Lucky unluck

The weather has been real nice so we went for a walk, which I now regret very much. Being accident prone and enjoying photographing is not a very good combination. As the spring flowers are beginning to bloom among the last year’s dead grass I just had to take some photos resulting in me falling out in the rough. So now my wounded knee is aching again. And of course it always is the same knee I already injured in a skiing accident 20 years ago.

Coming home I just discovered that the kitchen sink had clogged, and I strongly suspect the porridge maker for this, so I had to ring the service guy.

Clog was fixed in two hours time by some super solvent poisonous substance, at the same time spreading all over the cupboard as well. So the service guy found out that he had no new replace packing for the sink. Monday they’ll come with a new one so now we have to live with the water seeping from under the sink until then.

And all this time with the dustbin on the kitchen floor instead of in the cupboard instead of the worse dustbin being flooded in the cupboard and all of it running over the floor. That would have been some serious cleaning to do; now it is just the sink cupboard. What luck nobody is coming for dinner or anything today, so I have to make special arrangements, and that we were invited over to some friends tomorrow so I don’t have to look at it.

One good thing though, I have a good excuse for not doing anything again, so somebody else will be cleaning, and were not talking about the just washing the burnt pot anymore.

Good luck for me, unluck for the porridge maker.

Accident day

Why is the number 13 considered unlucky?

I have not considered it be any worse or better for that matter, than any other day. There are hotels that do not have a room with number 13, or a floor that is the 13th. Why? And you are not to be seated 13 at a table either, and they say it is because they were 13 at the table at Jesus’ last supper. Why should that make any difference, a number?

Anyway, today on Friday the 13th it is the national accident day here in Finland. ?!?

And about 1000 people have an accident every day and have to seek medical advice for it with most accidents happening in the home and the near vicinity of it. Being a housewife I know that accidents can happen. Cutting yourself with a knife or burning yourself when cooking, slipping on the wet kitchen floor or the bathroom floor and falling badly, like in my washing machine incident I have told you earlier about. Or you forget your mobile in the pocket of your trousers washing it, or it drops out of your pocket in to the toilet…but I guess these you do not need to seek a doctor’s advice for.

By the way, why all these Father’s day, Women’s day, Water day, against racism day etc during the year as most people have no idea about them anyway as they are so badly advertised?

Well, now it is water day again here, the lake has no ice left on it and it is so nice looking at the waves on the surface of it, makes s a nice difference from the ice that was there. And do not get me wrong, I like the ice too when it just arrives. I am just fond of the change of the seasons.

Artistic disagreements

A great deal has lately been heard about the disagreements in the Finnish National Opera house.

Their top conductor has given his resignation due to inconsistent disagreements with the board about the artistic and financial running of the Opera and the staff walked out of their job supporting their conductor in protest of the Board. In the summer the staff will be given notice as the house will be renovated and business as usual in the autumn. It will be exciting to see what this develops to next as new members of board were announced after the old ones were dismissed with a new chairman beginning on the 1^st of April. The new board is expected to get the finances into better shape, decide who is in charge of what part of the activities as well as stabilizing the working atmosphere with possible lay offs and hiring new staff.

And as some dancers are retiring so staff changes are to be expected anyway as dancers usually only can pursue their dancing career into their forties and retire from active dancing, that is if you listen to your body and what it is saying. And that is a fact, our bodies are not as fresh anymore after becoming forty whether we like it or not, and not only the dancers should listen more to what our bodies are telling us about how we feel. Learn to prioritize important things in life and not try to do everything because it is expected of you. Who is there to thank you in the end after your burn out anyway?

Thunder and lightning

I was this morning woken up by the very first thunderstorm of the year. Ka-boom!
The sky was all dark, it was raining sleet and hail and there was thunder and lightning, still with the cold weather that has prevailed here lately.

Did you know that the lightning bolts reach not only from the clouds to the ground but way up high into the sky for hundreds of kilometers and that there are different forms of lightning? There are so called “sprites”, “light sprites”, “sprites in a bottle”, “blue jets”, “elves” and ball lightning. The thunderstorms consist of the light and the sound of the thunderbolts as well but they also create radio waves that you can measure and there is more lightning in daytime than during the night and more thunderstorms occur over land than over the sea.

