Not a trivial issue

Hi everyone, wow it is great to be here again. It was so amazing to see the pictures of us students as a united team on top of this blog. Our tutors are no doubt going to give us a hard time! I feel so jolly, yet my first entry is not going to be a trivial matter. For those of you that I have not had a pleasure meeting earlier, may I introduce myself; I am Leila, a 57 years old working girl from Finland and I was a November 2007 blogger.

A few days ago Pary from Iran was telling us, in my opinion, very disturbing news. I mean the heavy snow fall and very cold temperatures in Iran. I also heard through news that in Morocco the weather has been unusually chilly. These reports are a big contrast to our weather here in Finland. Here we have mild, wet and dismal days, one after the other. Not at all, what we should be experiencing at this time of the year, frost and more frost.

I am not certain if my memory entirely lets me down, but I remember the weather being totally the diverse when I was a kid. The snow fell in November and that was it; the grounds were covered under the snow until March, and this I am certain; we used to have cold spells that lasted for weeks. Now the weather changes very rapidly and frequently.

You all may recall that I told you about the snow fall last November. Well since then, around Christmas time, all snow melted due a rain fall and very mild temperatures. When I and my husband arrived back from Egypt just after Christmas, all the snow had gone. After that we did have a short cold phase that lasted for few days; the temperatures were around -20 degrees, but the wintery weather did not last for long. At the moment the temperature is around zero again.

The winter seems to be a big fat zero!

It is very evident that the climate is changing; in fact environment has done so already. What is the course of this global change? I also heard from the radio news yesterday that fish in the sea are getting skinny because a food supply is getting poor. The reason for fish food diminishing is said to be partly a global warming and the eutrophication of the waters.

I was sorry to hear that Adriana had a death in her family, may I offer my condolences Adriana. I was also moved by the death of Sir Edmund Hillary, a great mountaineer and explorer.

On a more cheery note, we had a very good holiday break in Egypt. The trip was my fourth visit to Egypt and my very first to Cairo. I feel that I am beginning to get to know a little bit of Egyptian people. The country has such a grand history, and Egyptians today appear to be open to new co-operation. We had some serious conversations with couple of local people about joint ventures that we were mutually interested in. I have added couple photos below.

I am very happy, that BBC LE gave us a change to write again. I am certain that many of you have something you want to add since you last wrote. Bitter–sweet sums it up rather nicely; in true life one seldom gets a second change. At the end of November I was a bit disappointed with myself leaving the global warming issue to be. I am now challenging you to take part in this topic.

I will be away through my work until Thursday (in Copenhagen), but I do hope once I come back I will find your views on this important subject matter.

My husband is well, and my daughter Katri and his fiancée are still working hard with their new home building. They are supposedly moving to their new home at the end of March.

Preposition exercise Stephen gave was a very useful one, thank you! Talk to you after Thursday.

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