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115 tadaaa!
I am mighty. I slept until noon today. Noon. Without blinking an eye, one might say. My colleagues phoned me at around 9 in the mo and I just silenced both calls. Because I knew it was not business. I just pressed the sidebar on the phone and turned my pillow the other way around, you know, the cold and fresh side ;).
I opened eyes at 11.58, stood up, stretched my back and went to kitchen to wake up. Like adults too…. that means to make coffee. I think I deserve some prize for this ability of endlessly sleeping! Could it be talent of some sort? I mean, it must be. I made coffee, stared out of the window, thinking whether I should now get all my stuff into car and drive as fast as possible to my cottage and do the gardening bits that I promised to myself…. right. No. I do not well when I hurry. I shall do that on Tuesday, which is also a day off as I now realised and I will go well prepared. The thing is I ordered 160 peonies for my garden. 160!! Which I thought was a lot but now I see proper gardener took 4200! Well, to be fair he does this as business, he has tiniest garden full of blooms first to cut once they bloom (or rather start to bloom) and sell them as cut flowers. And then after some years he will sell the rhizome or roots or bulbs. But he is famous for what he does and he used to do only tulips and other bulbs, and just this year he added peonies. Which I thought to have as my business for the whole country but now I see he has 4200 and I only have 160. That does not sound serious on my part as little calculations proves. So whatever now. I will gradually grow my collection obviously. So this year I only ordered 160 peonies as a emotional purchase. Imagine, how twisted you have to be to purchase 160 peopnies from Netherlands as a whim. I did. Two o’clock at night. Ordered, paid and now waiting for arrival. That in other words means that I have to go and do some shovelling. Yes, dig pretty big holes, 160 of them and fill with nice fresh soil, fertilizer and then pray the courier gets to me asap because we had our first snow yesterday. And that means it’s zero degrees or even worse any moment now. I also have decided to have my official garden as a showgarden of sorts. So the individual flowers that I grow are in display as in usual garden too. And the sales plot would be somehow separate. That means I will need to design all this in a particular way to become both showroom and production. I know I will succeed but it will be close call and it is pretty much freezing cold already. I did order tractor to come to do the digging but he has other objects a tad too far from me to go back and forth for just three hours of work. Obviously does not make sense for him. In the end it looks pure armgrease, sweat and pain coming up, like always. Whatta naive chick I was once again, be it during day or two o’clock at night! That is why my nickname is Mad Hatter. I just ain’t right in the head 🙂 and I like it!
So now is past midnight already, it’s Tuesday. I shall drop few more lines and get to bed in a minute.
So more or less now cottage is closed for winter. I have caught all but one kittens and their momma. Only remaining homeless cats look as if they actually have home. However, all the homeless cats in countryside here look pretty neat and clean. Not like you would expect in cities, like I was accused of fooling people in social media where I did not ask for financial help at all. I was just showing the house with heated floor that I built them and every now and then caught some cats on video when they came to eat. The biggest crowd was nine cats and a hedgehog. Yet some people know that homeless cats MUST look like shite and rags. Well, they don’t. On the contrary, the cats in my village keep neat, know how to use potty (yes, my flowerbeds) and wash after every meal.
So I now have just old adult male cats there, who are someones cats. And this one 7 months old kitten who is acting very strange. I don’t think I will ever catch this one. So every now and then I will go and fill up their house with food throughout this winter too. But I know there are no totally helpless cats nor babykittens around now. So I can call it a success for the homeless cats.
If all good tomorrow I shall start prepping for the peonies’ arrival. Dig the holes in proper pattern that I want and mix the soil with fertilizer and then when it’s all done I just wait. Once they arrive I only have to open the packages, plant the roots, cover with soil and voila!
This is it for now. As promised, at least one entry every week…. sort of 🙂
stay cool and hot,
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114 tough times
The storms and floods. Until now these kinds of things were sort of modest, or childsized. In Europe that is. Now not so much. I remember big events like this week in Spain happened literally never before. Or have I blocked it out?…. I remember last big storm with actual damages in Europe was perhaps in January 2009 when the winds were so strong and violent it took down hectares of forests in Sweden and Norway, and in other countries nearby too. The coastline was literally mowed down. It took some two if not three years to clean it all up.
The earthquake in Turkey in 2023 woke us up a bit because it’s generally not known there are minor quakes every now and then in this region.
Before that in 1997 the Wisla (or Vistula) river in Poland flood over and took kilometres of roads with her. And eleven people or so. That flood was scary for me personally because I was there when it was going on. I saw water take Cinquecento into the abyss right infront of me. Gone. Together with the elderly couple and road. Gone and never seen again. I was speechless for days. The odd good thing was that the cities were very clean after the waters calmed down. It took all loose items away including rubbishbins and rubbish aswell.
Now again. People missing, people died. In water or because of water. How horrible can it get? Oh, well, it is way worse in some parts of the world. The occupied lands. Let a troubled people in, get a reward of death. And all that because of drunkard called Churchill and evil hooknosed comrades who helped this drunkard out of bankruptcy and traded his personal debts into Palestine. Lease forever which turned into occupation forever. Pity. If you don’t recognise occupation, genocide then you have no business being here. It’s not war. There should be no israhell in the first place. Damn roaches.
