Archive for the ‘Events’ Category

July means the annual Finnish summer picnic in Leeds. Last year was Venla’s first and this year she was armed with new skills, including walking and talking.

Both Elina and I failed to do particularly well in the molkky tournament, but better in the welly throwing, with us both coming second in our respective gender competitions.

I’m pretty sure we won the wife carrying by default when I was the only person physically able to lift their partner.

And, of course, we filled out boots with Karelian pasties.

“In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.” Galileo Galilei.

Finland turned 100 this year. It’s fun walking around Helsinki because many of the buildings and companies have their incorporation date above the door, and many of them are before Finland was officially a country.

We celebrated the anniversary with Illallinen taivaan alla (dinner under the sky) back in August. However, Finland’s Independence Day is 6th December. Too cold for a dinner outside, but an event that we wanted to mark none the less.

So, we invited some friends around and cooked some Finnish food.

If you saw my post on Nordic food, you might recall that Finnish food only comes in one colour. And that colour is brown. It’s a cuisine of permanent autumnal themes.

For the starter, crayfish filo tartlets, Karelian pasties and homemade gravlax. They were so popular, I only managed to snap the last tartlet.

For the main, Karelian stew. With a British stew, you would typically pick a single meat and stew it with a selection of vegetables. With Karelian stew, you pick a single vegetable and stew it with beef, pork and lamb. Ideally for a couple of days.

Finally, for dessert, pinwheels and a ginger cake.

In 2010, we set out on a mission to extend the direct action on-the-street work we were doing by organising a food drive for local homeless shelters. Seven years later and we’re celebrating our 8th annual food drive with another bumper event.

The event couldn’t happen without all of the generous donations you make, so thank you to everyone who provided food, clothing, toiletries and money.

Sarann, charity coordinator at West Yorkshire Humanists, headed the event. It’s thanks to her tireless work that it happens. I would also like to say a big thank you to the other groups who contribute to making the event so great. In particular, Darren from the Interfaith Vegan Alliance and Jo from Mill Hill Chapel who lends us his church. The event represents different groups coming together for the best of reasons.

Click the thumbnails to see the full-size image.

Finland turns 100 this year. In celebration, events are taking place around the world. They’re called Illallinen taivaan alla or “Dinner under the sky”. Tiina organised a Leeds event which was a big success.

There was loads of Finnish food, including a selection of cake so big that I don’t think I managed to get around everything. Despite trying really hard.

Leeds Pride continues to get bigger every year. It used to be that you could rock up to The Headrow and have an entire traffic island to yourself to watch the parade go by. Now, as you can see, the crowds are much bigger.

We weren’t clear if we were supporting Pride, or insensitively flaunting our heterosexuality by waving a baby around…

Craig’s Pride-themed tuba was very impressive, but I didn’t manage to get a good photo…

As you can see, I spared no expense in making the picture for my blog post. I think it was worth the time, though. It is not every day that you turn 453. Of course, he hasn’t, because he is dead. But the thought still counts.

I would also like to offer a birthday shout-out to Michael, who I believe turns 23 today. He has a bit of catching up to do there.

At the end of December, I attend the Leeds Schools’ Carol Concert to support my mum, who was singing in the adult choir. They did not get much of a look-in: they were given a few songs, but most of the songs were sung by the children. This was a shame because the adults were much better, but apparently, parents felt it should be all about the children for some reason.

We took Venla, who let out one perfect cry just at the end of a song, leading the entire hall to go up in laughter. I think we have a future performer in the making.

The annual West Yorkshire Humanist’s summer social has been running since long before my time. For the past two years, we have been running a picnic at Kirkstall Abbey. Last year, we also added a Winter Social, to fill in the gap left by the Atheist Society’s Winter Solstice meals.

This year we had ten people attend, including plenty of old faces, and some new faces too.

The venue was the Lawnswood Arms, as it was last year. The food was fine. It is a family-friendly and affordable pub, with mains priced around £7-10, so you got what you paid for: the food turned up edible and hot, with is all you really need when you have good company.

The 2016 pride parade was pretty standard. There were lots of people marching, it took about 30-40 minutes for the whole parade to pass. A few floats, but these were almost all corporate buses. Lots of people marching against the Tories this year, and I don’t think the Tories themselves turned up at all.

The biggest change this year was the amount of people watching. Typically there are only a few people on The Headrow and you can pretty much have a traffic island or road-side bench to yourself. This year there were people lining the whole way and it was difficult to get a spot.