Just a FYI for starters: I’m not going to comment on the Russian and Ukrainian war here since I’m trying to avoid it as much as possible.
I’ve had this week off work as it’s the local Winter holiday and school’s are on holiday. I thought I’d need this week off and boy was I right.
Last Friday DH went to the hospital with the expectation that he’d stay for the night as the tube was taken out and the kidney stones removed. In the end he was there four nights as the kidney had a massive vessel bleeding and he was being monitored every second. On Tuesday he finally came home.
He said that the reason he had had constant pain ever since Boxing Day when the doctors put the tube in was that it had started bleeding then. Two surgeons had told him that there had been some tests lacking and also a screening and he should make a malpractice notice. It was a very close shave that he came home at all (as I had gathered already since I’ve watched my fair share of ER and other hospital series).
So I’m just glad he’s home and everything is getting better. I’ve been mostly sleeping, reading, watching tv and doing a jigsaw puzzle (been years since my last one).
I was going to go to movies but haven’t had the energy and so I’ve been watching the Marvel movies with youngest one on the timeline order instead of the release order. I’ve also got us HBO now and so far I’ve watched Station eleven and White lotus. I was a bit worried they’d ruin Station Eleven as the book is one of my fave dystopian novels but it’s surprisingly good which I’m glad of.
I guess this was the news from my corner for now. I’m going back to the couch now with Sirius.
On Tuesday I woke to thisThere was a bit of shoveling to doYesterday we got some rain and now the yard looks like thisThis morning we got some sleet. I’m so done.Kitty therapy
It’s already February and I’ve been lazy updating.
I’ve been at work since Jan 10th when my holidays ended. We’ve been in the closed down house alone with the janitors and some teachers. The Helsinki city Education decided that all adult hobby groups go teaching ’via net’ except Finnish for foreigners and so the kids schools have been open but elderly people have sat at home, most of them vaccinated too . We (me and my colleague) have been giving digital IT help via phone and also helped teachers with their lessons and other stuff. I must say I’ve been on the verge of depression due to this last closure and some of our clients said the same.
Luckily since Feb 1st we are open again and the teachers can decide themselves how they want to keep their lessons. On the beginning of March all classes will return to classes.
Hubby had a small infection in his tubes (due to the kidney stone) and he got meds for it and is now better. The tube is bothering him a bit and it’ll be operated on Feb 18th as both of the doctors who knew the procedure were sick which delayed his operation.
Eldest son was skiing in Lapland two weeks ago and managed to break his wrist. As it was Sunday he had to go to the private clinic there which did a good job but it cost 720€. He paid it with his student loan and we gave him the money afterwards. The private clinic had said he needs to show the wrist to a doctor here and last weekend he had been in the HUS hospital twice for X-rays and then on Monday he had seen the surgeon. The surgeon had said the plaster isn’t enough to keep the bones still so they operated his hand today, he got metal plates inserted and they’ll probably be permanent.
Middlest son came home a week ago, he was camping with other army guys in forest for three weeks in Northern Finland. Since then he’s had one day at the garrison. On March he’s moving to Central Finland as his pilot training in the Air Force begins. We’ve been searching for flats there, mainly ’right of occupancy’ apartments as it’d be better for now as he’ll be there about three years and so he made a request of one which looked really nice. I said to hubby that I’d like keep the flat as a summer residence if we won’t sell it when middlest one leaves the place.
Youngest one turns 16 next Tuesday and we are thinking of going out to dinner next weekend with the whole family. Due to hubby’s condition I don’t think it’s a good idea to ask people to come to our house right now, we can have cake later with youngest one’s godparents at home.
Youngest son is trying to decide between high schools as the enrolling time gets nearer at the end of this month. We have managed to get him to apply for some schools nearby that have great reputation, the final results come back on June which is still far away. I hope he’ll get into the first one (which is the one middlest son went to) but the rest are not bad either.
We’ve had a real snow fall last weekend and this weekend. Me and middlest one have done the shoveling and Sirius enjoys playing in the snow, she’s so funny.
I’m so relieved that I finally received the Christmas gift Michelle sent me on Dec 14th. I was worried it had gone missing so I asked an old acquaintance (a message board friend) who works at the Postal services if he’d help and then the package was found and I got it yesterday! Thanks Michelle, I’m so happy ❤
Today is our National Poet’s day = Runeberg’s day, he is celebrated with a small pastry that holds his name. Mine was vegan and very good.Our house, the snow’s about to fall.On the stairs you can see how much snow we’ve got during these two weeks.Sirius planning shenanigans.Michelle sent me these lovely socks ❤And this awesome Prince mask ❤A closer look.
