Trip to Finland, 3

Ilpo and Merja's summer property is very, very pretty. I spent an afternoon with his father, Angervo, walking through the garden. Angervo told me the Finnish names of the flowers. Much of the time all we could do was giggle and shrug at each other, but it was fun. In Finland, in early July, this is what I saw blooming: daylilies, roses, California poppies, lupins, and strawberries. The peonies had buds but no flowers yet. I did not see ants on the peonies there the way we do in Maryland. There were lots of mosquitoes, just like people said there would be. We were okay though. Lots of Off! was used, roll-on for bare skin, spray for clothes. I liked walking around Tornio and seeing the light in the sky. I could imagine that a painter would really enjoy being that far north in the summertime, to try and catch the light. I could watch the river all day. The river was always different, and always at the end of the path through the grass.

Trip to Finland, 2

I'd like to write a bit more about the night train. I really enjoyed myself on the train. For me, the train represents travel without having to drive, or having to think about driving. In Finland, taking the night train meant I could travel for 10 and a half hours without driving, and while getting some sleep. I would like to do that again on another trip. It was convenient, and I liked seeing the "railroad" side of the towns we passed through when I was awake.

Much of Finland is flat, and there are a great many trees there; I saw a lot of fir and birch. There were lots and lots of rivers and lakes.

Small note about Avis Car Rental in Kemi. Use them. Oskar brought our rental car to the train station for us, and waited at the end of the platform so he could wave at us when we arrived.

Trip to Finland, 1

We left on June 30th. June 29th was the day Jerry and Rosemary arrived from Montana. On the 30th, we flew from Washington Dulles, all the way to Charles de Gaulle. The flight was 8 hours long, but filled with movies, tv shows, excellent food, free wine, blankets and pillows. At CDG, we had to run the gauntlet on our way to the Finnair flight we had to catch. We went through passport control and also a security checkpoint. Dad and Patti were on the flight to Helsinki. They barely made it with only an hour layover at CDG. Finnair food is not good. Don't bother with it. Nice staff though. When I started seeing tiny islands off Helsinki, with wee sailboats floating nearby, I felt like Fantasy Island couldn't be far.

I'd like to spend more time in Helsinki at some point. We had an afternoon, between about 3pm and 10pm, when we could stroll, buy train tickets (thanks, Dad!), accidentally run into cousin Elaine, and just generally wish that we could take an earlier train. We had reservations for sleeping compartments on the 22:23 thanks to Reijo, but it was a long time to wait for it. I slept well on the train, and I enjoyed the novelty of it, but not everyone was happy. J and R had somebody knocking on their door all night. Kemi station came at 9 o'clock in the morning on July 2nd, and we were surprised to see, not just Oskar from Avis car rental, but also Ilpo, Tarja and Reijo. Hurray! We moved into Ilpo and Merja's summer house, and proceeded to be amazed by the ever-present sunshine. We never seemed to know what time it was, while we were in the Tornio valley.

New projects done, thanks to the snow storm

We had snowmaggedon, or snowpocalypse, or snowmantua, or snowsomething. In any case, it allowed me to make two batches of bread, and it allowed my mother and me to get some sewing and knitting projects done. Mom did practically all the knitting, I did some sewing. I have a knitting project of my own, a dishcloth, which is not done yet. There will be more pictures soon. I just haven't taken them yet. By the way, has anyone seen my camera? Here is a picture of Eleanor in her new nightgown.

At last, another craft project done

I finished Eleanor's nightgown yesterday, with lots of help from my mother. I have a picture of the nightgown on my phone, so I'll put that up later. Eleanor doesn't like having her picture taken, so we'll have to make it fun somehow, maybe by taking a picture of her with her sister.

Diamonds Turned to Rain

Last night we had some precipitation, and I was excited because it looked like diamonds had rained down on our deck. This morning, some were still there, but now they're melting and joining today's rain. Bleah.

Today is another day to work on E's flannel nightgown. Long ago, in October, I bought fabric for two Christmas nightgowns. Now it's late January, and one of the two gowns was completed last week. I'm late. Here is a picture of the first one, for P.

What stories are authentic folktales?

I was trying to remember the name of a story, then the name of the audiobook on which it was recorded. The story was called, "The Bear Child." The audiobook was called Lessons from the Animal People. The storyteller was Dovie Thomason. It occurred to me to look for independent confirmation, any other sign on the internet, that the stories on this album were not simply stories Thomason had written herself. So far, I haven't found the stories anywhere else, but I still love the stories. These stories are probably old tales whose origins are not visible through a Google search.

The story that broke my heart, and then tried to put it back together, was the one I mentioned above. "The Bear Child" is about a boy whose uncle walls him up inside a cave, because the uncle doesn't want to care for the boy anymore. The boy gets help from other animals, notably, a mother bear. At the end of the story, the storyteller states that bears live near humans, and that humans respect bears because they have the ability to sniff out child abuse, and to do something about it.

My daughter, Phoebe, loves this album. She likes to sing the chant from "The Bear Child." Also, she thinks "The Making of the Animals" is funny, with the different animals being shaped differently by their creator. The animals try to describe how they want to look, but they keep talking over each other and confusing the creator, who then gets impatient. Mistakes come next. We listen to the copy from the library, often. Maybe we should get our own copy.