The majority of the Finns are Lutherans, even though not many seem to practise their religion much, except maybe when getting married and having their offspring christened.
If I have not got it completely wrong, in
According to an interview in a newspaper the bishop of
The weather forecast now promises subzero temperatures for Xmas, but whether there will be snow here in the south, that still remains a puzzle.
This year the first snow arrived later than the two previous years. This year there was no snow until end of November, whereas the previous years we had a snow blizzard that hit the country hard in change of October and November, still we had two black Xmas’.
So in the meantime, enjoy the picture of last Xmas’s snow!
Anyway, seeing a Finnish woman walking in the street with an outlandish looking man always makes people talk.
Comments such as: “what a shame she did not go for a decent Finnish man instead” or “she’s so ugly she had to buy her a man” are spoken out loudly in the street.
And this is in no way my own opinion; this is only what I have heard people say in the street.
Still, the general opinion about these mixed marriages seems to be, that they come here and live on Finnish welfare after their divorce. This may be true or may not, they might be as hard working as any Finn, or even more, but fact is, that these marriages have become a most lucrative business as you might obtain a permanent permit of residency here in Finland.
This gives an entirely new dimension to the expression: “marrying for money”.
I really had no idea of how hard the death of my dear friend would affect me until it one day did hit me and almost knocked me off my feet.
Just keeping going with my ordinary daily routines for normality’s sake was maybe the thing I needed to do right then, but now I seem to be surfacing from my deep grief and become normal again. Somehow it seems that a really bad flu did the trick and gave me the time and needed slowing down to realize what had happened and gave the necessary time to get through my feelings.
Anyway, while my Blog has been inactive, I still have had ideas of what I have wanted to write about, so even if I might not have put them down in letters in rows forming readable words, I have been thinking. So now I hope I will be able to maintain my normal blogging routine unless this spring hits me with massive doses of pollen and knock me down a second time.
Offspring has been quite worried and even went down to the market to get me some smoked herring to cheer me up, but unfortunately my throat was too sore at the time being I did not enjoy them as much as I ordinarily would have. But they say it is the thought that counts, and the thought was beautiful.
To tell you the truth, the most annoying thing about these long holidays is not always the amount of people being at home at the same time, nor the time they occupy the Internet access, it is more the demands of kitchen chores to be performed. Or space to have in the kitchen for that matter.
How hard is it not to make teenagers empty the dishwasher in their turn instead of lying dead flat on the sofa watching MTV turned on high, or making chocolate mousse for the first time and needing some hints and tips whereas in which order to combine the fluffy beaten ingredients instead of looking it up in the recipe they are at the same time reading as shouting for mums help?
Or the use of pots and pans which at the precise same moment should be available to mum in order to get the Easter lamb ready in time for dinner, which of course has be eaten exactly in time on order for the offspring to be able to keep up with their precious timetables and the numerous parties they have to have time to attend to the same night.
On holidays when there is a lot of cooking I am discounted of the emptying of the dishwasher as I have so much I am cooking anyway, and the pots and pans I wash up by hand anyway so I am more than doing my fair share of it, but then cooking is one of my favourite pastimes, which I enjoy immensely.
Apparently, or maybe at times very much unfortunately, I seem to have passed on these genes of mine to the offspring and that tends to make life, or in this context, cooking difficult for me. There just is not enough room for more than one cook in my kitchen, and it is mine as long as I am standing. Still I have to fight for my space at times with this so devious culinary genius child of mine. This is of course the chocolate mousse I am talking about that was promised to be made for dessert after the traditional Easter lamb. Well, fitting cooking of desserts into busy teenagers’ timetables is not as easy as it should be. And, what use is there to help mum out making the dessert, saving mum for going for some extra trouble of making the dessert when her help still is required to read what is written on the recipe, as it would have been much easier for mum to do the dessert herself?
Okay, then we would not have had pudding made by so devious culinary genius child of mine.
The taste was absolutely fabulous, actually finger licking good if you know what I mean, and the mousse looked exactly as it should have, but it would have needed a couple of more hours in the fridge in order to have had enough time to cool and set properly.
But there was this bus to catch, and another party “must” to be at and once again the nest was empty for the night.
