You might think that winter comes every year and it is pretty predictable when this takes place. But winter surprised me again. One day it occurred to me that it may be time to let change winter wheels to my car, and the next day they were already absolutely needed. Fortunately, this could be arranged. I was not as lucky with gloves. In May I had put all gloves aside for the summer time. Now I cannot remember where. I took everything out from all cupboards and managed to find nine different black gloves. Fortunately, I found one for the right and one for the left hand, never mind that they are not similar.

This happened right after I had had a great trip to London where I really experienced the last taste of summer for this year. I first participated a most inspiring ESPE seminar on gender identity in children and adolescents  https://www.eurospe.org/education/espe-science-symposium/ . The meeting offered lots of stimulating discussions, new knowledge and an opportunity to share concerns related to gender identity issues that have practically exploded across Western countries. It was also on opportunity to meet several colleagues with whom I have an article project pending. May be more about that on some later occasion! Then I had some time for relaxing in London, and as always, sought my way to theatre to enjoy one of the fantastic musicals always available there. I thoroughly enjoyed Kinky Boots in Adelphi Theatre http://www.kinkybootsthemusical.co.uk/

I and my research team have exciting time right now, as we are busy collecting a replication data in our project Adolescent Mental Health Cohort study. The original AMHC baseline data was collected in 2002-3, and the cohort was later followed up twice. Many articles based on the AMHC study can be found in my publications https://riittakerttu.fi/publications/ . A ten-year replication of the baseline data did not give evidence of any increase of mental health problems among adolescents, even if at the same time, request for adolescent mental health services had steadily increased in the study region. I have mentioned several times to sudden further increase to adolescent psychiatric and mental health services in Finland over past 3 years. We are very excited to see if there now are changes in the population that could explain the increase in referrals.

I managed to push into my London programme a couple of ballet lessons in Pineapple studios in Covent Garden https://www.pineapple.uk.com/ I just love to go there! I have for quite a long time been disappointed with my lack of progression on pointé shoes. I had great difficulties with my right ankle last season and trying to avoid pain in the ankle I also lost all the balance I had managed to learn. I already thought I’ll give up. I could see the details I should fix but could not make it happen. But actually, studying the details did help in getting rid of the pain. Then suddenly I got valuable advice about what to fix in my pointé shoes, and voilá – well, I am not exactly qualifying for national ballet but I feel great about making progress in my own modest level. What a triumph! It is surprising how little details can make a big difference.