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Day 1:
Firstly, some bad news about the new BA rules of charging for racquet bags! After much dilemma we have tactically gone with the rucksack look. On the flight we decided to slightly annoy Eve and her sleeping patterns, by continually laughing at our Rob Brydon DVD. The little man in a box routine was a favourite. Safely landed in Helsinki to the sight of yet some more snow, really getting sick of it now and looking forward to the summer months. We had a long wait for our connection flight to Oulu, however, was looking better when we got hold of free internet!
After landing in Oulu to -16 degrees, arctic temperatures, India realised wearing a tank top was not a smart move! The wait for our baggage was nerve racking as we thought that they may be heading back to London. All was ok and we headed outside for the taxi rank! After three epic failures of us all fitting into one taxi we went for the A Team van.
Arrived in the Hotel reception to find numerous elderly men strolling around in bath robes, not a pretty sight! We went round the hotel and discovered the indoor spa, gym and swimming pool, what more could we want!
As our Finnish language skills are not quite up to scratch hopes of watching TV were none existent. Unpacked and fought over the hangers and drawer space resulting in India bruising like a peach. One nil to the Bridge! Off to bed and ready to check out the club and practice courts!
Day 2:
9:20 am curtains open:
Woke up, feeling awake and ready to rumble. After a lovely breaky including (don´t tell mumma) waffles, we were pumped for a hard day training. Wrapped up warm and faced the cold blizzard, we headed to the club. Thankfully, using our bluffing skills, we managed to smuggle a court and train...
A long boring wait on a comfy sofa, helped by iPod games and good old YouTube, we managed to survive for 2 hours, we then, yet again, smuggled a court at 4pm for an hour of hitting and points. We were signed in and left almost skint after the 40 euro entrance fee. Then we took advantage of free access to the water park and enjoyed rapids, slides and Jacuzzi for a hour, we discovered a pretty cool tunnel to the outdoor pool, yes that´s right an outdoor pool in winter, in Finland, in around -15 degrees it was basically an ice bath!!!! After that endurance session, the alarm bells rung to signal that the waves were about to start we were tossed side to side whilst eve was getting some sort of peace in the Jacuzzi!
A enjoyable shower and we were clean and ready to eat, to find a delightful buffet 11 Euros for under 14 Samm, me and Bridge were off... unfortunately eve didn´t get away with being a minor and would have been charger 22 Euros, what a joke, so she headed to the salad bar, no change there. Dinner was, as always, eventfully with conversations about throwing up and Samm sharing some disgusting stories (putting eve off her food he he he).
We finished the evening by whipping out the jackass DVD and us all being in hysterics due to some funny clips! And headed to bed for some sleep in preparation for our first round matches!
Lights out Indy & Bridge x
Day 3:
Woke up 7:15 pumped for India’s match, we strolled down for breakfast to find out from Eve that Samm had been sick all night and wasn’t going to be hitting! But still we struggled over to the club in the freezing cold at this point around -22! We hit and hung around at the club for India’s match. She went on 9am sharp and had Eve and my support. Unfortunately she lost and wasn’t on top form…After a long chill, we decided we didn’t want to hang around doing nothing and being down hearted we chucked on the thermals and went out to the cool snow playground! We got there to find that it was closed but luckily we found the sledge and took it for a ride!
On the walk back to the hotel I jumped out for under a mound of snow and nailed Bridge in the back with a monster of a snowball, 1-1! After a light training session in the gym we came back to find out what was happening with Samm, they ended up going to the hospital an hour before his match was due on just to check that it wasn’t something serious, as he wasn’t feeling good at all! They paid the solid 170 Euros for the appointment (EXPENSIVE!) and found it was a stomach virus. In typical Samm style he wanted to try to play, so he went on for his match at 8pm with low energy, as he hadn’t eaten all day! We were all waiting in suspense, he played the first game and unfortunately had to pull out.
This left Eve and us to go to supper! Again we went for the buffet and as usual Eve dived in for the classic salad! The banter was off the roof! Impressions all round and some funny stories to lighten the spirits after an eventful day. We were pretty tired so after supper we got tucked up in bed and dozed off.
