HOME, FINALLY

For two and a half months I was away from my own home because of some renovation work. Yesterday I came back. Good to be at home, even though I think I made a home to every place I stayed even for a while. By sea and surrounded by mountains or middle of lakes, forests and fields.

There was waiting the best Name day gift from sweet Anne. Thank you so much Anne, it is very beautiful! I was so surprised.

The whole day it has been snowing. Many heaps to climb over on the streets. But in the new kitchen is tea boiling all the time. Thank you my special tea hunting agent for sending me some spicy herbal ones over the sea.

How are you? How is the weather there?

HAVE PEACEFUL DAYS

Sewing, knitting, sitting cross-legged and drinking tea. Thank you for everyone of you who has written me (especially the one who wrote me a real letter from Dundee :) !

Be well and enjoy and remember the animals if it is cold outside!

SHE MADE THEM BIG ENOUGH

I had forgotten how it is to fall asleep gazing stars. The last nights I watched them through my window under blankets. I remember last thoughts before falling asleep thinking about how flat the sky looks when it is very dark.

It turned cold, today -24°C. That made me to search for the socks my grandmother knitted me years ago. She had today her 60th anniversary though grandfather passed away some years ago. Her wedding day started in the back of a truck which happened to be on the way to the village where my grandfather was waiting. Her wedding dress was "of a natural white cloth what you just possibly found during that time, two parts" and sewn by a neighbor. From church they drove with an American car to the dancing place where they got more than 200 guests (which I counted from their guest book). She finally found the soya ice cream in her freezer, which she had bought for me already last time but lost under the huge amounts of berries. Ate it with a pleasure to celebrate her day with cloudberries and raspberry jam.

(That is how high Mr. Sun rises these days. Not even over the treetops. After that, it is just all the way down. Good night Mr. Sun, say greetings to the other side of the Earth!)

WIND FROM SIBERIA

It brought snow last night. Going on the ice with "potkukelkka", it is very quick sledge of a kind. The sound of ice is like whales singing when it breaks and becomes stronger reaching longer to the shores. Going over the cracks takes a bit of courage when the ice moves slowly. But the cracks are very tiny. Got red cheeks. Please dear wind, tell greetings to the beautiful landscapes of Siberia next time you pass by there!

(Pictures from a video I took. There one can hear the ice breaking from distance if listening very carefully.)

NAME DAY

On my name day my grandmother got her engagement ring 61 years ago while an accordionist played and others danced on the dance floor. I got yellow roses, a mattress vine and a twig wreath to hang on the door. The yellow roses reminded me of these sketches I drew during summer drinking tea while elm leaves were falling to the table. Today a handful of snowflakes were floating in the grey sky while I was walking in the forest and looking what was left of the small branch lodges we used to built when we were small. Just a few branches. Good night, sleep tight!

MR. SUN AND WHAT HE CAN REACH

Sun came out with frost covering everything. Quite lovely. There are four lynxes living nearby. I was walking in the forest, but seems that today they are all sleeping, also squirrels didn´t come for nut-breakfast today and also the fox is hiding. Only the sun is outside. But he can reach every tree top, frost glittering roofs, sand on the road, last summer´s hayfields and even walls inside. Everything he makes shiny. Hello Mr. Sun, nice to see you!

HIDING FROM THE DARKNESS INSIDE TENTS

Working and dreaming of tents. Photograph from the summer of 2005 in North Iceland just after a rain shower during midnight. Have a pleasant Thursday!

P.s. Here are nice covers, one also made by me.

KUMPULA

Old friends were waiting me at home. They might be the first knitted work I did at school, it is the first time I wear them. Mieke Willems has these fellows in some beautiful color tones too.

Home smells of cinnamon buns and smoke. Also some small heaps of past snow and glittering layer of frost were waiting for me when I arrived last night after a long journey. I hoped to find the winter here already, but seems that I missed it. I thought to travel far only to return in full winter, but seems that it is not so simple with it. As I wrote in "Proof of Winter", it really is not that easy to make friends with winter. I wanted the winter to wait for me, but now I have to wait for it after all.

Home is called "Kumpula". "Kumpu" means a hummock. There are small hummocks around, but during the years these small natural hills got even smaller.

SMELL OF HOME

Almost I can smell how home is. There is firewood and smoke, cardamom and coffee, dusty electricity of the sewing machine. Old paint at the terrace with wind through open door. Woven carpets and something good baking in the ashes of the oven. Trees crackling in the wind, pine trees and moss covered rocks.

It is more than seven months when I visited home. Next week I will be there. Still a few days to enjoy the autumn in Frankfurt.

FOR GREY FRIDAY

Brown, red and turquoise on soft cotton paper. Date-almond-coconut-raw chocolate-balls aside. Fallen berry branches on the way to a grocery store. Wishing you a pleasant weekend!

POSTCARDS FROM A BIG CITY & AN AUTUMN SEA

Peeking behind new corners of the world. Found one big city (London), one lighthouse (Plymouth), one lullabying beach (Bournemouth) and silence with generosity (Brockwood Park School). Thinking of the milk bottles, being vegan while traveling is sometimes a bit of a challenge, but it makes me to see and experience more, it is not only good for my body and mind. It also makes to be grateful for the food we have and wanting to use it in its most nutritious way. Taking small steps towards raw food.

The last day there were many kind people. One gardener making it mystical and simple the same time. While drinking a rose green tea, I think of him in his rose garden raking the fallen red leaves. I wish there is not many rain showers over his garden today.

Hello dear all of you, nice to have you visiting! It makes me happy to read your words.

FALLEN LEAVES AS LAMPPOSTS

I am waiting snowflakes to arrive even there are still green leaves in the tree tops in Frankfurt. Walking with a hot green tea cup in hand in dark streets, yellow fallen leaves being the lampposts on black asphalt. Contrasting the dark woods where I grew up to the concrete buildings here, which become as silent as the woods for the evening. Sometime I even find a branch cracking under my feet.

BEGINNING OF A NEW DIARY

Hello,

Do you hear me? Nice to meet you.
Greetings from Frankfurt, where I am having a small autumn journey. It is a good feeling to scribble down these first words of my weather diary. I hope you enjoy it.

The weather around is smelling of boiling common beans, a church bell is clinking, the sun is loosening a bit of its strength and a cloud of fog is covering the Taunus-hills behind the window.

How are you? Welcome!