunny weather for the best part of 3 and a half hours! And what a lovely place it turned out to be :). There was a distinctive feel to it that was quite different in some ways from Oslo. The architecture, for instance. The older stuff was much more grand and fancy feeling. The newer buildings, however, had a recognizable swish yet simple vibe. So yes, there were a lot of familiar bits too.
Not sure I had a particular favourite bit, but the streets of the older part of town around the cathedral with their profusion of interesting facades and almost hidden green parks were a lot of fun! One thing that was quite a surprise to me though (ignorant as I was of Finland in general) was the amount of Swedish language used, particularly in signage and announcements!
Since then it's mainly been a rather quiet month of enjoying the sunny days with walks in and around town. Enjoying the quiet part of the year :). Or should I say the even quieter part of the year. I guess I've become quite Norwegian if the regular bits of life here feels hectic and busy :).
There's also been some reading happening. Since getting back to The Culture, I've finished reading The Player of Games, Use of Weapons and The State of the Art. And could there have been more different reading experiences offered up by the same author? Not sure. And I consider this a very good thing.
The last first. The State of the Art is a collection of short stories and one novella. I think I rather prefer the novels. The short stories were intriguing, but left too many bits hanging. Which I suppose is the thing with good short stories, yet, really good short stories do allow you to gain some closure within the space of a few short pages. (I'm thinking Gaiman, unsurprisingly.) The novella provided more space for the ideas to grow a bit, but there was still something missing, I felt.
There was no such issue with The Player of Games! In some ways this was quite a straightforward story, without meaning to say that that was any less interesting. Somehow it felt to me like a bit more of a classic sci-fi story. It's possible that by this point I'd become a bit more accustomed to the Culture universe, so to speak.
Use of Weapons on the other hand, with it's interleaved storylines flowing alternately backwards and forward, was a fascinating read. I thoroughly enjoyed getting immersed in the many histories of Cheradenine Zakalwe. And then the end happened. There's a part of me that's still trying to come to terms with that ending. I still thoroughly enjoyed the book, but the twist was quite something.
So, it is with some excitement that I've now started off with Excession. I wonder what this one will be like :). A friend recently mentioned that Iain M Banks was one of, if not the, best science fiction writer of the last fifty years. I am beginning to see why :).
