SPRING MAIL, AUTUMN BALCONY

Happy mail days continue. Letters, paintings, prints, emails. So sweet from all of you. Thank you so much. Also some greetings from the last spring while I was painting a boy, a boat and seagulls on an adventure.

Kaukana omalta maalta, (Far Away from Own Land), a book by Sisko Latvus with my painting on the cover. So well written, I read the script four times. A sad story with a little bit of magic about old times. About Paavo who was exiled with his family from Ingria at the age of 13. But on the way he meets someone called Mare... Published by WSOY.

Afternoon break, knitting while thinking. On my painting table, on the balcony table. Scratching cardboard for a printmaking class. A breakfast wrapped in wool on the balcony table, inside mist. Autumn light is taking over. Music has more piano melodies, like raindrops. Or crispy yellow and red leaves flying in wind. Branches from a forest of lingonberries. Sea-buckthorns from a square market, blueberry (soya) yoghurt and seeds. Rye bread with pesto of cashews, basilica, garlic, olive oil. Two pots of green tea. Candle light. Always dreaming of breakfasts.

Have a calm new week, wrapped in wool!

Hearts.

SHE FOUND BACK HOME

A small Thursday adventure back to Ingria to the home of Liida and Moshka the cat. A small wooden house village Peri lies after a short swaying train trip from St. Petersburg. Firewood, Liida´s kisses, chai, buckwheat porridge and purrs of Moshka. Liida´s childhood stories fill ears and mind. Those stories my aunt and I recorded on tape in 2007, it is lovely to listen to them. "Now I don´t want to remember anymore," she could say. But continued to tell to our eager ears more after a few moments again. Unbelievable things of old times.

"Now my darling, eat a little bit more, then you can have a small rest on my bed". But I played with Moshka, who came to Liida through the fence because there was no one to take care of him.

For the afternoon break I wish I could stop by at Liida´s for a chai to listen a bit more about her life and to see how her harvest of this year was. Cabbages, garlic and apples. Flax, cucumbers and carrots.

The whole set of pictures from Peri can be seen here.

A few lonely snow flakes floating, have a good Thursday!