Book fair(y) and other things

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I’ve got two friends named Kristiina, it was a very popular name in the late 60’s and my cousin is also Kristina, the Swedish version. These two Kristiina-friends I met when I was studying to become a library assistant in the early 90’s and we used to call them the tall Kristiina and the short Kristiina. Yesterday I met with short Kristiina at the Helsinki book fair like we do every fall.

Of course the book fair is not the only happening but there is also the Food and vine fairs at the same time. This time we were sneaky and did the Food-part first. Kristiina wanted to buy some chocolate from a certain chocolatier and asfter some time we found it. The examples were awesome and I bought a little bag too.

Then we went to the book fair and mostly just walked around. Since we both work in library it’s not so important for us to examine every book there. Earlier this fall I had asked an acquaintance from the City library (he has a small publishing company) if he had a book I wanted and now I bought it from him and I also got a small notebook as a thank you since I was their first customer that day.

Then we did some small shopping, Kristiina bought Christmas cards from her fave artist and just as I was collecting my coat I saw one of our class mates from the library assistant studies. I’ve seen her every now and then, we go to concerts sometimes but it’s been couple of years now since I last saw her. I went to her to say hello and we hugged and then she said that she was also leaving and I asked her to join us for late lunch but she said she was so tired as they had a very hard meeting last night concerning her son’s treatment (he is suffering of schizophrenia). I was so sad to hear that.

Well, I and Kristiina had late lunch at the just-opened new Tripla mall at the Pasila railway station. The food and dessert were very good and I had a mocktail which was delicious too. The service was good and waitresses really nice but the delivering took forever. They had probably too little staff in the kitchen because it’s only been a week since the opening and as we were leaving we noticed the other part of the restaurant was almost empty since they filled first the ’outside’ looking side. We were glad we had been early there since the queue was pretty long at the time we left.

Hubby came to get me from the train and we did grocery shopping and then I remembered my hula hoop had arrived via post so we collected that too. I tried it already yesterday and it was so much fun.

Some news of family too. On Thursday Middlest one had the Army hearings as here in Finland all males aged 18 to 35(?) must go to the Army or Civil service and for females it’s voluntary.  Middlest son wants to go to Air forces but his basic training begins at Parola Armoured brigade in next July. His girlfriend has enrolled and applied to Air forces too which I find both endearing and amusing, it be fun if they were there at the same time.

Youngest son had baked cinnamon buns at the home economics class and they were so good! He said that the teacher had appointed him and three other boys to bake them since all the other kids just mostly sit there. What a waste! I and hubby liked HE and so did the elder sons too.

Well, now I’m going to do some hula hooping and then sit in front of the telly with the cat for the rest of the evening.

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Visiting Stockholm

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By request I’m updating about our trip to Stockholm. Stockholm is a nice city, Sweden’s capitol. Stockholm and Helsinki have nice ferry cruises between them and on the cruise you can buy tax free shopping so it’s very popular in both countries I think. Finns buy cheap alcohol and Swedes the other things. The ship leaves on the evening, arrives to destination in the morning and leaves again in the evening so one has about 6 hours to visit the capitol cities at each end.

We usually make the cruise every spring and fall and use the VikingLine since hubby does some IT-things for them in the company he’s working. In Stockholm VikingLine is located a walking distance from the city centre and the shopping streets which is nice. The Stockholm Fotografiska is also on the route from the dock to city if it interests you. If you are a walking-kind of person the SiljaLine is also on easy walking distance but the underground trains are also easy from their dock.

This time we took a small ferry from Viking’s dock to Djurgården since it’s easier to travel between the small islands and walking to Djurgården takes almost an hour. Djurgården has many places to visit, i.e. the ABBA museum, Gröna Lund’s amusement park, Junibacken for everything Astrid Lindgren, Skansen’s outdoor museum and other things (i.e. Christmas market), Nordiska Museum and the Vasa Museum which we wanted to visit this time.

The Vasa museum consists of the ship Vasa which sank on it’s maiden voyage about 500 metres after leaving the dock. It was found in the late 60’s and now it’s been under conservation about 50 years. I’ve visited the Vasa first time in 1982 when it was still sort of outdoors experience, there was only a light shelter around it.

This time we spent few hours in the museum and then walked to the Old town which dates back to 13th century. I just adore it but it’s choked up with tourists (I don’t blame them). It has many nice little shops and cafeterias and it also hosts my favorite shop in Stockholm: The Sci-fi Bookshop. It’s a must for me since I can find books, films and tv-series there which are not available in Helsinki. There’s also lots of role playing games and things for them and anime and so on.