So the storm now. I live by the sea, it’s behind my house roughly 200 metres to go. Yesterday I was doing my business in toilet and the weirdest thing I saw – waves in the toiletbowl!!! Hilarious and yet not! The winds were so strong making the sea stormy and waves high, obviously. So the sewerage system ended up having storm aswell. Went out to see the storm. Yes, lovely, my favourite time of the year. Yes, dangerous too. A few roofs, many a trees, things like that are the victims of this weather. Still many households have no electricity. Still we are much better than our friends in Valencia.
Stay cool and warm,
XOXOX
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113 dinner in Paris?
Autumn in Paris…. as opposed to spring in Paris? Anyone willing to catch up and stroll around the city and have a long weekend? Now? I am kinda blue or bleu now with the trees “naked” and birds all have gone south leaving us with angst that one can’t really put a finger on but it’s sure there. We know it will be yet another survival mode for the next five months or so. It will be cold, expensive, and bright white if we are lucky. And grossly dirty and gray if the weather keeps changing as if unable to make up its mind. And dark, damn dark. The moment you wake up for work or school if you are commoner and go to work and/ or school, then it’s still dark. The moment you get out of office or school to go home it’s ALREADY dark. In general the daylight comes at about 9 in the morning if lucky. And goes at about 15 or 16. Yes, when we are truly lucky we have SUN!!! One year I counted the days we did not have sunlight at all, I got 27 days straight. Darkness. And you wonder why we are the “leaders” in suicide. In addition to being poor we sit in the darkness for half of the year being unable to feed oneself or kids. Ah, and we are leaders in alcoholism aswell, together with Finland I guess. The only difference with Finland is that they can afford booze as their salaries are roughly four times higher. They joke about themselves being the happiest people in the world. You know why they are the happiest? Because the sad ones ended their lives through heavy drining or other handy means and they could not have been asked about happiness. That’s purely according to finns. I didn’t make that up. If you come to see true finn you will know instantly how happy they are :). If you get close enough.
So I am trying to cheer myself up with visualizing next trip to Paris or Nice or even London. Tho England now figured it will collect some cash for the “visa” from everyone because they realised the Brexit was one stupid decision and they are almost bankrupt. So every visitor, including one in transit, needs to pay for online declaration/ visa starting next April. They found millions laying about, true that. Bastards :). But even more reason to go now for some Xmas spirit!
Anyone cares to join in for weekend in Paris? Or even better, treat that poor chick from darkness to a lovely weekend in Paris? Haha!, I think I will do the highly popular “japanese old man rental” but with erm, middle aged ladies rental. You can choose from catalogue either you want cultural, sporty, etc lady and rent her for day or week. Stricly professional. In Japan you can rent a handyman even. Or a man who just listens you while you yap about any topic whatsoever…. I can list handywoman too, you know, to clean or cook or…. I will look up the pricelist for Japan. Europe would be a tad cheaper for sure. But you would have to pay logistics costs :)))
Anyways, so, if you want to rent me for a weekend in Paris, to listen you yapping, discuss arts, languages, travels, etc, you might want to book in advance:
La Renommee on 95th Saint Honore
or Bouillon Chartier on Montparnasse
I am all ears!
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112 TV or not TV
I bought one TV set some 20+ years ago. Whatever was “in” that time, it’s flat, it’s colour TV, it has remote control. My first very own TV. Until that I did not own anything really. I had clothes, most I had sewn myself. I had shoes. I had some bags. I was living true vagabond life so I had to keep travelling light. Travelling meant constantly searching for place to stay. In other words I was homeless more or less constantly. In other words I kept on moving from one place to another for many years. Once I counted I changed place for 4 or 5 times a year. Not that I wanted to change, I had to. For obvious reasons usually – how long can you stay in one room apartment where there live young couple and their German sheperd. Or literally a dorm that got blown up and you have no more stairs to get down out of the house…. well, you would not get up to the third floor either, right. So in a way the living situation was not ever going to settle unless I settle it myself.
Luckily I got the highest paid job while winning 33 of my male opponents and that moment my life changed. The job was technical, masculine really, I still am the only female in this industry in this particular bit of the industry. I love this job, I know all there is about this job. I would not change anything about it. And being woman in this biz I feel advantage everywhere. Not one man expects me to be any use in this biz and they are always in for surprise. Surprise in such level that they used to cut my tyres 3-4 times a week. If that’s not proof of a pathetic scared competitor then what is 🙂
So right after being in charge of this international biz for six months I was heading for bank. Or banks really. I needed their offers for mortgage. Got three offers, all totally weird comparing to each other.
One offered me a million because I had excellent traits including my amazing high income, masters degree and all these languages and stuff.
Second offered me 100000 because I was the lousiest client they had ever seen and I was single. They suggested me finding a man and come then to ask for that mortgage again. And I am not joking.
Third started to dicdate stupid stuff and I said to them: please don’t bother, you are embarassing yourself and your bank.
