Around Christmas

Christmas sale in Vanha Ylioppilastalo (Old student union house in Helsinki) just few days before Christmas. As you can see, it was growded. I bought some candles.







Pinja (my husband's niece) had
her first birthday party. She
seemed to be happy with her birthday
present.

The beautiful sunset in Ilmajoki in Boxing day (26th December). It was nice to have a white Christmas after all.

Merry Christmas

Funny things

The concert went fine.
All hesitation and excitement dissappeared at the moment when I came to the consert hall. Everybody was in a good mood, the singers and the audience.

This week I've been wrapping Christmas presents. My husband has seen the huge package I've bought for him, but he doesn't know what's inside. It's something practical, as always. That much I can reveal but not more - just in case that he happens to read this.

The funniest thing is that our dog Jekku has already find all his Christmas gifts.

We had bought him a soft toy (he loves them). One day it just lay on the floor, all wet and dog was behind the chair hiding.

Some days ago my husband's brother gave us his presents in a plastic bag and Jekku's gift was on top. The bag was lying on the floor and as we arrived back home, we saw that he had opened the grey coloured wrappings.

A small plastic bag full of little artificial bones was in the middle of the floor, one side open and you could see that several bones had faced their destiny....
Poor little dog with an upset stomach.

Well, it's nothing that a carrot casserole (porkkanalaatikko) wouldn't cure.

Choir's concert

After half an hour or so I should be going to my choir's concert. It's not the first time I present my singing to the growds, but anyway, I'm a bit worried.
I haven't practised that much.

I'm dressed in red as instructed. I have put my notes to the black folder. Everything should be in order.

I wonder how many people will come to listen to this women's choir singing Christmas carrolls?
I secretly hope that it won't be many.

Finding Christmas presents

Why couldn't the adults write to Santa Claus and make a wish list?
Every Christmas it's so hard to come up with good ideas what to buy for your husband, parents, the in-laws, brother, niece etc.
And when you ask, they say "oh, we don't need anything".
I said to my mom that, "haven't I bought you a gift every year during 20 years? - What makes you think that I wouldn't buy one this year?"

People are strange.

Making cakes

It's Sunday and I should be cleaning.

Well, I'm going to make the cakes first. My mother gave me a good recipe. I'm going to make blueberrypie and a nice cake for Christmas. Blueberry pie is for the independence day 6th of December. Some friends are coming over and we are going to watch the presidents ball.

Earlier today we visited Christmas sales which were held in Immersby, Sipoo where a relative of my husband lives. His wife Kerstin makes handicrafts. We drank some "glögi". It was a crispy weather, so it was nice to drink something warm.

Self-Portrait Meme by Sedis

Sedis would like all of us to join the Self Portrait meme: It has to be a portrait of you, either a drawing or another type of portrait. You can see portraits of Sedis and Anita K here.

It sounds very nice, so I will add mine with a big nose and all.


It's Monday, but I have to be at work so late as at 11 o'clock. I had a dental appoitment this morning at 8, but it went very smoothly.
Yesterday my brother-in-law and his wife gave me their keyboard for a little while, so I can see, if I need to buy one.
Being in the choir and all, it would be nice to learn the tunes by playing them and singing along.

"1-2-3-4" meme

Pinseri has started (28th Oct) a new meme "1-2-3-4" - he orders everybody here in Blogistan do the following:

1.Go immediatly and read four different blogs where you haven't been before.
2.Write a comment to three different blogs which you normally don't comment.
3.Write a message in your own blog including links to two different blogs (where you haven't linked before).
4. Order to your blogilista (List of Finnish blogs) favourites a new blog outside top 100 list.
5. Spread information about this meme.

New blogs - OK. I went to see C's blog. It had a nice photo of Virginia-creeper (villiviini).

Then I went to see a blog called "Life between the shoeboxes". The writer of this blog lives in Sydney -- oh, it looks so warm there! The view from her new balcony is very beautiful indeed.

I read some of the stuff Zeta had written in her blog. She used a nice, maybe self-invented Finnish word for a dog "hurttimus".

Then finally I ended up in Randomfire's blog. Not necessarily my piece of cake, but he seems to write an other blog called the life of Jalo (the dog), which was a nice photoblog.

Linking - I actually did that in the first task. But I could add a link to the new Helsingin Sanomat dogpage - where the dog owning journalist write about their dogs.

Why don't we have something similar in my working place? I spoke about blogs with my boss. He didn't seem very interested.

Great Fadista and other stuff from Lisbon

My trip to Portugal was very nice. I liked Lisbon with its hills, not so polished houses and very friendly people. We visited the monasteries, the Sao Jorge castle and did some shopping. We also went to see the biggest oceanario in Europe. Sharks and all..
At evenings we went to Bairro Alto to have dinner and heard some good fado music.

The highlight of the trip was Mísia's consert in 28th Oct in the Teatro Nacional D. Maria II. It was truly amazing. Dressed in little black dress with black scarf and red gloves, extremely high heeled shoes. And she sang with the voice, not of an angel, but with a dark deep voice of a woman who has seen the world and knows the sorrow. I had this feeling in my neck as I usually do when somebody sings with very pure voice and tears came to my eyes even though I don't even know the Portuguese lyrics. In her concert she also sang in Spanish, French, German and English. To listen some of her music press here.

She is one of the next generation of fadistas after Amália Rodrigues. The other ones are Mariza, Christina Branco and Dulce Pontes.

And fado - it's the same for Portugal as flamenco is for the Spain, or tango to Argentina. The essential element of fado music is “saudade,” a Portuguese word that translates roughly as longing, or nostalgia for unrealized dreams.

Greetings from Cascais, Portugal

We are now here near Lisbon in Cascais, Portugal.
The weather is a little bit cloudy but warm enough +20 degrees.
Last evening we hear some fado and went to see a lot of sights in Lisbon. Today we are in Cascais - a fishing village and Estoril - the beaches.