I’m soon leaving to the cottage with eldest and youngest one. Oh and the cat. Just waiting for the thunder to pass and then we’ll pack the cat and everything else, eldest one drives.
I’m probably not going to able to be online much because the Net at the cottage is a frivolous thing and only works on one spot properly (and of course at the lake it’s good) when one’s holding the phone in the Lion King position.
See you later alligator!
It’s been kind of busy here since the last time I posted. Last Friday I had coffee with a friend of mine at the city centre. It was fun to chat for a while and have a nice cuppa in a coffee shop I had never visited before.
On Saturday we visited the Hämeen linna, a castle which dates back to 13th century. It’s been ages since I last visited it and it’s been much improved over the years. We also visited the Military museum right next to it and it was also quite interesting. There’s some pics also on my Instagram on the right side of this page.
On Monday I had my bloodworks check and then we went to Ikea to buy some clear plastic boxes I needed. Now the things are finally getting along as I managed to clear one place, i.e. a cupboard I’ve been using as the quick storage when we’ve had guests coming and needed to stuff things. It was so full of things I didn’t have anymore space for ’quick cleaning’. Finally it didn’t take than just about an hour to clean it and now I have more space there again.
Yesterday I visited my friend M’s parent’s house. They live in the neighbourhood I used to live during my school years. We’d have met earlier with M but she went to the Steiner school (=Waldorf education) and I to the public so we only met when she came to my earlier workplace as my maternity leave substitute. So M’s parents have a huge garden full of roses since they are rose collectors. They also have a grapevine which has been growing well despite it being outdoors. Their house has been featuring in a Finnish children’s movies called Heinähattu ja Vilttitossu (Hayflower and Quiltshoe) as the siblings home. (You can see it in this video at 0:24.)
We had coffee at the garden and then me and M went for a drive and found ourselves in the city of Tammisaari about an hour’s drive away. We had nice dinner and did a little walk around the old city which was closing up at that hour and then we had coffee and cake at the restaurant on the wharf. Pics on Instagram again ->
Today I visited my friend Heidi and then came home. We had some leftover candy and as I was eating it the last crown on my upper jaw broke.. Of course the time was just past 16pm as I tried to call my dentist. I have his private number too and as it’s the first number on my contact list I accidentally chose it but disconnected right away since I thought he had gone home already. After a while he called me and asked what happened and after I had explained he said that he’d have a small window of time between patients in half an hour if I could make it and I said yes (since we are going to the summer cottage I wanted to have the tooth fixed asap) so hubby drove me there and I waited a bit and then Kaj took a look at the tooth and said he’d just file it because it was a crown and it’d be fixed with better time. I got a date with him in August when I’m back at work but I’m so relieved now. (Have I mentioned I f*love my dentist?)
I should be doing things to get ready for cottage life but since it’s been a chaos this week and middlest son is coming for his first free period off army I think we’re leaving to country side with youngest and eldest on Friday. I don’t yet know if we’ll have the car for the whole time there or what but we’ll see that too.
Now I’m going to watch some tv. Yesterday I watched the Old Guard from Netflix and it was all right. And a trick question; is that Karl or is that my dentist? 😉
I’ve been mostly offline, mainly because I begun to clean my bookshelves last Friday and it spread a bit. It took me three days to clear the books and organize the shelves and then I had to clear my writing desk and the chests underneath in order to get everything out and re-organized. It took two days..
Today I’ve been cleaning the ”boys room” which used to be first eldest and middlest son’s room and then middlest and youngest one’s room and now it just middlest’s. But since there were so many layers of history to go through it takes time to clean.
But now it’s all done! Now I only need to take the overflow books to the second hand center (for a big 2nd hand shop retailer) and get some clear plastic boxes for all the myriad of playing cards we have obtained from our travels… There’s some jigsaw puzzles too which some I’m keeping and some I’ll give to my cousin’s little boy. I used to do a lot of puzzles before we had kids but now the cat likes to sleep on them so it’s a bit of a hindrance.