DH is back home and getting better. I’ll add an TMI warning further below in case you don’t like to hear about people’s innards.
First I’ll just give you some pics from my walk yesterday. We had -15C degrees and I thought to try on my new snow pants I bought last Feb when we had very cold weather and of course as I bought them the weather changed so I didn’t get to use them at all. I dressed myself warmly and went to forest and I was so hot that back home I felt like I had done a sweaty aerobic class. Anyways it was nice to be warm and in the fresh air enjoying sunny day.
It’s been the kind of week you just hope it’ll end safely.
On Monday at work we were wondering why there is a smell of smoke. We checked every place but this time it wasn’t our building. It was the largest coffee roastery in Helsinki which is situated a block away over the football field. The smoke was pretty heavy and as I went to lunch the air was grey with smoke even some blocks further from the fire. Funnily our nearest work lunch place is on the Main fire station next to my work, there were many people from my work having lunch and sitting a bit longer in a smokefree place. I did a short walk a bit further to get some clean air, since we didin’t have clients anymore it was okay to stay a bit longer. The fire continued to Wednesday when the fire department finally got it out. Here you can see a video footage of the fire.
I felt like a smoked ham after work but I met a friend after work in the city centre. We changed gifts and it was nice to have a chat and nice cup of coffee after all day inhaling smoke at work.
On Tuesday the smoke didn’t get indoors anymore but as it was last day before my days off I didn’t much care. I left early as I went to dinner with my friend Mareetta. She had some trouble coming to pick me up from my work as the fire was on one of the main entryways to the city centre. (In twitter someone compalined the fire trucks being on the bicycle lane…) We drove to the seaside to take some pics of the sundown and then went to eat to a shopping centre.
On Wednesday I had my first day off and as youngest son had a short day at school we went to movies after his school to see the new Spiderman : No way home which was very good, we really enjoyed it. The new Dr Strange movie looks good too.
Eldest son was coming to spend the Christmas with us so hubby went to get him and they did some last grocery shopping. In the evening DH started to say his tummy ached a lot and then he threw up from the pain twice and finally around 10pm he was in so much pain he was just crying with pain on the sofa and I said I’ll call the Emergency Services and he said yes. So I did and they send an ambulance to assess the situation, at this point eldest son was already sleeping as he had an early morning next day. The ambulance crew took hubby to the hospital for a check-up and I was left with my old traumas (from when my dad died) to spend the night badly. Luckily eldest one slept through all of this but middlest and youngest one were still awake when hubby left so they were a bit tired too.
On Thursday around 10 am DH got out of the hospital and middlest one went to get him. It was kidney stones and the doctors had decided not to operate as it’d be a too big an emergency operation. Instead he got great painkillers and they’ll call him in for an operation soon, then they’ll blast the kidney stones so they come out more easily. Hubby still has pains as now the stones have moved downward but he’s able to do things at some level. Boys were great help, they carried the Christmas tree indoors and did all the things DH usually does.
This has put a bit of dampening on our Christmas but not much. Yesterday after dinner both elder boys fell asleep as they were so stuffed and we gave gifts later. I had bought the new Abba LP as a gift for DH and me, it was awesome. Even Sirius came to listen to it 🙂
I watched Die hard with middlest son and went to bed around 1am. Today I napped an hour on the sofa and then read a book. Now I’m planning to watch Die hard 2 or Jumanji 2 or Jungle cruise which I have yet to see.
Smokey day, I was on my way to lunch (next to the church).The fire is where you can see the blue lightsFirst time in forever we had sunny and cold Christmas Eve weather (-14C)Sirius thought there were birds in the spruce as the branches melted and movedI and Jimi’s gingerbread house had a bit of an accident, the roof came down during the evening. I blame the recipe.The Christmas tree.
I hope this year will end soon and nothing extreme happens next week. I’m quite done already.
Just a couple of days after my previous update we had our team meeting. For my surprise I got flowers and a gift from the City since I’ve now worked 30 years in the different libraries for the City. The gift was five days of paid vacation, I got to choose from actual money (of which they would’ve taken taxes) or two night stay in a spa hotel or this. I think this is the best gift for me, I get to choose when I’ll keep the days or if I want to take one day off at a time so prefect!