Finland and Sweden share a common history since Finland used to the Sweden’s dependency until Sweden gave it to Russia and that is probably why Finns feel a sort of envious towards Swedes. Sweden has also managed to avoid wars the last two hundred years unlike Finland.

Last December I spent some nights in Stockholm with my friend Mareetta. We were going to see BoyGeorge perform since Mareetta is a huge fan of his but the concert was cancelled. Mareetta got us invited to the shadow-Nobel literature price evening as she is a great fan of Alexandra Pascalidou, a Swedish columnist, television hostess and author, and we’ve been to watch a theater programme by her in Gothenburg.

Mareetta introduced me to a wonderful cafe called Mr. Cake in Stockholm and now also in Gothenburg. If you want to enjoy really great cakes and light lunch go there! We had cake overdose with Mareetta one night when we bought cakes to go so be careful. The ’Mr. Cakes’ themselves are Roy Fares who has made several cake books and is a cousin to film director Fares Fares and Mattias Ljungberg, several times awarded confectioner.

One other nice cafe is located in the Old town and it’s called Sten Sture, who was a real nobleman in the 15th century and the Lord Regent. The cafe is next to the Nobel Museum and it’s in the basement floor of the house. It used to be a prison in the 18th century. Unfortunately this time we couldn’t visit it since they were under construction, maybe next time will be better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m alive

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I just haven’t been very active (anywhere).

Last week I took youngest one to Jyväskylä which is a city in Central Finland, about 60 km north from our summer cottage. My cousin lives there and some of my friends too so it was nice to go and see them.

Jyväskylä is quite an active city due to a long history as a University town and it also has a very lively artistic side, i.e. the Finnish Handicrafts Society’s Museum is located there (they have awesome things in their shop). There’s also a blacksmith and yarn shop in an old house near my cousins place.

The neighbouring city of Vaajakoski hosts one of Finland’s candy factories called Panda. (Yes, like the black and white bear from China.) My cousin drove us there and we shopped chocolate and liqorice and chocolate liqorice. In fact we have now a lot of candy since bought quite a lot from the trip to Stockholm too.

We also did an empiric study of the local cafés with youngest son. We didn’t even get into all of them since there are so many! Our favourite was a place called Miriam’s, it’s a family owned small place where the owner and her brother do the cakes them selves and they are so good!

One night we went to movies with youngest one, we watched The Joker which was pretty awesome. I had my suspicions about it but it was good.

On Sunday we took a train back home. It was so nice to see my cousin and her little son but it’s also very nice to be at home. My cousin’s son has a genetic disorder which is very rare, he is one of three boys to suffer of it. The pain made him a bit cranky in the evenings which is understandable but my cousin said it was like a holiday for her too to see us and I said to youngest son that he’ll get an inkling now what it is to be a big brother.

On Monday morning I went for a swim before getting to work and it was nice. I bought hand paddles some weeks ago and they are wonderful except my left shoulder was pretty painful the whole week. I couldn’t even laugh because of the pain. Tuesday I went for my Pilates lesson which I absolutely adore and it did good for the shoulder too.

In the evenings I’ve been watching Netflix and knitting. I’m soon finishing a scarf I had to unravel during summer, now it’s much better. I still need to do the buttonhole strip for the  Scull and Roses-cardi, it’s been much too warm to knit it.

I also visited the workplace-doctor one day since I think my thyroid has grown and it needs to be checked with ultrasound. This is the third year it’ll be checked. Last year there was a very grumpy doctor doing the ultrasound, he told me that I can’t possibly feel the thyroid grown 0.2mm and that it’d be left alone. Well, I think it’s grown again and so I’m going to the ultrasound again. I hope it’s not him again doing the check-up, the doctor writing the cover letter was a very nice lady who took my concern for real. I also gave blood samples since I’m sweating like a pig on and off and if it’s not thyroid it’s the menopausal heatwaves. Yeah, nice being a woman.

Oh well, I’m trying to get some sewing done during weekend and I’ll try to visit a friend who got her toes operated last week. Now I’m going to knit and watch telly with the cat.

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Overwhelmed

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This week has been quite a long one. I feel like I’m thrown to the deep end and I’m quite tired.

Firstly thete was the sword attack in the vocational school in Kuopio where a friend of mine lives so it came quite near.

Then youngest one had some trouble at school, it seems one of his teachers complains a lot about him so tpday I wrote an e-mail to the headmistress and that teacher and his own class teacher. I just need to know the teacher’s side of the story too but because we’ve had trouble before caused by a teacher I want yo be in the clear.

