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.
November is already rollin’ ahead and I’ve been lazy with updating.
Eldest son turned 22 and I wonder where the time went since I’m about that age myself. Well, it took some time until he arrived, we even went to a clinic bc my hormones didn’t have a clue what they were supposed to do so I was pretty happy to finally have my baby boy in my arms. He continues to be a joy as does his brothers.
Eldest son 22 years ago.
Today we Finns have Father’s day but since both mine and hubby’s fathers have long gone we only celebrate by having our own family on dinner. We are also celebrating eldest son today.
Me and my dad a long time ago.
During this week I’ve been to movies to watch Tove-movie which was very good. Usually the films about Finnish artists show the person on a pedestal (i.e. Helene) like they weren’t a living and breathing person at all but lived from the spirit of art. Tove didn’t suffer of this and it made the film much better. The movie concentrates on Tove Jansson’s life between the WWII and 1960’s when she became a ’household name’ with the Moomins. It also tells the story of her finding her sexuality and in the very end we see a real clip of her (the actual Tove) dancing on the island of Haru where she and Tuulikki had their summer place.
I read in a magazine that Tove hated doing beds in the morning so in the summer cottage they always slept in sleeping bags in a tent in order not to need to make the beds. I find it a very nice thought. (Of course I seldom make beds myself..)
A nice sunny day at my work
Sirius watching tv with me
What else? Work went by as it does, everyday chores. Yesterday I went to another National park nearby us called Sipoonkorpi. It only takes about ten minutes to drive there so hubby drove me there and then when I had enough mushrooms and felt refreshed enough I called him and he came to pick me up again.
Then at home I baked a mud cake for today and a mushroom pie of the yellowfeet I had picked. It was so good.
In da forest
Lichen
Juniper
Yellowfoot
Mushroom pie
I’ve also listened to and read some novels so that I already had to change my reading goal in Goodreads from 80 to 90 books this year. Lastly I’ve listened to Robert Galbraith’s (aka J.K.Rowling) Lethal white and Troubled blood of which the latter was very good. On the first one I knew the culprit pretty early on. I also read Quantum thief-scifi novel by Hannu Rajaniemi, a Finnish guy writing in English and I must say the story was good but I’d have needed a dictionary for all the new words he had invented which kind of took the joy of reading his story away. I also read one very light Finnish chick-lit and I don’t quite know why I read them since I always feel like I had been robbed after finishing them.
I’ve also been thinking about changing this blog’s theme. My instagram pics don’t show on the sidebar and it doesn’t help to refresh or redo the link, I don’t know why that is.
Now I’m going to have some coffee and mudcake. I hope you’ve had a nice Sunday too.
Last time I told about my birthday. Back then I hadn’t yet received the gift from my fandom friend Rachel and it was a lovely surprise when it came a week later (the Finnish postal services are really something these days..). Among other very nice things there was this perfect piece of art which found place next to my Lucius figurine.
A week ago Saturday I went mushroom hunting with my friend M and we found a lot of yellowfoot which is a delicacy I’ve never been able to find on my own. The day in the forest was lovely and weather was cold but clear and when it finally in the afternoon started to rain we were more than ready to go home with our catch.
This week has been hectic to say the least. Since I work some evenings too I had something every day, i.e. on Wednesday I went to theater which had been postponed on May. It was nice, two elderly Finnish actresses told about their lives and loves turning even hard experiences into dark comedy. The audience had all masks on and only half of the seats were filled with empty seats between groups of two. In May there was four of us at work going but now it was just me and my colleague since the other two felt a bit flu-ish and decided against taking part.
On Friday I had coffee with my friend Kristiina and before I met her I managed to see an art exhibition by Patricia Piccinini before it was closed. It was said to be kind of fantasy figures and the ad pics looked nice but when I saw all the pieces in the exhibit I don’t know… I know art is supposed to make people think and wake up questions but apart from the fantasy pieces and alien tunnels carved into furniture I found some these more on the pervert side and some of them made my skin crawl. If you want a closer look just visit her page I gave the link to.
Patricia Piccinini: The Coup
Yesterday I went to my former workplace’s party with M. I was hoping to meet some of my old colleagues but with the situation here now there were just about 20 people of which I knew five (and M). Also it was supposed to begin at 5pm but when we got there there was less than ten people and only around 7pm everyone was there and the food wasn’t very interesting imo. I must say I was disappointed. M and I left round 8 pm and went to a nice restaurant to have dinner just between us which was a good decision.