In the evening I went to movies with youngest one and hubby to see Ghostbusters: Afterlife which I greatly enjoyed. Paul Rudd was very good and all the old ’Busters’ were there too. It was so much fun! And of course the little marshmallow men really stole the game 🙂
We had very cold weather for a week, around -15C degrees. Sirius wanted to go out but came back in right away. Silly girl.
In the beginning of December I had my dentists appointment. First I was supposed to go on a Tuesday morning and just as I was waiting for the tube to arrive their office lady called and said that we need to reschedule (again) as my dentist had called his car tire had blown on the way to his practice so we moved it in Thursday. I had to make the hours in as it was in the middle of the workday but finally I got four new crowns (and it cost way more than I had thought but now its done). Luckily I have a savings account…
I’ve been working long days but on Tuesday I decided to go to movies to see The House of Gucci. I went alone as none of my friends were able to come but I didn’t mind. As a teen I used to mostly go to movies by myself (at least the company was good) so it’s no biggie for me. I enjoyed the movie. I’m not a great fan of Lady Gaga’s but she was really good as Patrizia Reggiani and Adam Driver was so hot… Jared was great as Paolo and I really liked Al Pacino as Aldo Gucci. The scene with the two latter ones at the airport was so good, both sad and funny. The soundtrack was awesome too. ( I flove this pic of them.)
On Wednesday as I was walking towards my workplace I stood to watch that there was indeed a firetruck outside our building door. Gladly it was such early that there were no clients and all classes are finished already but still. So I go to the inner courtyard and ask one of the office ladies who always comes in early what’s the problem and she said one of the doormen had forgot to turn off the stove after he had cooked porridge, luckily there was nothing on top of the stove so when we got in finally there was just a god awful reek in the lower floors. We are also lucky to have the fire department right on our backyard (we go there for lunch). That one doorman has a drinking problem and we are a bit concerned of him, his bosses have had a talk with him already but it remains to be seen if he can continue working for us.
I’ve also been preparing for Christmas by baking gingerbread cookies and I’ve bought all presents too already. we’ve done grocery shopping and hubby got the tree from the Uni forest students near his workplace. Youngest one wants us to bake more gingerbread cookies and try to built a huge house and I kind of said yes.. I’ll take pics if it turns out okay.
We had our library teams Christmas coffee at the nice cafe next to our workplace on Thursday, it was nice. There’s just three of us so it was pretty low key.
So this is news from my corner for now. Here’s a song for you!
I’ve been waiting for my new debit card to arrive in mail from the Bank as I thought it’s expiring this month. Since the new card doesn’t arrive I call the Bank on Monday morning and a young man says to me ”We will send in next November, it expires on 2022” and I’m just laughing and I say ”Sorry I bothered you, my head is a mess” and he laughs too. I hope he had a good day, I did.
Today I was supposed to have a two-hour-long dentist appointment, we are changing some crowns and I get there and he looks at his notes and says ”Sorry but we can’t make it in this given time, my bad” and we change the date two weeks forward and book three hours for four crowns. Then we chatted almost an hour.
Now I watched an old Simon’s cat video from youtube and I’ve been laughing my butt off. That bird is so funny 😀
So far I’ve been to Gothenburg twice. The earlier trip was a theater visit in February 2017 when we met a Swedish media person Alexandra Pascalidou. She is a lovely lady and a great fan of public libraries. Mareetta knows her and so I’ve met her couple of times too.
Back to Gothenburg. It’s the second largest city in Sweden and a very nice one. It feels different to Stockholm and has lovely old city and city centre.
On Friday we landed around noon and then took the airport bus to our hotel near the Central station, found our room and relaxed for a while. Then we took a walk, visited a local mini library and continued to the Mr Cake cafe and had late lunch which was very good. We had first thought only to eat a light lunch there and go to dinner later but afterwards we decided to skip dinner all together.
View from our room to the central stationLate lunch at Mr CakeYeah, what it says The harbour side (my brother used to work on big container ships which left from Gotheburg to the Central America in the 80’s)The corner library
We walked a bit on the shore side and went back to the hotel via grocery shop and bought something to the hotel room. Had a little lie down at the hotel and then left for the Scandinavium which was packed, there was 11 000 people. The crowds were quickly inside the arena and we found our places on the floor and the concert begun right on time. The Swedes are awesome in sing-alongs so it was great to be part of that. We were back at the hotel before midnight and watched a bit of tv before turning in.
