FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW: AND SO IT WAS SUMMER

This week I was in Strasbourg with  +27C and I was prepared to come home to boots and jacket-mode still but alas! - I brought the warmth with me and we celebrated  Mother's Day in +25C and sunshine. Weather is always such a factor here.

First outdoor breakfast (mmmm, ok: lunch) of the year! Which I made myself altough offered otherwise; oat-chia pancakes with peanut butter and berries. Not the prettiest, but more yummy than one (me) would think!

The outdoor-summer-renovation-mode for the house has begun. This home is in a state of renovation both inside-and out.

 Flower-mode is also on; in just a few days the leaves have turned green and flowers are blooming!

Flowers were also blooming in the pretty Mother's Day-sugar water painting Dag gave me!  Altough he nonchanalntely said that they were not really flowers "I just dotted some paint there".

LAST OF APRIL, FIRST OF MAY

Iiro Nurminen 1960, Helsingin Kaupunginmuseo

Vappu.  Valborg. Vappen. The most likely biggest of the Finnish festivities!  Party-wise, I guess. If the city empties at Midsummer Vappu is the opposite - the city is full of thousands and thousands of celebrating people. We've had mead and funnel cakes and donuts for a the past days and I'm getting rather stuffed by now.

Vappen is a festivity for quirky hats and faux noses and costumes and serpentines and confetti (and just making a mess our of everything in general). Kindergartens and schools most often have a masquerade they day before Vappu. Last year Dag was a ninja, this year he went as his latest obsession: a knight!

Costumes that I wore when I was little included princess (quelle surprise), medieval lady and cowgirl.

I've spent most of my Vappu-day, as in the day after; 1st of May, out on town celebrating since early morning, and even those years I was on shift in the harbour I tried to sneak in a visit to to the park before work. Lots of fun memories ever since my early childhood years. The tradition of Valborg, which itself goes way back in time has been celebrated in today's form, with partying on the streets, balloons and picnics and such, since the 1800's. On first of May labour's day and marches meet academic festivities and a sea of white graduation caps.

First of may on the Observatory Hill of Kaivopuisto.
Arvo Kajante 1959. Helsingin kaupunginmuseo.

 Kari Hakli 1972. Helsingin kaupunginmuseo.

Picnic in Kaisaniemi.

Ivan Timiriasew 1920. Helsingin kaupunginmuseo.

 Ivan Timiriasew 1912. Helsingin kaupunginmuseo.

Student gathering in Kaisaniemi.

Unknown photographer, 1870. Helsingin kaupunginmuseo. 

Communist march. Simo Rista SER 1970. Helsingin kaupunginmuseo.

Labourers' march. Unknown photographer, 1919. Helsingin kaupunginmuseo. 

 Juha Jernvall 1950, Helsingin kaupunginmuseo.

Above are photos from celebrations in Helsinki from past days; the Helsinki City museum has released a site -helsinkikuvia.fi- where you can browse and download their collection of 40,000 photographies of Helsinki from then and now, with a free-to-use-if credited license. A lot of interesting and nostalgic pics! So I checked out Vappu-celebrations from past times; turns out they had as shitty weather as we do back in 1899 as well for example. And 1957 and 1929. Phew.

Drawing by A.Federley of their first of May in 1899. Helsingin kaupunginmuseo.

But when you've blogged for a decade (!!) you get quite the archive of your own life during those years as well.
This year, as I was working in the day and as Eddi is away on work in Shiraz I am just staying at home in bed with a glass of, in fact, Shiraz as well (going for that old traditional, but with newly found internet fame, mode of kalsarikännit. Well not really, but close enough. Not drunk but no pants.) I browsed some of my own Vappus from the last years -

2010 we were out with Eddi and some friends on town. (And it was cold. Not like now, but I was freezing in my dress.Weather is such a factor here.). Just remembered that the Vappu before we had been on a day-date after having been on a break and I biked to work in the sunshine wondering weather it would turn into something or not.

2011 we got engaged in the pale May night on our way home after a long odyssey of park picnics and suburbian bars. It was warm and I wore a 50's dress and my big pink petticoat that I managed to spill beer on and Eddi picked me a yellow dandelion and gave me a ring. (We had actually booked our wedding in Vegas by then already but it was still a sweet move.)

2012 I was super pregnant amd we went to a Vappu brunch after the park.

2013 Eddi was in Bolivia and I was home on the countryside with Dag minding my flowers and drinking beer. Kind of like now, heh.
And I got carried away at my son's first chance for a Vappu balloon and got him two. Dag has a dinosaur balloon this year as well btw (< THE INTERNET HAS TO KNOW!)

