Kuukausi: kesäkuu 2020

Day trippin’

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We did a short day trip today to a nearby old ironworks factory called Ruotsinpyhtää or Strömfors in Swedish. The village was chosen for ’the Village of the year’ in 2018. The factory dates back to 18th century and is an idyllic place to visit. There is a smith show on Wednesdays which is nice imo.

The old church has an altarpiece painted by Helene Shjerfbeck but unfortunately the church was closed when we visited. There were some interesting looking fir trees outside and the WWII soldier’s cemetery is always nice to browse and meditate for a bit. You can spot them in every village and city you visit here in Finland.

There was some art exhibition in the old stables and some of the pieces were really nice but I haven’t yet won the lottery so had to leave them there. Afterwards we walked to a lunch restaurant which served a really good lunch and then headed home.

Winter pelt

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Here in Finland we call the first swim in nature waters after winter ’throwing one’s winter pelt’ and since it’s been quite warm weather these past days I got rid of mine. The sea was wonderfully warm, I was expecting the water to be colder and was surprised when it wasn’t. I could have stayed in the water for all afternoon yesterday but.. Hubby doesn’t like to swim in ’cold water’ as he says and youngest one wanted to skim the stones off the water surface.

We’ve celebrated the Midsummer just being at home and enjoying it, I’ve read outdoors and already have nice tan. Middlest son has been mostly with his friends since he is going to the army in the early June. His friends cut his hair, it was to his shoulders but now it’s shaven 1mm long. He looks so much older it makes me a bit weepy.

Tomorrow is my first official day of summer vacay but I took Thursday off already and it feels like I had already been several weeks away from the office. Our new work desks came but they can’t be put on place yet since the acoustic wall-to-wall rug must be washed during summer. Well, it’s nothing we can do so we’ll just have to wait and see.

Due to the Covid19-situation the public swimming halls have been closed among other things and I thought that since hubby is working on Tuesdays and Thursdays now I’d go for a swim in the mornings since we can’t do any short trips until he gets off. I missed swimming during the closing, it’s my fave sport (pilates is another of my faves).

Since we are not traveling outside Finland this summer I have time to go through the cupboards I’ve used to fill with things when we get guests. I should also go through my book shelves and re-arrange them. Whoo boy.

 

Summer party

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Last Saturday we had the graduation party (i.e. summer party) for middlest son. It was lovely, the weather was awesome with +22C degrees and everything went so nicely.

The guests arrived right on schedule which was unusual but it didn’t matter since I had some things still to prepare in the kitchen and the Graduate was about ready to go greet his guests. Hubby had gone to fetch eldest son from the metro station and when they came everybody else was already here.

Only my sister Johanna and her son Aki (a young man of 30 now) and my cousin Kristina with her husband Sten were attending as relatives, my brother Kimmo had visited us on Thursday already.  All the other guests were our friends, some are my school mates and some are hubby’s childhood neighbours and some of them are also boys’ godparents. It was so nice to see everyone again after this horrible long winter and spring.

Sunday went lazying around, sort of. I washed three loads of laundry, read in the sun and off sun, checked the plants in the garden and had a nice sauna in the evening.

I have only two work days until my summer leave but I have two teams-meetings tomorrow and one on Wednesday. Today we had a bit of a hassle at work since most of our furniture came and it can’t be put on place yet because the wall-to-wall acoustic rug must be washed during the summer and amidst of all this came one of our poetry teachers with a guest to record an hour-long video. The guest was one of Finland’s most famous film stars Kati Outinen, she is so nice and genuine.  She’s done a lot of movies with director Aki Kaurismäki.

Some pics of the flowers and dishes from Saturday. I love peonies. It was so sunny that we had to keep the curtains drawn in kitchen but luckily it didn’t matter much.

 

Normal people

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I’m watching the tv-serie Normal people which is based on a novel by Sally Rooney. I haven’t read the book and I doubt I will even thou the tv-serie is good.

It tells about a young couple, Marianne and Connell, who start dating in the high school and then their on-off relationship through college years. It’s been a bit of a task to watch because

  • it’s kind of too artsy. I mean the high art when you try to pretend to understand all the nuances and it gets a bit boring to reflect everything through the Deep Meanings (you know what I mean here).
  • there is too many sex scenes. I don’t know why but we are back to the 80’s now with all the official sex scenes in movies and tv-series. Sometimes less is more you know, it gets boring pretty quickly.
  • it hits too close to the young girl I once was, just as unsure and doing what I was told by my boyfriend. And I don’t want to remember the time nor the boy nor the girl I was back then. Of course I’ve changed and people do, they grow up but it’s hard to watch. I guess we’ve all been there.

So yeah.. just two eps to go. And a button strip to knit.

On to other things. We’re having middlest son’s graduation party next Saturday and I’ve counted that all together we’ll make about 30 adults including us.I’ve been cleaning the house and baking all weekend. I washed the kitchen windows today and I don’t think I’ll wash any others during this week. I still need to wash the floors before Saturday.

Yesterday I baked a bundt cake which my sister loves, it’s called Sandcake since it’s very dry and today I did some ’gentry cookies’, they are a traditional small cookie in weddings and other kin parties. Here you can see a pic of them, I cut them heart-shaped because I like it more.

Hubby has been cleaning our garden furniture and finished painting them today. One of our neighbours came to inquire where we bought them 🙂

At my work we’re waiting for our work desks to arrive. If we’re lucky we’ll get them this week which would be great since we’re off to our summer holidays on June 18th and come back on early August just as the clients arrive too. On Friday I got rid of all the music class books the teachers had decided they didn’t need anymore and it took me all day to shred the books off the covers. I was quite done afterwards.

Here are some pics. The music class pics show the state of Friday morning before and after lunch. Then there’s some Rhododendrons from my yard and the last pic is of a Finnish actor Jasper Pääkkönen, whom you might know from the Vikings and the BlacKkKlansMan. This pic was in an article and I was just thinking how here in Helsinki our (famous) actors can just casually bike around the city, nobody bothers you (much).

Now I need to get my beauty sleep 🙂