And now my cousin’s little boy, not yet three years old, has a very rsre bone condition in which the bones get brittle and break easily. There’s nothing to be done except physiotherapy and making sure he doesn’t suffer. He was born with bad heart, the left side of the heart is not fully developed and needs to be operated (if he lives). He is also waiting for liver transplant so my cousin and her son have already been through so much.

I’m just devastated. We are going there with youngest one in mid-October.

Overwhelmed

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This week has been quite a long one. I feel like I’m thrown to the deep end and I’m quite tired.

Firstly thete was the sword attack in the vocational school in Kuopio where a friend of mine lives so it came quite near.

Then youngest one had some trouble at school, it seems one of his teachers complains a lot about him so tpday I wrote an e-mail to the headmistress and that teacher and his own class teacher. I just need to know the teacher’s side of the story too but because we’ve had trouble before caused by a teacher I want to be in the clear.

And now my cousin’s little boy, not yet three years old, has a very rare bone condition in which the bones get brittle and break easily. There’s nothing to be done except physiotherapy and making sure he doesn’t suffer. He was born with bad heart, the left side of the heart is not fully developed and needs to be operated (if he lives). He is also waiting for liver transplant so my cousin and her son have already been through so much.

I’m just devastated. We are going there with youngest one in mid-October.

Celebrations

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Today is my birthday and I’ve been celebrating the whole weekend I think. I’m not yet over the hill but as my friend said tomorrow is the last time when I’m under 50 on October 1st. We had a good laugh out of that.

On Friday I had coffee date with my two girlfriends in a local cafe which has a cake buffet, i.e. you get a big cup of coffee and as many slices of cakes you can eat, starting with three slices. The slices are small but delicious and since I love their lime-flavoured cake I usually have two or more pieces of that.

On Saturday I and youngest one begun to watch again all of the Harry Potter-movies which was fun. God, I’m still having hots for Lucius.

On Sunday evening we (our family and middlest son’s girlfriend) went for dinner to one of the more historically famous of Helsinki restaurants called Elite. It used to be the place for artists, authors and actors to go to and they still serve dishes which were the people’s favourite, i.e. Tauno Palo’s beef. Tauno Palo was a talented actor and very handsome, he was the Finnish romantic lead on big screen.

We took the underground train to city centre and walked through my childhood playgrounds, i.e. the Rock church to the restaurant which was nice. The dinner was very good and company was excellent and interior very nice.

This morning I started my fall swimming again. I’d bought hand-paddles since I’ve got  osteoarthritis the breast strokes can be painful for my hands and the paddles were just awesome except now my triceps are killing me. Anyways I did my one km in 36 minutes which was pretty okay as it’s the first time since last spring.

Then I went to work and heard that our water supply had been cut for some reason, the whole house was in uproar and nobody knew when we’d get water again. The water was cut also in the two neighbouring houses which was good so there were more people complaining about it. We had to make bathroom trips to the other side of the street where is a sports center.  The water company was just as out of sorts as we and nobody there knew nothing… Luckily the water came back on in the afternoon so the cooking classes could be held and people could use the bathrooms too.

After work I had a massage appointment again and I’m glad I did, my neck and shoulders are better now. This time the masseuse was another visually impaired young man I had met earlier couple of years ago. He is very nice and plays in the Finnish Goalball team.

Finally at home youngest one made us coffee, middlest son had washed clothes and hubby had bought me flowers. All in all a very nice birthday Monday.

 

 

Busy weekend

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I had busy weekend even thou I did have some nice tv and knitting time too.

On Friday after work I had a massage because my neck has been acting up and my left shoulder is stiff. I found a good massage place near my work couple of years ago and so I went there again and it was very good.

After the massage I went to movies with my friend Heidi, we watched Downton Abbey and enjoyed it. It was quite light but funny and great actors with historically accurate interiors and clothing is always a pleasure to watch. I loved Maggie Smith as Lady Violet and her frenemy Isobel Merton’s  (Penelope Wilton) jabs at each other were so much fun.

On Saturday I didn’t do much, I knitted and watched Sleepy Hollow’s fourth season which I was dreading but it was better than I expected.

Yesterday, Sunday, me and hubby and youngest one went to Helsinki amusement park called Linnanmäki.  They have a new roller coaster called Taiga and it was really fun! It’s the second fastest in Europe as it goes 106km/h. After that we went to the old wooden roller coaster which I absolutely adore and one other roller coaster. I can’t do teacups or anything similar so hubby took youngest one to them but I did three rounds on the wooden roller coaster.

We came home after five and later I watched Manhunt which was pretty good too. I really like Martin Clunes and he was very good again.