Having had a very busy autumn and Xmas time an acquaintance of the family just got one weeks sick leave as she cut his finger on chip and not of course being allowed to work in her profession with open wounds because of the infection risk with his four stitches right next to his left hand thumb, she was ordered one week to let it heal, remove the stitches and then go back to work.
This actually came in very conveniently for her as she had not had any vacation and only a few days off once for almost two years and here am I being busy entertaining her. I would not quite say she is a pain in the a** but she is a bit tedious right at this instance as I have things I would have needed to be done, my special favourite hate object number one, official paper work with of course a deadline to be handed in promptly, and being brought up to be polite I have no idea of how to tell her about it. She is a good friend, and I love her dearly but as I am used to being home alone minding my own business all day long, she is a drag to have to entertain as she has thought of nothing better to do than visit her friend. At least she goes home to her family in the evenings and is not spending the nights here as well, so I might catch up with the deadline in time anyway.
Having a friend over is nice of course for a while, but her spending the day here with endless chats over coffee that keeps on going for days is not my cup of tea, if you get what I mean. Thank god there still was some cake left over from Sunday to go with the endless cups of coffee, and tomorrow I have a previous appointment I can not get out of.
Sometimes there can be too much of good things.
It seems to be gathering up to one of the traditional traffic chaos’s here in
I am lucky to be done with the acquirements of provisions and necessities, if you know what I mean, for the weekend, as just the two of us, dear spouse and me, will be leaving the city for the deep neck of woods. A good time for us to be just the two of us, instead of always being mummy and daddy as when the offspring is present.
We also will be leaving the offspring home alone with a deal of no modern gadgets with us. If anything happens there is no mummy or daddy to turn to, the offspring will have to deal with the situation.
There is to be no PC for me to blog on, both our mobiles are to be switched off the whole weekend until Sunday afternoon when we are to return back home. No clocks and no time to bother about just a cosy cabin with an open fire, a sauna which of course is one of the Finnish necessities, no electricity but still running water indoors. Thank god there is no need to lift the water from the well in the yard by hand or by a pump outdoors. Being without electricity also meant some planning food wise for me as there is no fridge to stuff with the produce, but is still is clod as a fridge outdoors which makes it a bit easier with the food. Even the more private facilities are ecological and the two types to be separated in order to get out the most benefit of the product. I still am in doubt about taking a dip in the lake or a roll naked in the snow that is said to be very invigorating, even with a steaming hot sauna to return back to afterwards.
My main concern us adults being away for the weekend is our little baby girl, the one more like a naughty gremlin at times, if she still will be with us or if she fallen off the balcony from the 5th floor. Actually this is a bit misleading, us living on the 5th floor. Here in
Anyway, as our baby girl is as fast as she so far has been with everything, running around the place when she is switched on that she need some looking after, our older gentleman will be okay as he is old enough to know what the balcony is about. And the offspring is old enough to cope with cooking and everything else, that I have no doubts about what so ever, but will they cope with little, tiny but ever so stubborn and fast miss little gremlin?
This also means that I won’t be able to blog about anything, even if I wanted to, until Sunday late afternoon, possibly not until Monday.
1500 new animal species were discovered in
Most of the animals that have been discovered have been here forever and have not migrated into the Finnish fauna from elsewhere but have just not been noticed earlier. This now means that there current number of animal species is up to 44.000.
Fridays always seems to be the most stressful day of the week as the family is in such a rush to come home and begin their two days off. Everybody rushes to get home early and to get ready for the weekend, the shower is occupied and clothes are sought to suit the occasion of they day, Friday night out in town.
Saturdays, and then especially the mornings are a bit on the slow side, getting up late at noon, if not sometimes even in the afternoon for the days hobbies and activities and the rush of to get out on Saturdays does not begin as early as the night before first has to be slept off. I am so happy I do not have to be in the dating game anymore, having to try and impress men. It is easier to stick with what you have got; it is familiar and sometimes even a bit too well known without too much excitement.
But I am not complaining, there is two persons in every relationship and both have to do some work with it.
Beer is apparently now cheaper to buy in the supermarkets than in Alko, even though the prices on alcohol were said to be going up with the New Year.
And that the prices have done, not by much, but anyway.