I’m sewing a coat for myself, we’ll see if anything comes of it. I’d sew the outside on the inside today and then do the finishing but I think it may go on to the next weekend when I finally finish with it.
Well, here’s a movie trailer of the Moomin mom Tove Jansson expecially for Rachel. The scenes of Tove in her studio have been shot in her real atelier in Helsinki. Sorry for it being subtitled only in Finnish and spoken in Swedish.
I went for a swim in the public indoors pool I like a lot on Monday morning. I biked there and managed to get to home too before going to work. I liked it so much that I thought to do the same tomorrow.
My pilates lessons started again on Tuesday and it was nice. There’s just nine of us now in our group and we can keep distances easily. We can’t do the proper pilates breathing which is a bit of a downer since the exercises need it but we don’t let it bother too much.
After the pilates lesson I walked with one of the ladies to the underground station and asked her how her summer went and she told me her son had had depression about all of his adulthood and due to the stress and anxiety over our Covid19-situation he had killed himself and she started crying. I was devastated and tried just to be there for her while she gathered herself and then she said ”I’m sorry I unloaded all on you” and I said it was okay and wondered why we are so shamed to cry in public. What could be larger sorrow for a mother than to lose your child? I have no answer.
Anyways the week passed quickly and we had good working week and home too. On Friday we went to movies with my friend Heidi and my hubby and youngest one to see Tenet. One other my friend was supposed to come but her mom’s cat had an eye-trouble and had to be taken to the vet. Before the movie we met in the cafeteria that offers cake buffet; you get three pieces of cake for starters and after that you can eat more if you like (I had six pieces..).
Tenet was awesome! I don’t know why it’s been said to be hard to get the different time-travel thingies in order, we all thought it was very well done and clear and what a superb story. Also the fact that no CGI was used showed. I liked Robert Pattinson a lot in his role. There was also Clémence Poésy (Fleur in Harry potter-series) as a scientist and Aaron Taylor-Johnson but of course John David Washington was awesome too. The sound and photography were so great I doubt any movie will top Tenet soon.
There was also the Dune trailer before the movie and it was great! I bought the original movie last fall and I still have the LP from the first Dune. Do I need to say I loved the first book (never read the other parts).
Yesterday it rained all day and part of the night too but today I did a one-hour-walk in the nearby forest route and ate some bilberries too. Some old grannies I passed had bags full of mushrooms.
Yesterday I felt pretty good after a week indoors so I decided to take a walk. I’ve been feeling a bit nauseous in my head probably because of the hospital medications still so I haven’t done any long walks.
I’ve lived around here about 5 km radius all my life except first 6 years when we lived in the city centre and yet there’s still places I haven’t been to so I decided to tackle one such place and headed to nearby sandpits.
The sandpits were created in the 60’s when the big building fever hit and sand was needed for concrete for the blocks of flats. Those apartment houses were later inhabited by country people moving to city workers and the suburb was one of the most seedy in whole Helsinki and still the people there are suffering of more unemployment and less education than other areas.
But back to the sandpits. When I was a kid the sandpits were a no-go, they were full of dirty water, kids had drowned there and they were full of old cars and other junk until in the 90’s they were just used as a park but still not a very favorable place to go to. In 2018 both Helsinki and Vantaa decided to do something since the area is on both cities concern and the residents wanted more possibilities to outdoor activities there. The water was tested and the pits were cleaned of decades of junk thrown there and now there are three small ponds for people to swim and enjoy beach with firepits and one pond is reserved for dogs to swim. They are very popular on hot summer days and since you can’t park your car there people walk or bike which makes it safer.
On the other side of the ponds is a small forest and swamp which is a conservation area and I walked through it and enjoyed the firs and pines and moss. I was quite alone even though one of the busiest highways is just about 500 metres away, you can hear it very well and there’s also the candy factory where I emerged from the woods.
After breathing the forest air deeply I walked home, all in all I walked about 5km and an hour and when I got to our street Sirius was on our neighbour’s roof and I asked her to come home with me and she did.
The last pic is from this morning as a blue tit was teasing her and she dropped one of the flowers from the windowsill.
Nokisuu 