These trials of Cat, Dog and Mine.

I've now been in Finland for almost nine weeks. Though I'm still looking for work the immigration processes seem to be going quite well. Last week I got the thumbs up from the police so now I'm just waiting for the Registry Office to accept me as a permanent resident.

Welcome to Finland. I am your guide

Cat and Dog are also settling in well. Cat has discovered shrews and has been eager to present his new friends to me. Girlf. is not nearly as happy as Cat as he drops another (usually) dead gift at our feet. He looks so sweet, like a kid that's just made a rubbish breakfast for mother's day. Being a nature loving vegetarian I of course have to put aside any feelings of parental pride and get back to feeling guilty for having brought this little ecological disaster into Finland. We seem to have found a solution now though, I've pimped my cat with little bells and he's only allowed out during the day; so far, zero-kills.

Dog is more interested in the dozens of dopey rabbits all over the island although the only thing she's managed to catch are the ticks from the long grass where the disappearing rabbits hide. Is it possible that the rabbits and ticks are working together? Anyway, her jollies have meant more father-dog grooming time hauling the ticks off with my special tick lasso.

So there you are. In case you were wondering, having pets is mostly disgusting.

My own trials come in the form of mind-boggling Finnish lessons. I'm just about to finish (this is getting confusing) the level 1 course so I thought I'm just about ready to give some feedback.

Finnish is a bit of an oddity language wise. Most European languages have the same root, and therefore have a lot of similarities, but Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian and a bunch of minority languages spoken only in rural Russia have taken a separate path. This lovely picture demonstrates these connections.

The main complications seem to be twofold. Firstly, word endings. A basic word like house can have several forms depending on if you want to say more than one house, or to the house, or at the house or from the house. If you want to say the house has two bedrooms then that's yet another form. All these tricks, and the inevitable exceptions, have to be wrestled whilst trying to pronounce the crazy vowels. No doubt this diagram will help.

But perhaps the most difficult is the vocabulary. Because of Britain's long history of immigration our vocabulary isn't a million miles from that of the Spanish or French or German. The inconsiderate Finnish forefathers however didn't bother to visit back when it was all the rage and now, 1000 years later, I find myself with endless lists of completely alien vocabulary to memorise. The problem is that you can't just hit and hope like you can with Spanish; you either know the word or you don't and that means learning them. All of them. 

Some friends have a one-and-a-half year old child and my goal is to be able to always speak better Finnish than him. If that's still the case in two years time I think I'll have done well.