The supermarkets can sell the same beer for less this apparently being a direct cause of the supermarket chain’s more effective distribution system, even with the prices going up it will still be cheaper than at Alko.
Well, so much for beer, it is one or two bottles of beer a year that is consumed by me and one of them has become a tradition, a late night snack, a ham sandwich with a thick slice of home made Xmas ham, my grandma’s traditional Xmas bread with some hot mustard made after a recipe that has been in the family for five generations and a beer on the night to Boxing Day.
Anyway, now I must confess to you one of my great fears, to go by train and that I had to do the other day visiting a friend of mine. I have no idea where this insensible fear of mine origins from, as I have problems with taking the commuter train to get into town or go by metro, but somehow long-distance trains are a scare and this was the tenth time I have been on a long distance train. This might also be the reason I never went Inter-railing as so many of me friends did in their younger days, and it might also have had something to do that my mum would probably not have let me do that, but then I do not know the answer to that question as it was never asked back then.
Anyway, the train was right on time, even a bit early at the station; it also stopped so I could get in. It being so late when I was getting back home I had not been able to buy myself a fare in advance, and as I did not know what time I might be getting back, wining and dining with my friend as the nights sometimes can get a bit late or early might be the right word but as I had to be back early the next morning and was not able to spend the night I had no choice but take the train in the evening to get home in time. The train was not even half full with lots of empty seats I sat down by the window and turned my MP3 player on waiting for the guard to arrive to my compartment to sell me a ticket and just in no time I had company by an admiring male person.
What is there about me and men seeking my company, of little demure me who only would like to left alone and just be? Why do these men who have had too much to drink always hit on me when I am not in the mood for being chatted up, and they never take a polite no for an answer?
Unfortunately as I did not have a book with me I could dive into and look preoccupied with I had no other alternative than to politely try to avoid having a conversation with him, trying to evade his questions and only answering elusively.
I still wonder what kind of invisible drunkard magnet am I carrying with me as I am always being hit on in the bus , on an airplane or the train where I have no chance of getting away by someone who has had “a bit too much” to drink?!? I have nothing against being chatted up, or being hit on for that matter when in the right mood. A flirt does not mean anything more than a pastime for me as there is nothing that comes out of it. I have great many male friends with whom I have had good flirtatious conversations over the decades we have known each other, and we do not mean anything more than having fun, spending a good time together making jokes at each other and about each other.
Thank God this already in advance dreaded train trip was not a long one and I could get off at the next station, securing myself against any further attempts the same night of being hit at on the bus by other as thirsty candidates by taking a taxi home from the station.
Well, outcome in hand, I can now say that my father was very keen on his career when we were young, my sister and I, at least we had the opportunity of out mother staying home with us so we had at least one parent at home when small. When we grew older and both in out time began school our mother returned to the working life first as part time, to still be able to be there for us when needed. But we never saw our father, he was busy making a career, and my, so he did!
My sister and I grew up, got married and had children of our won and our parents divorced our father getting remarried not too long after having new children with his new, much younger wife. This means I have sisters and brothers who actually are younger than my offspring. My offspring has aunts and uncles that are younger than they are. This also means I am older than my father’s new wife as well.
My father now has told me regrets the time he lost when we were children my sister and I, that he was never there for us then and that he will try to better this time, but as they say, it is hard to teach old dogs any tricks. They have already got their own peculiar ways and one thing you can sadly enough never get back is time, nor lost chances.
They are gone for ever, and never to come back!
So if anyone listens to me, take the paternity leave if given the chance and spend it with your offspring, it is way too late when they get their driver’s licenses and ask to borrow your new car!
There are currently 2 million married people in Finland, which also can be conclude into 1 million ongoing marriages at this very moment, even to my ability of comprehending arithmetic’s. 89% of these married couples are married for the very first time but every 17th inhabitant in Finland end up remarrying at some point of their life as there are 200.000 married a the second time, about 2000 people in their fourth marriage and even a couple hundred of brave individuals who are married for the fifth time. Marrying for the fifth time must be quite an optimistic thing to do, you have not quit yet nor lost their belief in romance in the modern society of today, or then you are just plainly stupid. Who am I to tell?
