the card

i think the invitation cards have reached their destinations, so i put this here. i'm not sure why.
V wanted to have a card with a badger in red colour.

worms and flowers

V said one day that it says "no worms here" on this piece of wood, so i wrote it there. i think all the worms should go to the garden and work the worm work for the benefit of our carrots. this reminds me of a wonderful man, Elis Sinistö, i haven't checked if there is a homepage about him, but he had an amazing place in the forest with incredible buildings he built himself. he was somehow obsessed with snakes and wrote "snakes do not enter" around his many huts. or on one of them. i haven't been there, just seen photos. there are a lot of photos of him.

my mother's day flower. it is a "blood drop". i haven't seen it high like this and in pink. it will go in the forest by the swing.

the ducks might look a bit corny and unoriginal bathroom decoration but V brought them there. the first one she bought, or traded, at a flea market last year, for a stone. the seller was pretty nice to accept that. the second one just arrived here with V, who brought it from Marseille. when we visited V, little V wanted to get this mother duck a child. we got one, one with a hat (behind the big one), but eventually V didn't want to leave it behind. so now we have a full family of ducks.

my first cherry tree. opened it's first flowers yesterday. late 花見 .

evening thoughts

our imaginary family portrait. it's holding center stage at the table since some days.

yesterday evening i made the birthday invitations, tomorrow i will mail them. if all the kids would show up, there would be 10 of them... do we want that? well, some of them are just babies. F gave birth to a big baby girl! it is so... so breathtaking to imagine her having a second child now. we got to know each other when we were pregnant and we hung out many times per week with our girls for almost 2 years(?). i miss meeting her, and now she's in a totally different situation than before! it changed a bit before already when her kid E started kindergarten last autumn.
anyway the cards were made in such fury, with the gocco machine not working properly, Y watching movie by himself and not negotiating with me and all, but they are ready and they look pretty calm. i wish there was more occasions to push me into doing something, i enjoy it so much.

dinner seed mix!

the poor plum tree is still not planted. i'm afraid it will be cold at night. i got to sweep some fallen petals from the bathroom floor... oh... now the plum and the cherry are waiting at the suddenly-very-big veranda. the huge closet came in to kamari, hiding a lot of birds, Y says it ruins the whole room. i will go have a look!

maja

i moved a teepee (tiipii) kind of thing i made last year to the other side of the yard yesterday, and it's so much nicer there. i was weeding and digging and V was making potatos and sallad and adding cinnamon. this is her favorite hat at the moment. i have bought it for me some springs ago from R. it's too big for V, like all her hats. at the bottom: flowers i found under a pile of scrap wood, and V looking at a tiny snail.

sink etc

the heroic work of this weekend. i won't call Y a hero, but i really would have no idea how to go about making this happen. he said that this puzzle has been the most complicated thing to do in the whole project so far. it's not in use yet, but very soon! *there will be white old tiles on the wall, Y got them from his friend's flat that going under a big renovation. i am a bit bored of doing the dishes on the floor, and more than that, i'd like to see the bathroom beautiful and bare(?) without the dirty and clean dishes all around. now there is also a plum tree - me and V finally went plant shopping. this one had flowers and i couldn't resist. last night was cold so i wanted to protect it by bringing it inside. all others (cherry tree, white currants, flower bushes) stayed in the outside toilet.

many projects right now: working (chronically late), new work thing i'm super enthusiastic about, gardening and planting, making V's birthday invitations and mailing them, putting winter things away (where?), and when the oven starts working: baking baking baking. i had a town day yesterday by myself, it was only the second time to go since we moved, and for the first time ever Helsinki felt like a real city. i got to borrow a big pile of japanese magazines from M & K (oh, and inspiring talk!), found a dress/huge shirt for me, little presents for V, met H at her work and S for coffee (maybe the first time for us to meet without kids!). and F went into labour yesterday! i would like to spend more time here:

Margaret

i was in this strange mood of doing things "before we move". many things i didn't do, but i finally did order Margaret Kilgallen's book "In the Sweet Bye & Bye". i've been meaning to make this post for weeks. the other book i ordered is by Chris Johanson. i got to know both their work at Untitled in tokio in 2001. i had seen photos in magazines before, but seeing actual works in an exhibition was very impressive. with Chris i got to hang out a bit, but i regret not having a chance to say anything to Margaret. i don't know what i would've said, and it is actually quite difficult to write about her work, or about how i feel about her work. i'm just totally in love with it. and everything i know about her is so wonderful. she's like a saint. she's one of my biggest inspirations. when i got the book in my hands i felt like crying. i was showing it to C last weekend and was crying then too. she passed away in the summer of 2001, as did Tove Jansson. it is so so sad. but it's not the reason for my being so moved by her. her husband, Barry McGee is also one favorite. he said to me: "Hanna, come bowling with us!" i didn't go as i had another rendez-vous. i wish i had known her, it's a strange feeling.

all is well

a favorite tree. it's buds look different every day. horse-chestnut. this photo is from some days ago, i don't find the camera today.

more flowers: in the mail for V from S. her daughter M didn't want to even try it on! we end up in a fight when V has to take it off... it's from a japanese pattern book. kiitos!

pulla at the bakery café. my favorite one is with coconut.

some pansies from a trip to a garden shop. they didn't have trees or bushes, just summer flowers. very cute (gay) guy was selling there. me and V calmed down after a big fight in the car, picking the good ones.

we had visitors again, jee! N, a fresh breeze. M & S came for an evening visit. and S & J who came just for the night, it felt like we're not so far... they left a honey melon for me, N and V for breakfast. i made waffles outside (so ideal, i hate the smoke inside). first time ever, and with an experimental dough without eggs. and raspberry sherbet. and N made okonomiyaki with 33 written in nori-flakes. N is still here, taking a walk to the horses and blue flowers with V and my mum while i work inside. oh, the daycare issue is solved at least temporarily so that my mum, half-retired, has promised to be with V regularly.

listening to
Sam Amidon "All Is Well" (new one we found in a very uncool way, from a newspaper review)