I managed to listen to all of the Alexander Gregory stories by LJ Ross. The first two were read by Hugh Dancy and they were good but I must say that RA’s reading is on a different level all together. (Or maybe I’m just biased.) I also listened to a podcast about opera made by a Finnish actor Antti Holma. He is very funny and he lives now in NYC because his husband is one of the harpists in Met so he made a podcast of how to opera.
I also started the Sandman audioplay (that’s probably the best word for a comic turned into an audiobook) and it’s very good. I love Neil Gaiman’s voice as the narrator, he was so good in reading ’The Ocean at the end of the lane” too which is one of his best novels imo.
On Monday when it was a bit less windy and more sunny I managed to finish ”Milkman”, a novel by Anna Burns sitting outside. It was a hard read. Actually in the middle I just leafed it through so I know what happened. I seldom leave a book unfinished because I think you can always get something out of a novel but boy this one was hard.
As middlest son left to the army I inherited his root. First he said he’d dry it but I said I’d try to bake some bread with it and so I did. We went to movies on Friday to see ”Parasite” and I bought a book about how to bake with a root. On Sunday I took a bit of the root and on Monday evening I finally started the dough and yesterday baked a lovely sourdough bread. It’s so good I’d eat it all alone.
About ”Parasite”: I really liked it. It’s one of those that sink in later. A great movie, very Oscar-worthy and a globally touching story. In the movie theater we had our own row, there were some people on other rows but you’d only buy tickets for two people and then there’d be two empty chairs between other people but since we were just three and there were not many people we sat together. (Sorry for the confusing text.)
Now I’m going to watch some tv. I started to watch ”Stateless”, an Aussie serie in Netflix and it’s very good about paperless immigrants and a woman who’s escaping a cult ends up in the same detention centre. It’s very interesting and it’s also got Cate Blanchett in it who I think is the most beautiful woman on Earth and my fave actress. Some of the New Zealand-made Netflix series have also been very good, I especially liked ”Wanted” and not only because of Deano (*blushing*). He was also very good in ”The Bad seed” but I don’t know if that’s on Netflix since I watched it via our public broadcast company YLE.
But now Sirius needs some scratches and I need coffee and knitting and tv 🙂 CU.
I was spending about all of my waking hours in the Rain Wilds last week. I was rereading the Rain Wilds Chronicles by Robin Hobb and during the night I dreamed of them. I love Hobb’s novels and I’ve been slowly rereading all of them and it’s been a real pleasure. It’s always been like this for me when I read her books, I get so immersed it’s hard to do anything else. I don’t get just as deep with Tolkien or other fantasy realms but the Six Duchies touches my soul differently than others. Maybe it’s the dragons; I’ve always loved Hobb’s dragons, they are like cats, very independent and selfish but in need of servants.
We’ve had horrible weather ever since last Tuesday. The wind blows like it was Autumn and the rain sloshes down at every hour (except right now). In June I was worried the plants would die from drought and now I fear they’ll need a lifesaver so they don’t drown. I can’t even go to the forest to walk because the ground is so wet and since it’s so blustery cycling is hard. On Thursday when it didn’t rain until evening I visited a friend by bike and my knees have been aching ever since.
I came home via the graveyard where my father’s grave was, we gave the lease up since none of us (me and my siblings) didn’t much care about the grave site. Me and my sister agreed that we can just as well light a candle for our father in the remembrance site in the graveyard. In Easter me and hubby visited the grave and then the stone was still there but now they had already taken it off.
Middlest son left early this morning to the Air Forces base in Central Finland. He’ll be there 11 months and due to the Covid19 we don’t yet know when he’ll going to come home. I guess we’ll hear about the off-weekends later this week. Yesterday we had eldest son for dinner and since tomorrow would be middlest son’s 19th birthday I baked a cake and it was all very good but now it’s very quiet here. Just me and hubby and youngest son. Luckily Sirius meows every now and then.
I started to knit a shawl but had to change the yarn. The first yarn was a very nice yarn and I loved the color but since it was handpainted it kind of lost the brilliance in lace knitting and vice versa.
Nokisuu 