 

It’s that time again

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Middlest son is doing his final (graduation) exams in English tomorrow and as usual I think I’m more stressed out than him, it was the same when eldest son had his exams, I hardly slept. Next week middlest one has Biology and then the rest are due on Spring.

The exams last 6 hours and now they are all done by computer. At my time we wrote everything by hand and in Finnish language you had to write the essay perfectly with a ballpoint pen and no corrections and it was horrible. I think I wrote it three times until I got it done without writing anything wrong.

The students have snacks with them and middlest one just did sandwiches ready. He also has some chocolate and juice and water. Nowadays you have to cover all texts in the packages in case you’ll get an advantage of i.e. a Swedish word so now we have a grey juice package in the fridge because he used duct tape 🙂

I’m having a meeting at work tomorrow which is kind of interesting since our new headmaster is a good guy and he keeps the meetings on point. On other work-related news I’ll get to put up our (the library and literacy teachers) blog here in WordPress as soon as we’ll get all the details through. It’s sort of like trying to get a snake into a gun barrel since there’s so much details as it’ll be under the City guidelines which  can be a headache.

I’ve been knitting my cardi but had to have a break of it since I needed to buy buttons and I’ve been re-knitting a shawl. That means I unravel a shawl I knitted last spring because it wasn’t what I had in mind. I’ve been watching Sleepy hollow’s  fourth season while knitting since I didn’t want the series to end but now it’s not the same anymore so I decided to finish it. I’ve also watched a French series Black spot which was really good, a sort of magical thingy.

 

 

 

Sleepyhead

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I’ve been quite tired this week and I wonder if I’m getting sick. Hubby and middlest son are having a terrible flu with fever and noses running etc. since last week. I hope I’m not getting it.

Eldest son moved back to his shared flat on Monday and I haven’t heard a peep from him since. Means he’s okay.

On other news I begun to watch my carb intake at the same time as I went back to work and now I’ve lost 5 kilos which I certainly don’t want back. I’m planning to continue low carbs until I’ve lost about 10 kilos more if I can. It’d be good for my joints (arthritis) among other things.

On Friday I’m taking youngest son shopping, he needs a waterproof jacket and new trousers. He grew over 12 cm last winter so the previous jacket doesn’t fit him anymore. I promised to take him for a coffee to the cat cafe beforehand as a bribe.

The weather is turning to fall. We’ve had very nice warm days during the weekend and Monday and Tuesday but today it’s been very windy and rainy. Tomatoes like it.

I was going to take part to the dance gym tomorrow but I’ll need to see if I’m really getting the flu. My pilates lessons for the winter begun again yesterday and I enjoyed the class very much.

I’m in the middle of Mind Hunters second season and my cardi will soon have the second sleeve too so I’ll go continue them. If I pass on the couch it’s better than having keyboard on my forehead.

Another week gone by

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Well, almost at least.

Last weekend we had our annual summer ending party with our friends coming to our house to barbeque (we call it grill), eat well and go sauna and have a nice meet. We’ve been doing this since the mid-90’s with my hubby and it’s really nice way to keep in touch with old friends. Now our boys had asked some of their friends to come too so we had more young people than us ’oldies’ this time. It doesn’t matter since they are very polite and nice people too.

We are having a fall-flu going around. First youngest son was sick at home three days and on Thursday hubby came home in the middle of the day and stayed home on Friday too. I had horrible headache all day yesterday. Luckily it passed but now I feel like I’m not totally well. I hope I’m not getting it now.

On Thursday morning I attended to a sport group near my work place. There’s a big sports center which houses a swimming hall too and I have bought a 10-time sports group  ticket which expires on mid-January and I thought I need to start using it so I don’t have to attend to the groups all December. I took part to a dance-sport group called Lavis which is based on Finnish social dancing called Lavatanssit.  The dances include tango, twist, rock/jive and some old folk dance steps. It was really fun and sweaty so I think I’ll go there again.

Oh and if you didn’t know, Finns are huge on tango, it’s been a great hit here for decades. Finland even has a great summer weekend festival for all tango people and there’s annual competition for tango singers too.

Here is a pic of me and my colleague Sari at our work in the Adult education centre’s library, it was takes two weeks ago and I think it’s quite nice pic of us.

I almost forgot to tell you that I enrolled to a swimming technique practice in November, it’s organized for the City workers. I’m taking part to one class which is specializing on breast stroke since I use it most.

Now I’m going to continue to watch ’Safe’ from Netflix and knit my cardi, I need to begin the second sleeve tonight. I really like Amanda Abbington but why is she cast as a police officer again? Meh.

Enjoy the music ❤