But I also brought Dag to his first First of May park experience then!
I remember he started screaming so hard in the bus (that was packed) on our way downtown I had to get off and wait for another one. Not very surprisingly we went for brunch after the park.
(Most restaurants organise late brunches on May 1st. )

Last year we stayed out on the countryside and had some friends over for bbq and fixed up my old car. And yes it was so much warmer than now. And no, that's not a real butt.

Glada Vappen!

LOST SPRING

Waiting for spring like -

WHERE IS IT!

Apparently spring is like a month late here or so by now they say on the news and in the papers.
Well yes, thanks, we kind of noticed. The true definition of "april weather". Sun and rain and random snow and temperatuare yo-yoing.

But the spring gear has however premiered. Even to the extent that I treated myself to a new vintage Pendleton and a pair of vintage boots, to stomp around in the mud over here in, via Etsy.
My pyjamas-like high waist wide-legged cropped pants are from Light in The Box.

(They promised -PROMISED - it'd be +20c this weekend so keeping my thumbs and hopes up for that. And if not, then - oh well, damn, it's the weather, then you still just can't do anything about it...)

SOFT YELLOW, PINEAPPLES, MINT GREE AND BRAIDS

Two weeks ago it (kind of) snowed and now we have warm and sunshine and it almost feels like summer and it's fun to wear clothes again. Away with the mittens, bring on the pastels!

FEBRUARY

Alright, that's it! I am done with winter. I am countdowning for spring! I want new small green leaves, budding flowers and warm spots in the sunshine, dry streets bare legs and flaring hems. The sooner the better!

Somedays everything here is so desaturated it is like living in a black and white photo. And, like every year, you think will this never end..)

 

But then the next day the sun is shining and you know there's hope after all!

And it may even look so nice you may even start thinking about taking the skies back out and go all winter for a little while again.

(Alright, I did not take them out even once this year even when we had more snow and cold so saying 'again' is perhaps a little exaggeration. I'd love to if I had the time though.)

And yes this back-and-forth weather and back-and-forth-thinking goes on until about April.
Each and every year.

THE ANATOMY OF DRESSING WHEN REALLY REALLY COLD PUT INTO ACTION

Everybody's fuzzing over the cold that blew here from Siberia, which is yes, damn cold, the kind of hurts-to-breathe-cold, but not really that big of a deal in my opinion, as it usually gets really really cold once per winter anyways. Or if not then every second year, as it has been during the late 2010's. So you know you have it coming at some point. But then again, when it's really really cold even one degree celcius less does make a rather big difference and it has not been minus f*cking 28 degrees over here for some years. So it really does get people talking.

(In 2013 it got -30 though and that day we went to a beautiful midwinter wedding where everyone was holding sparklers -and freezing- when the couple stepped out of the light chapel and into the dark winter night outside. And our car wouldn't start since it does not have heating so we drove to the wedding in the farm van.*)

Well anyway here you have it:

The anatomy of dressing when really really cold put into action!
Lots of stuffed layers.

When it's really really cold it's hard to smile because your face is all hard and stiff and if you would smile ayway your teeth will freeze. Dag is all "wtf (well in slightly other words) my face is hurting!"
But getting back inside after being outside is just fabulous. Like when you get to pee after having to hold it in for too long a time.

*) As you see, I am un-debatable when it comes to weather a winter was cold or not or a summer hot or not, as I always have the blog (or Instagram) to go back to. Plus, I did work outside for more than a decade and I tell you, then you really remember what the weather was like. Whenever the weather gets shitty (in one way or another) over here I give myself an inner pat on my back and ask myself how the hell I actually was able to do it for so long. But strange as it is, I kind of miss the harbourlife too.)

PLUS 16

Plus 16C when in April is good.
+ 16C in September is niiiice.
+16C in May is normal, and +16C in August is a little bit sad because it means autumn is coming soon. +16 in June is an annoying disappointement.
But +16C in July is down right depressive.

And here I am, in +16C wearing the same skirt I did in winter. Nothing wrong with the skirt itself -it's comfy and have pockets (my mantra. That, and the weather.) - but I'd rather be wearing my thin summer dresses and sandals. And be sweating because it's summer goddamit!(OK, it might have been close to 18 at some point of the day but anything under 20 degrees is wrong, just oh so wrong.)