Anyway, according to the latest weather forecast it is going to be warmer in the weekend, they promised almost summer like temperatures, which can mean about 10°C a bad summer when it is raining all the time but in this case meant about 18°C. So it certainly has been an eventful year this last one, weather wise, having been the warmest and longest summer so far and the coldest winter temperatures, even for just a short period of time, since we came here!

Oh, by the way, this friend of my husband that wanted to go fishing on the ice, well he never did but now he is all the time whining about not being able to anymore and that the ice fishing season was too short!

At least his family is happy now as they get fed up eating fish all winter long, and our two cats will be missing all the left over fish they got from him instead.

Blue-green

Today the newly elected announced that they have agreed upon forming a four party government , a blue-green government, and the present prime minister is presumed to be continuing in his office. I wonder how four parties with as varying priorities can come to an agreement from where to begin their reign and be successful in it. But then, as they say, “The loveliest harmonies arise from differences”. Who was it that said that, some French philosopher? Or German maybe?

Anyway, the Finnish customs are now investigating suspected fraud and tax-evasion in steel exports and the actions of some employees in the company suspected in the case, and if I have not got it all wrong, the company in question is part owned by the government. The Finnish government is currently part-owner of 440 companies to subside their operations and helping them to get started and Finland is the least corrupt country in the world according to International research, but what does this suggest?!?

I know, it was Heraclitus! And the full quote is:

“Opposites always complement each other.
The loveliest harmonies arise from differences.”

Stand off in kitchen

With the off-spring getting older new situations earlier unheard of arise from time to time, the newest one is cooking porridge.

Cooking porridge for breakfast, for snack in the afternoon when back from school or late at night before going to bed. Nothing bad in that, really, I am just amazed at the creativity of what the porridge is eaten with.

Jam, sliced banana, a little butter, milk and sugar or even honey I can understand but chocolate or hazelnut spread mixed in it! Or cocoa! Why not try the Finnish egg-butter that you have with the Carelian pies or bacon and eggs in it for that matter while you’re having a culinary creative fit?!?

Cooking the porridge without my help is nice, but the not cleaning up, or the not washing of the pot where the porridge is burned to a black crust on the bottom is definitively not to my taste. For the time being we do have a pot in the kitchen sink awaiting its’ cleaning.

Anyway, I just heard on the news that a war criminal from the Balkans has been transferred to serve his 20 year sentence in a Finnish prison after his sentence was announced, and also that this is not the only case, that there are more war criminals in prison here which I was surprised to hear about.

Well, the burnt pot has been taken hostage and a “prison sentence” in seclusion in the culprits own chamber for the rest of the week is soon to be ruled by this mum, if nothing happens with this particular pot, and soon! And the culinary experiments with porridge are off in my kitchen for the time being. One stand-off with pot in the kitchen has to be dealt with first.

I better put the kettle on, I do need some more tea this morning!

Flag Day

Today the 450^th anniversary of the death of Mikael Agricola is the celebrated with a national flag day.

Agricola was the boy of a farmer, as you can detect from this name and became the inventor of literary Finnish. Before Agricola thought about putting Finnish, and how to put it, on paper there was nothing written in it, thus becoming the inventor or creator of the Finnish written language. He translated the holy bible into Finnish and also created the first

“Aapinen” , the very first spelling-book where you could learn to read Finnish and still today 60% of the words Agricola invented are used in their original form in Finnish of today and he is the man we are to thank for Finnish being such a complex language for all us foreigners to learn.

Agricola was also a great reformer of Christian faith as he was there to reform the Roman Catholic Church and beliefs into the protestant Lutheran church. Wonder what he would have thought about what is going on in the church of today?

So today we are flagging off Easter as well and going back to normal routines tomorrow. Enjoy last day of the holidays! To tell you the truth, I am glad it has come to an end; too much is too much and being without my own, home-alone-quiet time is making me crazy! So I am celebrating going back to normal tomorrow.