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.
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.
Youngest son’s nose will be operated at the Uni Hospital tomorrow morning. It’ll be done in local anesthesia and shouldn’t take long. Afterwards I’ll put him in a taxi (since I must get to work) and hubby is on the other end to welcome him home. The taxi ride is mostly paid by the government which is why we pay taxes.
We had a bit of snow on Friday but it melted next night as we had a rainstorm. Sirius was a bit astonished of the white stuff on the ground and I remembered that Converse really isn’t a real winter shoe.
Yesterday I did a walk in the forest but it was so wet that at one point my sneakers were wet inside. Luckily I had woollen socks so it didn’t matter because wool keeps warmth even when wet.
Wet forestGood morning
Here is a song I used to listen to a lot and I still love it. I hope you do too. (Ben Folds is amazing.)
The fall is getting on again. For me the end of September means the number of my lived life turns one year up and this time it hit the magical number of half a century. It’s funny to think that since when my parents turned fifty they were much older in my opinion than I am now. Of course their lives had been much harder with wartime childhood and then the lean years afterwards but on the other hand my mom used to say that everybody else grow older when one stays young on the inside and that is my feeling too.
It’s weird to think that I’ve been longer than half of my age with hubby and also I’ve been longer than half of my life without my dad, he died when I was 23-years-old and I had only met hubby a year before that.
Since I’ve worked for the city my whole adulthood I got the day off as paid leave (a gift from my employer) and I enjoyed it enormously by taking an almost three hours hike in the woods. Afterwards I took a nap and later went to a nearby shopping mall with hubby to buy a cake and also got some nice fabric for a coat paid by hubby.
I received some gifts and flowers too; I got gift cards to a yarn shop and Marimekko shop, a pair of earrings, a throw, a journal and my long time friends since childhood gave me a writer’s course by a Finnish author which is so awesome I still a bit weepy over it.
I’ve gifted myself braces on the lower jaw. Last Tuesday I got the first rubber bands attached and two weeks from now I’ll get the metal braces done. Yay me. Since it’s a private dentist it’s a bit costly but as hubby said the money will go into my mouth anyway. (He’s got great humor.)
Nokisuu 