Peace out Indy & Bridge!
Day 4:
Another early start for the gals, we made it to the club with our new found sport of speed walking. We looked at the thermometer to find a pleasant surprise of -24. A good hit for Bridge leaving India and Eve to watch, the referee decided to put bridge down for practise with her opponent, something that he has a tendency to do. We then headed back for breakfast as Bridge was due to be on for her match 2nd round. great result for Bridge, she won 6-0 6-2 against a muma of a Russian, solid performance. Once again we headed back to the hotel to check on Samm to find thankfully that he was feeling a lot better and had not been sick in a while.
Had lunch and chilled for a while then Eve decided to whip us into the pool for some swimming, relaxing, ice bathing and injury prevention. whilst Bridge and I were in the ice pool this finnish man comes in, i was standing outside of the pool in the cold winds and he jumped out and said to me (firstly in finnish) "roll in snow it good for muscles" and then he jumped and rolled in the snow, like a pig in poo, i then jumped up for the challenge and didn't quite roll in it as it would have sent me blue, well even more than i already was, but i still grabbed a dollop and rubbed it on my legs and stomach...burrrrr. Dinner soon came around and we all strolled up to the restaurant for yet another buffet bonanza. But this time is was not quite to our liking, salmon was on the menu which looked lovely but fighting with the bones proved all too stressful. Bring us back our sausage and mash! We all tried to force feed Samm some stodge to stop him impersonating a twig! Back to our room for a bit of internet and time for bed.
Toodle do Bridge & Indy x
Day 5:
Morning campers! Early morning call once again, off to the practise court pre breakfast. After a solid hit we went for the usual Breakfast choice of cereal, bread and apple juice, (note: no waffles). Headed back to the room for relaxation time and a bit of Finnish TV.
Back into the arctic to walk to the club, a 3min walk which seems like an expedition, with impressions on the way of how both of us walk when we are on court, in stitches as we were doing it. A standard lunch followed (sandwich) very adventurous yet all the budget could afford. We headed on court for our doubles against some Russians, looking like a bear and mouse (bridge being the bear; of course)
We battled hard but came out 2nd. We had things to work on and Eve threatened to pull out the human volley bullet machine back home, we better get our helmets on! We showered and changed ready to back Samm in his doubles, however we were later informed that they had pulled out so had a walkthrough. We took advantage of this and sneaked an early practise, score! Dinner turned out to be the quietest of nights. The banter levels dropped catastrophically (Bridge was suffering a light headache and held back the talk) we battled through the night and the odd scrape of knife on plate was the highlight of dinner.
Bridge gulped down some paracetemols and felt better. An early night was needed ahead of tomorrow’s events.
Lights out Bridge & Indy
Day 6:
As usual another early start and, for Bridge, an early hit. Seen as I was out of the tournament, I decided I would have a bit of breakfast with Samm heading into the gym for a solid workout! Came back to the room, sweating like a racing horse, to find Bridge relaxing on the bed looking very chilled and prepared for her match! I was keen to have a shower however I came at the wrong time, the cleaners were in!
We then met Eve for a bit of lunch, Eve pushing herself by going for the coffee and cake option! Whilst Bridge and I ate a lot more. Time passed and we headed off to the club, again. Bridge was due to go on at 1pm.........ended up 3pm! Well warmed up she headed on against another Russian. The first set was nervy and was tit for tat but mistaken opportunities caused Bridges to lose the first set. Not having the best of days I found it hard to get into a rhythm causing Eve to give birth to ten kittens. I was very disappointed as I knew it was very winnable. After logically talking it through with Eve we made a deal, I will believe in myself more.
Sprits were raised by the thought of food and Samm making final of doubles, with his Belgium partner. Banter returned to the table and India finally managed to succeed at glass humming. After annoying the waiter and Eve reminding her of her dinner manners she decided to stop but still had a gleaming smile spread across her face due to her achievement, Eve saying that she needs that attitude on court! We returned to the room and popped on a horror film to help us sleep...
Game, set, and match Indy & Bridge!