Anyway, Xmas cards is one way of showing your friends how artistic you are, I must confess I have also committed that sin and to tell you the truth, quite often lately, even more than in my youth when I still was actively doing some painting. Many even turned up as birthday presents and wedding gifts, which were greatly appreciated as they were handmade but it seems fewer people, have the understanding for photographic art, or maybe it is as I see art presented as photographs they do not appreciate as much as they liked my paintings.
Better though is to have your kids do their art that is absolutely genuine and as contemporary as it can be. Save them as they might be worth a fortune when that little brat turns out to be the modern day Picasso, if you’re callous enough, or just save them as nice memories of one Xmas long time ago as precious mementos of a child you once knew.
We got our little baby girl home and there has been no rest since.
She has been all over the place, well that is all places she has been able to climb up to so far and she moves fast. Her time awake is spent running from one point to another, hanging from anything she can hang from and eating. The food is gulped down, she eats more than our adult cat and goes to the litter so frequently that I have to clean it several times a day in order to keep up with her.
The first night I had to get up and feed her several times and get her to the cat litter but now she already knows her way around the place. I am amazed that such a tiny creature is capable of so much.
Our older mister has been a bit wary of the new comer as he does not want to loose his dignity acquired over the years caught in action playing with a kitten. But I guess that will come in due time when he has come to terms with the idea she is staying for good. Fortunately, he was there to see and care for his younger brothers and sisters as he was from the first litter of the ten kittens his mother had. He knows our little baby girl is a little kitten and has been acting accordingly, he just walks away when she gets too informal with him and jumps up somewhere high and safe she can not yet reach up to.
So far out little one has not announced her name; there have not been any significant characteristics either so she is currently just the tiny one. We were at one time considering calling her Jane Doe.
Liquorice is the only one she has been responding to since she arrived but I doubt that will be an appropriate name for her even though there is an S in it. I have been told that cats would respond better to names containing an S-sound but so far even using the wrong name has made the culprit in question to responding to the call.
So sad it only works with cats and not as well with the offspring.
Freedom of speech is something that is taken for granted in the so called Western world, and so here in
According to the Finns I have recently been discussing the issue with, here in
And this has been practised to its’ best extent at least when the late president Urho Kekkonen still lived with some remains still prevailing in today’s politics. The eastern neighbour has ever since been talked about in a hushed tone of voice, some things were best not to talked about aloud at all, and president Kekkonen was according to the information I have found on the subject a mastermind on balancing on a tight rope between the western world and the eastern then great neighbour, The Soviet Union.
Anyway, I never seem to cease to be surprised about what information is freely available on the Internet, like finding a distant relative or a second cousin really, currently living here in
I have not as yet got any answer to the e-mail I sent this morning but am hoping to receive one soon. It would be very nice if we could meet up, if not at least be in contact by e-mail even though we have never actually met before, just our respective parents that are first cousins as our family is not the very best at keeping in touch and we are spread all over Europe together with a couple of other continents as well and no family reunions have ever taken place. Maybe that is one thing we should take up doing in the future as with age one tends to all of sudden become more interested in one’s family and relatives.
By the way, why do they say that flowers are best captured in backlight?
Birthdays are always nice, and I am especially fond of little children’s birthdays.
The small children show their feelings with absolute honestly in opposition of grown-ups who always pretend liking their presents instead of stating their opinions. Even when you are asking and saying you can get it changed into something else they still pretend to like something that you obviously can see was no to their liking in order to be polite. Where as a little child really cares about the gifts and begins to play with them at once, ignoring the rest of the presents is reluctantly persuaded by its' mother into taking part in opening of the rest of the presents.
Anyway, here we come to the cake part. I am very fond of cooking and I enjoy my fair share of baking as well but I am not too fond of eating cakes and avoid them. And avoiding eating them has become an art form for me which most hostesses are completely aware of in advance and they do not insist on me having any cake. Well so did this hostess as well, and she did not insist on me having cake, she was loudly telling me to eat it in front of all the other guests. Afterwards I kept wondering about why she did it, as she has been aware of my eating customs for years and came to the conclusion that she was making it a show.
The occasion itself was quite dull with all the respective grandparents present and a handful of friends to the family and in my mind I got stuck on the paternal grandfather having repeatedly been on about how “only stupid people get fat”, that it is only “a matter eating too much with too little exercise” and with this referring to his daughter in law who has just quit breastfeeding the younger one a while ago after having had two children with only one year in between.