On Saturday we slept a bit later, bought day tickets to the public transport system and took a tram to Mr Cake for breakfast but they didn’t have any so we ate a lunch, I had a lovely warm beetroot salad with goat cheese and as dessert I had a red velvet croissant. With our bellies full we took a tram to a record shop Mareetta wanted to visit. We got there and noticed people gathering around the walls in the shop floor but didn’t think much of it. Mareetta went on a hunt mode and I found two unwrapped Prince dvd’s (Purple rain and Graffiti bridge, I only have PR copied from a library dvd) and bought those. The people were queuing for a signing, a Swedish musician Thåström was there to sign his newest album and the masses queued around the block when we got out of the store.
Bengams record shop
We took a tram to the city centre and went to Science Fiction bokhandeln (bookshop) which I love, I always visit it in Stockholm and here they had better collection than in Stockholm month ago so I found a lot of books but bought only three from there. Tough choices had to be done.. Afterwards we were getting pretty tired so we decided to go to the shopping mall.
There we did a cursory round around the clothes shops but then went to the grocery store again and bought things to eat at the hotel room. We wanted to watch the Swedish music programme ’So much better’ (in Finland it’s called Just life and I absolutely loath it) and not move a muscle. It was good plan and we almost peed our pants when I tried to make us coffee with the Nespresso machine, I managed it in the end luckily.
On Sunday we had breakfast at the hotel and packed our things and then bought another day ticket and took trams to different parts of the city. One tram took us to the south to Mölndal and we found a big supermarket and did some gift shopping there.We bought some sweet buns and cake from Mr Cake to take home too. On the way back to hotel we had dinner and found another bookshop where I bought one book and Mareetta bought Christmas cards.
Mr CakeTram stop
We managed to get most of our stuff into our bags and then took a taxi to the airport where we were in really good time. We had late flight and then my electronic boarding pass didn’t load so we had to wait on the counter to get it fixed before going through the security check. Afterwards we had coffee in the mostly shut down airport and I bought a pair of Dala häst ear rings from the gift shop as on the last visit I had not bought them and regretted it since.
We were back in Helsinki around midnight and Darling Hubby was waiting for us. I was happy to be at home.
Live music that is. I love live music, probably because as a teen I never got to go to any live concert, not even free ones. With my first long-time-boyfriend I managed to see some Finnish club live music nights such as Kingston Wall (my then-bf knew the Walli brothers from school) but then there was a long time I couldn’t go, kids were small and so on. Around these last ten years or so I’ve been going to live concerts again. One of the first was 30 Seconds to Mars which is still one of my faves and I also managed to see Prince perform here in Helsinki which was my dream come true, I was (still am) his long time fan from 1984.
Now though I think that two massive gigs is quite enough for one week.
Last Friday I and my friend Mareetta took a plane to Gothenburg, Sweden, to see a concert by three of Sweden’s top musicians from the 80’s. They used to have solo careers but then started a project together called GES in the 90’s, then went on a pause but reunited for a friend’s birthday party and now they made a tour together. There were 11 000 people in the Scandinavium in Gothenburg and it was so much fun! I even remembered some of the lyrics to some old 80’s songs in Swedish. Here is a compilation of their previous gig in Stockholm as I couldn’t find anything from Youtube. If you like there’s some videos in Instagram at GES.se
Yesterday I was on a totally different kind of concert here in Helsinki. One of the most beloved and gifted Finnish rock musicians Ismo Alanko had his 40-year-long-career celebration, 9 concerts at a club which had been postponed from last year. I had tickets to one night, some people had tickets to all nine concerts… I’d be plain dead after such a marathon. I danced so much my legs were literally killing me all of the last night, luckily I had my osteopathy session in the morning. Underneath is the song from the beginning of the gig. If you know where to look you can see a certain person dancing in front of a taller woman (that tall woman is my friend Heidi, she’s right in the middle).
I’m going to write another post about the trip to Gothenburg tomorrow.
I’ve been on holiday this week. As I work in the City Education organization we’ve got the same holiday schedule as schools and so I took the whole week off and it’s been nice. I haven’t done much but that’s all right too.
