Jamie's blog

Today we woke to see the snow falling and the trees bending in the wind that was coming from over the lake.  Wind in -degree conditions is never a good thing as it means that whatever temperature it is, is going to feel a lot worse on the skin; wind chill factor.

We got outside.  “I don’t know what temperature it is” rants Jukka, “perhaps -14, -25 with the wind chill.”  It was cold, my face felt like it was going to fall of my bones.  I take a bottle of water down, and by the time I went to get a sip the spout had frozen and the water was half ice anyway, rather like my boots.

We carved away through the day.  Simmo and I swiftly cut through our blocks of snow with a simple chain from Natasha; from Russia with love.  Natasha joked earlier in the day that my block of snow was so full of earth and moss that I may as well just make a nest.  Well that’s exactly what I was going to make, a simple nest.  We’ll have to see what it turns out like, as with many sculptures it looks a right mess on the first day, and I didn’t disappoint today!  For dinner we made sausages over a BBQ, I cannot believe we had a BBQ in -14, but there you go, four guys stood around a fire like we had no other place to go.  Some tourists came by looking like they wanted to buy our sausages.  I think after a few moments they understood that they were not welcome and that out precious sausages were not for sale.

One good thing that rolled in today, and I hate to say this, was the arrival of my good friend Timo.  He’ll be carving next to me and bought me a balaclava as a late Christmas present to help preserve my precious Yorkshire skin from the Finnish winter.

Tomorrow is New Years Eve, we will see in 2010, or twenty ten as so many people are now calling it.  What will it bring?  The snow and cold if I am not mistaken.  And perhaps a ride on a husky sled.

Cheerio for now

Jamie

After a hard days work Kimmo said

“Thank you for helping me with my hobby.”

“No problem Kimmo.”  Kimmo made a great contribution whilst sat on his quad bike.

We worked like troopers clearing the lake of snow and then cutting blocks of ice from the lake with a chainsaw and then pulling them out with a quad bike.  There was water all over the place which is why I had to drive the quad bike, my boots were not waterproof.  It is a hard life.

Afterwards, some of us started to compact the snow blocks with the digger and a lot of elbow grease, just in the same way that we compact the sand.  This took us well into the night to finish, and when I offered my light to Rodrego, to that he could see the nails he was hammering, he replied: “I do not need a light to see.”  It seems that the Portuguese have supernatural powers.  Stamina however is not one of them, as Rodrigo is now passed out in his room.

So, we are still in the mental asylum, but have missed the witching hour which was 7:15, as all the clocks seemed to have stopped at that time you see.  We now have safety in numbers as there is 7 of us now.  We will have to see how many of us are here tomorrow.

So I step off the train in darkest Finland, it is -10 and there is Kimmo my long time Polar Bear friend waving his big hand at me.  I go up and great him.  Next to him is standing another guy, and so I go to shake his hand, but then I recognise his face from may years ago, but not from cold climes but from somewhere much hotter.  I shake his hand and am met with a warm smile, one that I have not seen for four years perhaps.  This is one of the wonderful things about my job, you are able to bump into people you have not seen for so long in the most bizarre of places.  It is Rodrigo, from the sunniest Portugal where we used to make sand sculptures together.  He had come all the way to Finland to make ice sculptures for the first time.

We drive into the darkness, the roads covered with snow, Kimmo’s van tyres gripping with ease as he flyes around the corners, the trees bending with the weight of the snow.

“So, we are not staying in a hotel.” pipes Kimmo.

“OK, some log cabins then?” I am not being optimistic, we have stayed in them before.

“Not quite.  Remember when we went to the holiday cottage on the lake?”  Log cabin it is then, this was sounding good, picturesque, boats, saunas fire, BBQ, “…Well, there was a mental hospital that you could see on the hill….”  Oh god.  “We are staying there.”

Since I watched the movie the shining as a child, I have since had a slight phobia of long corridors.  Now long corridors in an old mental asylum are something else.

Through the trees I could see the lights around the buildings as we approached, but no lights in the buildings themselves.  This was a little spookey.  Only one building still had some lights on, and had some patients there; we drove past it and pulled up to another deserted building.

“So, here we are.  You don’t mind if I go home do you Jamie?”  Ah, not at all Kimmo, why have three people go insane when you can get away with two.

“…Oh, and the lights do not work on the stairs.”  What a suprise, an old mental asylum with no lights.  So in we went scrambling in the dark to find our room on the third floor, searching the corridors for number 301.  I looked in one room and there was what appeared to be two beds to each side and then a third table with an operating light hanging low from the ceiling.  I don’t think so.

After a time we found our rooms, and it appears to be a cosy enough appartment.  Still, I opted to share a room rather than have one by myself.

Tomorrow we cut some ice and compact the snow for making the sculptures in the grounds.

Good night.

Jamie

So we rocked on down to Halifax on Sunday and were met by -5 degrees, great conditions for ice carving.  The snow blizzards that came later made things a little tricky, but then added to the Christmas spirit of the event.  Me and James Haigh spent two hours stacking Mary who was to be a whopping 2.5 meters tall and was to stand right in the centre of the Piece Hall.  Ice is very heavy for anyone that has not tried to lift an ice block before.  I was then to spend the rest of the day carving Mary with chainsaw and chisels, and then polish her off with some sanding.

The guys from exquisiteice.co.uk were meanwhile dropping off all the table top sculptures around the town for the trail to commence.  I’d made these sculptures in a freezer in Rotherham the previous week, a special thanks to Matt, Ed and family to helping out and keeping me sane whilst in the freezer.

Cheerio for now, and enjoy the pictures

Jamie