Day 7:
Another half lie in led us to having breakfast at around 8:30. We headed to the gym to pump irons, whilst Samm and Eve went to the club to warm up Samm for his doubles later on. After our mahusive weights session we also headed to the club to wait for Samm to play his doubles final! After what’s seemed a long wait Samm was finally on, unfortunately his opponents where just too good and so he lost.
We decided to take the scenic way back to the hotel and take a walk on the sea! Eve took on the role of mum saying “be careful children don’t fall through the ice” much to the amusement of us! The walk took us to what, in the summer, is properly a look out tower for lifeguards with steps to the top covered in ice Samm struggled to the top mostly pulling himself up using the railings! On our way back, Eve insisted that we were having too much fun so she put a Jez Green aspect on things and got us squatting with ice blocks in our arms…Torture! You can see the pain we were in below!
After freezing our limbs off we got back to the hotel and once again did some fitness but this time in the pool, we did lengths and ice baths it was tiring but very different than are usual training!
It came to the last supper, Eve and her disciples it was a pizza for Samm and us, Eve, for the 6th time this week, dived in for the salad! We went to the room to finish watching Paranormal Activity, it was so scary we had to knock on Samm’s room and went to play on the Wii to take our mind off it before sleep time arose!
Day 8:
Morning time, we more feel alive than ever as we are looking forward to sleeping in our own homes tonight, finally! Got into taxi and we were on our way to airport, when we arrived to the worlds smallest airport with around 15 people in it, we discovered that we couldn't check our bags in for another hour, but thankfully there was internet so we were all sat on a table with all four of our laptops out enjoying life! Check in time came at last and we watched our bags go off to the distance...
The first of many errors came, after we went through security Bridge need to borrow money from me to pay for an apple so I went into my bag to find that there was no purse... i was so shocked and didn't know what to do, i remember that i bought a sandwich before check in and must have left it there, Eve and I went to ask if we could go back through security and thank god some finish person had handed it in.
Plane just touched down and we thought maybe we should check with eve what time our connection flight, we then realised we had 15 minutes to get off this plane and board the next! Bridge and I lead the way sprinting through the many different cultures of people, we made it in the nick of time and were on the plane! The main thing that crossed our minds was our bags going to make it on our flight? When we landed we were told that three of our bags where in Finland still and somehow one of them made it onto our flight and should be coming on the conveyer belt, so we waited to see if one bag was going to come out and who's it was going to be... after at least an hour of waiting and filling in forms there was still no bag and the next flights bag was starting to come on we decided we would head off and get the airport to send it with the others another day.
The weirdest thing was getting on the bus to the car park without our bags, it felt like we had been robbed of all our belongings and were left empty handed.
so at the end of an eventful trip we were exhausted, stressed and worried about our bags! we've had illnesses, winning, loosing, good nights, bad nights, scary movies, swimming, workouts and annoying airports!
Until next time good bye from Indy & Bridge
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One of the best things about being a tennis player is that you certainly don’t get stuck in a routine. It’s not the normal Mon-Fri 9am-5pm job. I am my own boss and no-one can tell me what to do. (perhaps except my wife) I often don’t even know where I’ll be in 2 days time. One slight problem that this poses is that sometimes it’s easy not to know what the date is. I’ve been sick this past week and so I spent a lot of time trying not to feel sick at home. One morning at about 10.30am last week, I was still lounging about, feeling a little sorry for myself when the front door bell rang – there was a guy delivering a package. So I opened the door and was asked to sign for the package. I took the pen, signed my name and then had to write the date. After a few seconds of the pen not writing anything, the guy said, “30”, so I wrote 26 down….then came the month….apparently 29 previous days of October was not enough for me to realise what month it was and so again the guy said, “10”. By now I was getting a little embarrassed and was thinking, “ok I’d better not get the year wrong!” but all I had flashing in my head was “08”. I circled the pen around a few times and fortunately “09” came to me. The guy gave me a look that could only have been “no wonder this guy doesn’t have a job….”
Ni Hao,
MCTA TEAMBATH TOURING AND CONSULTANCY TEAM