View from my kitchen window
Last weekend me, hubby and youngest one took a long awaited cruise to Stockholm. We have these huge ferries that sail (run?) from Helsinki to Stockholm and back during the night and then you’ve got a day in the city there, for us Finns it’s Stockholm and for Swedes it’s Helsinki. They are called shopping cruises bc the ferry has a huge tax free shop and people buy a lot of alcohol from the ship. We buy a lot of candy and some cosmetics. I linked our ship Silja Serenade there, it’s been about ten years since we last took a Silja Line ship bc we’ve been using Viking Line since hubby did some work for them and got rewards.
Helsinki in horizon
In Stockholm we visited the Abba The Museum in Djurgården, it’s such an awesome place for one who has grown with their music. After the museum we took a ferry to Gamla Stan (Old City) which has one of the best scifi bookshops in Europe and it’s on our ’visit every time’-list. I bought only three books this time and one dvd. Oh and a wall calendar for next year. Then we walked to the newer city centre, the main shopping street has a nice candy store where you can buy traditional Swedish polkagrisar (= peppermint candy).
Mamma Mia
Fika at Mr Cake
Morning on the sea
Since I had already told hubby I wanted to have a coffee (fika) at Mr. Cake cafeteria we went there and luckily managed to enter at a time the queue wasn’t very long (a short while afterwards the queue went out of the door to the small square). From the cafeteria we walked back to the ferry and were there in good time, about an hour before the departing time, which was nice.
Hubby had Monday off work which was nice. After we had come home and let the cat out we unpacked our bags. Middlest son had left on Sunday to Tikkakoski for a flying thingy and came home on Tuesday. On Tuesday I did a short walk in the forest as we had walked about 15 km during the day in Stockholm and my legs were a bit stiff. On Wednesday it rained all day and I read all day, I finished ’The Shadow of what was lost’ by James Islington and felt sorry I had even started the book. I can’t recommend it to anybody. Oh and I did bake cinnamon buns, they were good.
In the forest
Some rocks, people practice climbing on these
Phlebia tremellosa aka Grannypants (in Finnish)
A forest rose
Great spotted woodpecker about 100m from my house
On Thursday my friend Mareetta and I drove to Tammisaari again. On our way there we did an expedition to a funny little shop called ’The Greenhouse effect’ which has all kinds of awesome stuff to buy and then we drove to Fiskars village. We had a very nice lunch in Tammisaari and then drove back via Fagervik (it dates back to the 17th century) and Kirkkonummi new library, only we didn’t go in this time. It looks like I’m going with Mareetta to Gothenburg in mid-November, it’ll be nice.
Fiskars
Fagervik church
Bruksträsket
The church from the lake side
On Friday we had horrible weather, rain and very windy. I had my osteopathy therapy session in the city centre and then I met youngest son in the Eastern shopping mall, he needed new clothes and he wanted to buy new cell phone with his gift money from the confirmation day. In the evening we watched couple of episodes of Buffy with him.
View to Tammisaari historical centre
Tomorrow I’m putting some bulbs on the ground so we’ll have tulips and crocuses next spring too.
Today I managed to get to the forest again. I find it essential for my mental well-being to see the trees up close and breathe the free unpolluted air. Last weekend we were at my other godson’s confirmation party and it was nice too but since it was a rainy weekend I didn’t mind not getting into the forest.
I was lucky to find a lot of yellowfeet, in short time I had a decent amount of them which was great since I had a minor headache that blew up into a migraine. I had hoped it’d gone away in the forest but it didn’t. I think it’s partly due to the yin-yoga where we did some exercises to stretch the area between shoulder blades and I also had my osteopathy treatment on Friday morning.
I finished watching the Good doctor S3 yesterday evening. I must say that even thou I liked the series it got too syrupy and the characters begun to annoy me a bit. Now I’m continuing with Lucifer and then I probably continue with Bloodline which was also annoying, it started so slow I almost left it.
I went to movies to see the new Dune and it was amazing. I really liked it but I liked the old one too (I still have the soundtrack on LP). The cast and music were good but the photography was beautiful, it reminded me a lot of Tale of Tales. It was weird to be in the movie theater with restrictions minimized to one free chair between groups and they will be lifted in the beginning of October totally.
On Friday the post services finally delivered my RA auctions last item, thank you Jane. Since one of the coasters was already picked by a friend you’ll only get to see two of them here 🙂
Next Friday I’m having a day off and if the weather is nice I’ll be going with my friend Mareetta to pick mushrooms in Nuuksio forest. Now I’m going to watch tv and knit and pet Sirius.
Nokisuu 