EASTER-Y THINGS

 Easter and time off! We're spending ours mainly out at the farm (although I will be doing a quick stop back in town on Saturday evening for a show.)

 Right now it's warm enough for no tights and small shoes! Well, for a while at least, on the sunny porch. A few more layers are required still if actually going somewhere...

One of Dag's older brothers bought home Easter decorations he made in school. I put them all on a tray along with his Easter grass and some flowers he picked me himself, as I don't like to spread small stuff out here and there in the house.

Otherwise I don't have any Easter decorations, but I like to buy home lots of colourful flowers for the holidays instead.

(Btw. Most Finnish houses will have an Aalto vase I think. I find it hard to fit anything and look good, but tulips. Tulips will always fall nicely in it.)

And my old test-tubes got some for them as well, and some tiny ones from the garden. Give it a week or two and there will be lots more to tube!

Mämmi in a Moomin bowl, could it get any more Finnish than this?

Mämmi (memma) is an old traditional Finnish dish eaten around Easter that with very little chance will ever be found somewhere else in the world. It is made of rhye and malt and sweetened. I prefer to get the organic version that is sweetened by itself (by letting it sit, sort of), but this year the supermarket was out of it (damn you, likeminded people!) so I got the regular one with molasses. Mämmi used to be such a big disappointment for me when I was little as you kind of expect it to taste like chocolate fudge or so, judging by the look of it. Well the taste is nothing like it; it is rather strong and perhaps a bit bitter too. But I like it! Traditionally it is eaten with milk or cream and sugar, but some spice it up with vanilla sauce or whipped cream, and I heard that a few drops of whiskey on top would be great.

I make my own version and eat my memma with fresh fruits, often apples and bananas, this time with pear and pineapple. And here's a little tip for my fellow Finns, especially those of you who don't consider yourselves to like it; do that, with fruit, and have it with some lemon quark (sitruunarahka)! Woohoo! I mean really WO-HOO!


I bought some big paper eggs to stash candy and eggs in for the kids. My grandparents had old paper eggs like this when I was a kid, and I was happy to stumble upon these.


I had to choose those with the most horrific motifs though. Seriously, does not this bunny freak  you out a little?

(Old easter bunnies -in some ways old anything costume related- do tend to be damn creepy, I mean, have you been around the internet lately?)

MIDSUMMER

Three lazy days filled mostly with food (and food and food) lots of people and many cats and dogs. Those kind of days when you don't really know if it is noon or evening, but it doesn't matter.

 Dinner preparations on the jetty. A few seconds after this my iphone took a dive in the Finnish Bay...


(Iphone recovering from it's minutes under water and the quick sweet water dip wash afterwards. I am rather amazed that it actually works normally now. Phew!)

Dag and my brother-in-law(-to-be) going WEEEEEEH!

 Dag were the dogs best friend, well, after dinner at least; the spot under his chair being their favorite.

Matching tracksuits are so last millennium - matching ponchos are The Thing!

(Also, apparently, shaving for a months is also tha thang every time it's summer.)

Forget me nots. My favorite flower when I was small.

The boys got a little wind in the end.

I woke up in the middle of the night to the so called super moon. Quite magic actually. (This is taken around 4:am)

And on Sunday evening just before going home this strange sunny total white-out fog hit us, totally managing to hide out the background from everything, even the big harbor behind the bend.

THE COUNTRY CLOSES DOWN FOR A LITTLE WHILE

Midsummer approaching! Soon I'll be here:

 

 The only time a year when pretty much everything is closed everywhere (expect for that one supemarket in Kamppi I guess, that makes a big deal about actually being open every single day ); people head out to the countryside and the islands to celebrate summer, drink a lot and have bonfires and enjoy the light night (and sadly too, drown. People always drown en masse at midsummer, every year.)

I've spent many of my adult midsummers in the half empty city, as I often had a shift in the harbor. (Except for one midsummer when I was in Bali and another I celebrated on a strange small-boat cruise.) Last year we were in the hospital with the little new born Dag of course, curtains down not knowing weather it was night or day and now, for this year, we'll head out to the archipelago to my parent's summer house over the weekend. Lots of food, hopefully sun, no electricity - and no wifi.


Happy midsummer!

BALLOONS AND BUBBLY

Hello! Here's Dag and I in the park earlier today.
There's a similar photo of my first first of May in some of my parent's album,  with me sitting in my pram with a balloon, taken thrity years ago. Or 31. Or 32, not really sure anymore :)

LAST OF APRIL, FIRST OF MAY

The last of April and first of May is one of the biggest celebrations during the year over here. The city is crazy packed with people in a party mode extraodrinaire. Balloons, pom poms, champagne and piss all over. By age I've started to skip the heavy partying the night before and mainly just go for the MayDay stuff.  And especially this year as we are on our own. So today we just went out with Dag to the countryside to do some gardening; attending my pelargoniums. I did however buy myself one cherry beer for the evening. (Party mode, you know. Really, when did I turn 65?) And I got Dag not only one but two balloons!


It's very windy so let's see if they last the park tomorrow.
Glada Vappen; have a fun May Day!

(And on another note, black beret week continues. The dress is vintage and the rest is old.)