4 x SUMMER RAIN

Midsummer rain in the archipelago.

WINTER WONDERLAND

I love winter, when it really is winter and not just brown wet mush all around. I love snow and how it can lay so light and soft on the ground and how it can sparkle so beautifully (more than any stage outfits ever can no matter how much the bling), I love the crisp cold air of winter and how and all sounds are more silent, muted by the snow that is all over. I love how it’s a bit like stepping trough the magic closet and into Naria every time you open the door. I do love it when it's winter.

The porch froze.

Except for that it takes forever to get a child dressed and it gets hot when you you’re inside the tram or the bus or a shop and it takes forever to get your car out of the snow when you a re in a hurry. And it takes forever for the snow to melt come spring; it always takes forever before winter is over and you get sick and tired of that damn jacket and those damn winterboots over and over again.

So yes, the coin always has two sides but at least the snow and the first weeks of winter are always amazing. This year, as it seemed to be a rainy Christmas like the last one also was, the snow did indeed make everything more magic when it fell and fell a week ago and turned everything so beautiful just in time for the holidays.


Dag as he fell asleep while we were on a walk in the woods.

COLOURS AND AFTERNOON SUN

 Just look at these colours! I have hundreds of pictures like this from each year but it's as much of an 'Oooooh!' every time.  Isn't autumn amazing?
(Animals spotted in this picture: two. Cats.)

And here I am posing all naturally as anyone would when standing among a bunch of autumn leaves.
In a Trashy Diva dress. It's those checks making their way out of the closet again because: Autumn.

Animals spotted in this one: several. For a well-trained sheep eye like mine. They are hanging out on the other side of the road between the birches.

Also, thank you for the comments on my marathon-long post the other week. I did not answer them separately, but read each and every one and appreciate the thoughts given me.

RAIN, THUNDER, AND AFTER

I love a good thunder storm, I've loved them since I was a kid (when it was a moment of scary action). When it arrives during a hot summer day it all suddenly gets so frightening in an exciting way, you need to prepare yourself and put everything outside to shelter. Then it is like someone changes the light setting to "studio"; everything looks unreal, too sharp and too saturated. And then they switch the light and colours off and it begins!

Afterwards everything is back to normal again.

I have been busy working and rehearsing this week (Porvoon Taidetehdas on Saturday in the early evening, "Bubbles" !) and have not been around the internet that much (well, everything is relative) and thus haven't answered any messages or the comments on my previous post although I have read them all, and will!

FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW

Have some friends come over to borrow our tree for a photoshoot. (It will turn out great, from the sneak peeks I saw!)

 

Meanwhile I'm snapping some photos for Eddi's farm business of the linen that is blooming.

And then we pick wild strawberries with Dag.

And then I whip together some home made peanut butter. Half of it will go into cookies but we can look at those another time.

PAIRS IN COLOUR

 Green & orange.

 Purple & yellow.

Red & blue.

THE STRANGE LONGING FOR DIRTY CLOTHING, OILY GLOVES AND HAVING YOUR HAIR MESSED UP BY WEARING A CAP FOR TEN HOURS OR MORE.

I was driving home from a show we did tonight with a glitter-heavy lid and lashes tickling my eyebrows, and as always when heading west to where we live I drove past the harbour. And I always give it  a look as I go by and think of the guys out there in between cars and trucks, next to the ship, loading and unchanging like I did for so many years.*

(This hello-I-am-having-a-show-soon pic from a few weeks back gets to illustrate the glitter heavy eyelid even though this here is on the ligther side sparkle-wise. But I have Disney-princess hair so there you go.)

Then I drove past a work team fixing the road in their yellow safety wear and Goddamit! every single time I see workwear I get this itch to throw my old bulky yellow reflector pants and steel cap boots - that both immediately changes the way I walk- on and head out among the trucks to get some black dirt on my jacket. In certain ways I really miss my harbour days! And in the same time I am happy not to be standing there in whatever weather it is at six in the morning, or at midnight either, for what it matters.

Me in the harbour a summer's day a long time ago.

I also remembered all those times fixing my make up and rolling my hair in our locker room and often getting the guys to, during the evening break, drive me to the venues our shows were held at. Once I had a week off went to a gig but realised I had forgotten one thing at home and was not by car so I was rather fucked but checking the time knowing it was between ships I called work and one of the guys came to pick me up and we went to get my missing showstuff. We did favours for each other all the time.

I haven't actually retired from the harbour totally; I am on an extended (unpaid) parental leave for one more year still. But even though having every third week off I don't really see how working from the afternoon to one a.m one week and from five-something a.m until the afternoon including 20+ work hours during that weekend could work for me anymore... and I never meant to stay there for as long as I did. As many others, I have an education in something totally different than what I worked with there (however working like I did was also good since it's healthy to work along other people than just creative and media, you get a different perspective...). And another and, even though I'm not exactly pulling in a fair monthly supervisor salary nowadays like before being back to being The Freelancer Of Many Things is going rather okay for now.
But we'll see what happens, never say never.

Btw I just noticed I had a whole album titled "harbour birds"with pictures of the birds in the harbour that could never quite capture what I had tried to, which often was that there were shitloads of birds in huge colonies around.

Hundreds and hundreds and they always gathered rather freakily at night and watched us.

*) 2001 to 2012 if you wondered.

WINGS

I had some business to the room no-one-ever-goes-to, also known as the "study", the room where the laundry dries or the rom that will be Dag's before he turns 18 and moves out.

I saw something shimmer in the window and noticed a set of fallen wings in between the windows. They and once belonged to some insect, whose skeleton-like dead shell I presume was now resting somewhere under the window isolation, or perhaps had just been burnt away by the sun.

I actually think it's the first time I have properly studied a pair of bug-wings so up and close (even though me and bugs are kind of cool with each other -but add two legs more and we have a different story- I still don't tend to go too near them,  and they seldom keep still in order to be properly looked at too), although trough a glass. I have no idea if they are "just" the wings of a late fly, or something else, but there they lie. And they are so beautiful, the shine, the shades, the way they are constructed.

Life is full om amazing things, big and small and sometimes very tiny.

SAKURA AND GOLD-FRENCH MANICURE, TAUNUS AND APPLE BLOSSOM BUDS

Well, what the headline said, no more no less.

THE LITTLE COOKIE MONSTER

Dag is like me, loving everything sweet and all things sweet are called CAKE in his little world. It's a good thing raws bars and healthy (healthier than average at least, for those of you who love to be picky about things like this) sweets -so far- works for him just as well. Here he's having some cookies-ä on oat flakes with our garden's berries I took out of the freezer, apples and coconut sugar and coconut oil.  Nom nom nom and a lot of crumbs.

ROSES AGAINT ROSES

Fading roses with the ones that always bloom in the background.

JUNGLE GIRLS

Lots of things and lots of ladies backstage.

INA AND LIPSTICK

From a set of pics I took of and for my friend Ina.

FLUFF

Here's some random petticoat fluff for you for Saturday night!

FROST

Frost on the window some time ago. Pretty amazing, when you look at it closely; starry pretty ice molecules. Such various forms water takes on.

THE BLACK CAT AND THE TINY SILVER HORSE

Lulu and Dag's little rocking horse-moneybox on the piano.