Greetings from the far-flung North
Sixty-two and a bit degrees to be a little less than perfectly accurate.

As I am renting an E300 here, I have taken the easy way out and travelled commercial air. This has not been without unscheduled delays, nor other minor irritations, but I am now happily ensconced in the contest hotel next to the train station in Joensuu town centre.

The aeroplane I am due to use is also here, in the hangar at the airport but, unfortunately, the key is not in the ignition. Due to an unfortunate misunderstanding about my arrival date, the owner and fellow competitor, Tapio Pitkanen, has gone back to Helsinki for a last couple of days at work and won't be back with the key until Wednesday. So plans for an early practice, and a chance to get used to the feel of this particular Extra have been rather scuppered. All that has been achieved so far is to get the seat and associated padding sorted. It has smallish spades and P-strip like the one at home, so perhaps it will be quite similar after all.

I left Heathrow Sunday and arrived in Helsinki at about 9pm local time (2 hours ahead of UK). By the time I got the bus to an airport hotel, showered and went to bed it was about 10.30. I woke this morning at 06.15 and still wait to see any of Finland in the dark. I suppose it did get dark for a short period, but I was not alert enough to see when it was. Judges could be in for long working days at this contest - way beyond the remit of the Working Time Directive from Brussels.

In the hangar are a Yak-55, a CAP-231, an Ultimate 10-300 and the Extra 300 of the Finnish pilots. Also arriving today came two Hungarian aircraft, an Edge 540T and a Zlin 50, the latter reporting some lousy weather on the way - but he did get here.

Julian was planning to set off from White Waltham this morning in the Extra 230 he will be sharing here with Stephen Madle, but I have yet to hear how he has fared. I think the French coast would have been quite challenging early on, but Denmark looked very clear yesterday afternoon and Finland has been fine all day. Fingers crossed that he will get here tomorrow or Wednesday at the latest.

I think it will be quite busy here with training flights from Wednesday onwards.

In order to fill my time tomorrow, I have rented a car and will be setting off on a butterfly hunt in the area around the National Park at Koli, about 50km north of here. There are plenty of insects around the woods and swamps near the airport, so hunting should be good. I expect the mosquitoes will be hunting me back, but that seems only fair under the circumstances. Fortunately my copious supply of insect repellent made it through the security checks at the airport without comment - don't they know that chemical warfare nerve agents are made from just this kind of thing? I half expected to be locked up for having more than 50cc of the damn stuff.

However, the half-empty 237cc bottle of Australian Gold SPF8 suntan lotion was obviously far to much like an explosive device to be allowed in the cabin on the flight from Helsinki to Joensuu. That was one of the small irritations.

More news about the aerobatics when they start to happen.
Bye bye
Alan
PS the food looks as though it may be better than Poland. The showers certainly are....