When asking about it on the phone she told me her father in law has been nagging her about her weight ever since she got pregnant with her first child and nobody any longer pretends to hear his remarks on the subject and that she snaps back at him when given the occasion. Hope she does not get into baking a special cake for just her father in law…
Already more than a century ago people used to place personal ads in the newspapers to find company, to find a suitable spouse from another part of the country, and so it also used to be the way here in
In the modern society of today this has moved on from the printed newspapers and transformed to personal ads the net or as here in
Looking at the pictures can say a lot about the persons but on most of the pixs you can hardly detect the looks of the persons as they are taken either out of focus or too far away with the person turning out small in the middle of the photo.
Sadly enough many ads have pixs with unrecognizable features, maybe to avoid being recognized be their respective spouses, but what sticks to my mind is the frequency of looking for under aged company. They were not many at the agency I was looking around at, but there they still were, both gay and “so called” straight ads.
I am not sure of when you are of age to have sex here in Finland, if it is when turning 18 as you come to an legal age, or if it is earlier as in many other countries, but an older person looking for young company must be paedophilia, is it not?!? So is this really legal?!?
Anyway, I am really impressed with one of the major food chains, Valintatalo, which would be translated into about “House of choices” in English. They are not the big supermarkets but are a bit bigger than the usual corner shop and they really try hard. They have special offers with frozen scallops and mussels, fresh artichokes and spinach when in season and they also have my favourite, duck frozen which is not what I would expect from the ordinary corner shop not to mention even a bigger supermarket.
But the best thing is that some of the Valintatalos are even open on Sundays as they are small enough to be allowed opening hours on Sundays which comes in handy as I sometimes tend to forget about having to shop for the Sunday dinner as well, as the shops used to be open for the summer Sundays and they will be open again for Xmas season.
The law about fertility treatments has been altered here in Finland and from September 1st the children born as result of donated egg cells and sperm have a right to know if they want to, who their biological parents are when they come to age and the decision about the law has already resulted in a waiting time up to two years time for fertility treatments and the amount of donors to decrease considerably.
Some people are meant to be parents and have a hard time to become parents and at the same time completely unsuitable persons have no difficulties in conceiving children into their abusive and unhealthy lifestyles.
I personally consider egg cell and sperm donation equivalent to organ donation, and as you do not know who you are taking the donations from, what habits of eating, drinking, smoking or drugs and neither can you be sure what inheritable illnesses there might be it is all about taking a risk and not a calculated one as you have no idea what you are up against in the end. Is it not a waste of resources and knowledge these fertility treatments in the first place?
I can not understand the necessity of the forcing reproduction of you against the nature as there surely must be some reason we are meant to either have children or not to have children, and as there are thousands of children around the world in need, why not instead give a helping hand to those children in need a good decent home, love and care?
Why is the fear of mortality as prevailing as it is in humans? Why do we humans yearn for immortality, if not by our acts or work valuable to the humankind but in the need to reproduce, to get offspring?
Well life just is unfair, and we just have to make the best out of what cards we have been dealt and ethics have never been an easy subject.
Anyway, dear spouse of mine went on one of the last fishing trips for this summer, at least that is what he claimed, but by the sound of the wife of his colleague’s reactions to yesterdays catch, it might actually have been the last time this year. The reception of the jolly fishermen yesterday night was not a contended one at their house, at least not according to what I have heard. The words surely are not the same as repeated here in writing as some of the more colourful adjectives probably were left out by dear husband of mine but the content was something like: “No not fish again, I am tired of fish. I hate fish, and don’t you dare come home with any more fish again!” resulting in us getting the whole catch to the joy of our cats and I was not even asked to clean and gut it them this time, probably as a side effects of the previous reception of the jolly fishermen.
As the fishermen are used to going out I have suggested some mushroom picking trips and as their knowledge in mushrooms is limited I get to join them to my enjoyment and it certainly will make a change to the ever and always returning home with fish at the colleagues’ house. With the rain pouring down we will have to wait until next weekend anyway before going out checking some of my secret mushroom-picking spots.
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