SPRING, BLUE JEANS AND LEOPARD

 It's been warm and sunny the whole week and my sunglasses have made it out of the closet and the spring coat is on.

Dag and I went out out to the farm together for the weekend (E is away because of work again). Today we were out enjoying the weather before I had to head into town for my pilates. I have been teaching (as part of my training) every Sunday all winter.

Another thing that also made it out of the closet were my blue jeans which I haven't worn for months.
I have a fear of everything even slightly uncomfortable and always think of pants and jeans as going into that category when these in fact do not. Must remember that the next time.
My jeans are Emmy Design, from Pinup Garage.

AFTERNOON TEA AND GIN & TONIC

Well I have been doing other things than working too. The other week I was invited over to the British Embassy for afternoon tea. Or, afternoon tea and gin tonics, to be more exact.

If you'd asked me a decade ago what my favourite drink was, I'd give you a standard answer (that, contrary to what some of you may think, did not come straight from the local tiki bar's list) - simply, "the free drink". On our late high school- and early student years we always used to participate in the season opening day at the university and hang out at art exhibition openings because of the free wine they'd serve.  (This actually sounds pretty bad now put into writing, but it was a lot of fun back then. And I did go to art exhibitions for other reasons as well, being an art student.). But, for a more serious answer, a good gin and tonic definitely makes my top five.


So I grabbed my passport and wore plaid (quelle surprise) and head up to the big pink house at the top of the hill in the big park in the city, where a bit of the UK faces a bit of America.

I'm a sucker for decor and that is always what I pay attention too  when arriving somewhere. I want that lamp.


And those huge windows too. The view is a quite amazing one of of the park with Finnish Bay opening up behind it.


Sibelius was here once too.

Now, I was not invited by the embassy but rather to it, but by Pernod Richard Finland for an event regarding the release of the new Beefeater 24 gin (which is, for those of you who know about, or are interested in these things, a premium gin distilled with - among many other things- grapefruit peel and two different kinds of tea. And thus goes surprisingly well together with tea too. It was good. Very round and soft to taste). The event consisted of a little introduction to the British tradition of afternoon tea as well as the history of gin and tonic and gin in general and the making of it (distilled by hand, in London). Most definitely one of those things that you never knew you wanted to know about before, but now do. Really interesting once you get into it, especially if told by a connoisseur with a passion for the subject, like bar tender-master Timo Siitonen from A21 Cocktail Lounge (one of the best in town btw).



Time for tea! Served by a silent butler who showed up to fill my cup before it ever got empty.


The cucumber on the sandwhich was infused with gin.


And then gin and tonics! Here a classic triple-citrus one served the Spanish way in a round glass. (You learn something new everyday). I got a big urge to go home and throw a fancy party with a proper bar and drinks. (My friends once hosted a cocktail party for new year's. 2007 I think. They had made an amazing amount of small cocktail bites to eat that were really good and we made drinks out of an 1960's drink recipe book. The drinks were all very strong it turns out, most tasted rather awful due to that.)

Well, anyway. I also got to notice the big difference between tonic water and tonic water.
After this event I will propaböy never be able to fully enjoy a regular GT at a bar knowing how it could taste...


Tasting and smelling the ingredients of the 24 gin.


Mr.Siitonen giving some tips and tricks on how to spice up the original gin and tonic - herbs and spices are easy ways to give the classic a new twist.

My cocktail party itch got even more serious by this point because all of the versions looked ridiculously inviting.

I went for a mediterranean inspired "forrest version".  It had a branch of rosemary, juniper berries and lemon in it. The ideal proportion is one part gin and two parts tonic.  I think I have to start pimping up my water at home too with other than lemon and the occasional mint or cucumber because this looks just as nice as it tasted.

For those of you who go virgin I'm sure a fine tonic (this was Fever Tree, Fentimans was also very good) with the same ingredients would most likely taste rather swell too.

IT'S ALMOST MID-MARCH ALREADY

...which means summer will soon be over. Because that's the way it goes you know. Fast.

Oh well hello there! Yes I am still very much alive, although it may seem a little too quiet over here. With all the work, hanging out with Dag, puzzling babysitting around for my work as Eddi is abroad because of his work all the time and when at home out on the farm because the older boys go to school there now and I'm kind of living part-time in my car due to all the going back-and-forth between homes and jobs and gigs and rehearsals plus the pilates training I am studying I have a pile of posts stacked up that will soon be too old to post anyway.

Well that was a long sentence. But it pretty much describes how things are for the moment, in the way it was structured. A highly energetic mess. But, here are some thing's I've been up to the past week as my phone and Instagram saw it:

We have started our own recurring club at Mascot -

The first of Rubies Klubit was last Friday under the theme 'Abstinence'. It was a really good night!

(The last shot is from the curtain call at the end of the night that I took from our golden gogo-boy's Instagram, orginally taken by JBM.)

Go ahead and like our page to find out the dates for the following ones as we set them!

Then I head over to Turku to perform at a Women's Day celebration event. Here's a shot from out small backstage as well as one of dragqueen Miss Divet performing before us and our huge mirror in our hotel room.



Then I came back home and by yesterday spring had arrived for real! I'm tempted to say the classic "finally" but to be honest it's pretty early and apart from that magical Christmas week winter was not that long or cold or white but seemed to pass rather quickly this time. We took a walk outside and it was warm. I feel all my shoes starting to wake up from their winter sleep and making small sounds in the closet already.

Also yes, that is how my son keeps putting his glasses on, constantly.

Later then showed up to the dinner table dressed as a sailor.

ANOTHER DAY AT THE OFFICE

One of the things I have been working on lately - we made something of a "burlesque play" for the Helsinki Burlesque Festival (which was last weekend). I had this idea of something of an eerie but also totally crazy funny short story about a laboratory and a burlesque robot that I put into a script and that we -the Itty-Bitty Tease Cabaret, five women strong again for this one- worked on together.

And the result turned into exactly what it was supposed to! We performed our little play together with the festival's jazz trio improvising in the background (and that band is so good! They made it perfect). It was the most fun I've had on stage in a long time; to make something totally new and rather unseen before. Burlesque, in short, is entertainment, and you aim to please the audience, but at certain events -like a festival - you can go for different numbers, stretch the limits of what belongs to which genre and please the audience by giving them something else than the expected. (This number is not for the dinner parties no). And most spectators loved this  -but not all liked it (because we were not being "just" pretty and dancing in beautiful costumes which some want to limit down to because they don't think about the whole spectrum of what a performance can be; this also in short). In this case I am happy about that; doing something that was not meant to make everyone love it straight away but to rather to make people go 'Oh, you can do it like this too?'

And I have to add that that robotic metallic hair I was working on at 3am last week turned out pretty good.

Because this after all is burlesque I am not going to show you the pictures from the end of the play but yes; the robot takes over the world.

For those of you suffering from burlesque abstinence from the festival week Tinker and me are throwing a small relaxed burlesque club at Mascot this Friday. (And then I am off performing for a Women's Day part-charity-show spectacle in Turku on Saturday in case you still want some more.)

Photos 1, 3&4by Tuomas Lairila and 2&5 JBM.