So, as in this part of the earth bank requires downpayment for real estate I booked the time to sign contracts in the two banks that agreed to deal with me. Monday morning I went to the second bank that offered me 100k, got it signed, and as per contract the funds popped on my account on Thursday, three days later. Thursday morning I went to that first bank to sign mortgage after I made downpayment of 100k that I had on my account.
So I got my very first own home and started to fill it up with furniture, kitchen and all sorts of machinery. Set all that up and then ordered the TV guy because THAT, my dear readers, was working with proper cables and connections that time! My TV cables ran under the hardboardfloors, the antenna was somewhere on top of the house and there was tree different service providers so you could not really connect that yourself without screwing something up. Anyways, it was the only thing I could not connect by myself like I connected all the washingmashine and lamps and owen. So the TV got connected, and voila!
It was a big year for me.
Bought my cottage
Got pregnant
Got divorced when I was 5 months in
Mom got stroke and was paralysed and unconcious
Bought apartment on ground floor so I could wheel in my Mom when she gets out
I got stroke and was paralysed when I was 8 months “in”
I gave birth in Jan
Mom died in March
Got fired the next day. Boss came all the way from Germany to tell me that I was not allowed to go around and give birth and abandoning my work duties 🙂
Buried my Mom
Moved in to my brand new apartment when I only had a bed and sofa and TV there. No need for all this huge space now because no wheelchairs coming in….
By the sea. By lovely park. I still live here.
All I wanted to tell you today was in fact that until 1985 or so we only had black and white TVs. And I was the remote even tho we had just two channels. And that’s why I only later in life found out that Harry Belafonte, my first ever love, was dark skinned. For me he was just a stunner. I remember watching in awe the movies that I did not understand much of but boy, he could sing!!! These eyes, these teeth, this voice!!! I first saw black person in 1993 in Germany. And no, we are not white priviledged at all coz we never attacked anyone, we never owned anyone and we pick our own potatoes. And we are poor as fuck.
Gotta run now!
Waiting for Sandman to come
Stay cool and hot
XOXOX
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111 to shop or not to shop
There is one thing in life that I dread more than anything. Yes, you have guessed it. It is not eating bugs, going into the small spaces like lifts, flying or spiders. It’s also not working hard or cleaning shit (actual shit even) up or doing anything nasty. It’s shopping. Well, that’s a bit confusing because shopping is nasty!!! I know most people, especially women, find it therapeautic. I certainly do not, unless it’s one of the two things: books or plants. I can spend a whole day in bookstore. Partly because my favourite bookstore has cafe and reading nooks in it. This particular bookstore has been voted the best in the world, and yes, we have it. People behave in bookstore as if they are in library. Silence or lovely classical music sure makes you want to cozy up with hot chocolate and leaf through some lovely books or, hold it!, read one! In this bookstore there is 4 floors, all have nice carpets on, and the youngsters actually sit on the floor and read. There is section for vinyls, some gifts, toys and even various games (like Monopoly or cards or other fancy games someone comes up with every now and then), DVDs, foreign language section too. One year I got almost all Christmas gifts from there, well, half of them because I usually make few gifts to everyone. Book is for sure. Then I could add some funny design stuff like earrings or funny socks that don’t match. Yes, I do love bookstores. That’s my weakness. The only one 🙂
However…. any other store is for quite obvious reason making me sick. Physically even. I get all itchy and dizzy. What’s with the damn lights and incredibly stupid techno music??? With the weird lights, stupid music and no windows I get sick very fast. The mix of these makes my central ear hammer bang viciously so I have thrown up few times in my life. Apparently it happens in planes too, and in cars if I am not driving. The true driver or pilot knows what I mean. I am just not meant for the passenger seat! I break my nails, I throw up, I rather walk for days instead of this torture. Some drivers are just so bad even thinking abou their nonexcistent skills makes me sick. Avoid at all costs!
So every now and then I go to grocery store, obviously. They now have made it also quiet, no techno, no disco, just mellow. No bright lights, you know, like proper establishment for normal people. I have discovered one chain that has made the isles extra wide. Not cramped up so that not even two trollies can pass each other, no. This store has the isles so wide we can fit 6 trollies side by side at once. That means you can actually feel and BE alone in this gigant store say on workday. Not a person on sight. I love it! I usually go isle by isle, and take what I need from each section. For instance I do not eat sweets so I have no point going to this isle. My biggest haul is from cheese, hams and dairy, taking third of my budget. We only have real foods here, fresh and nice. Real butter, real meats, and brace yourself, REAL MILK! We are probably the biggest consumers of milk and dairy in the world. Per capita, that is. We have some pretty lovely stuff there too, unique products. So come over, I shall show you what you have been missing and pretty sure you will not be able to live without those magic things later on.
So shopping for half week or sometimes full week takes place randomly. Whenever I have fridge totally empty…. I have to go. It can be in weekday, after working hours or sometimes also on weekends. Usually I avoid shops on weekends, because I dread people too. I was once on Sunday in shopping mall, and no, no, please, I am ready to pay substancial sum of money to NOT go.
So this Monday, today, I realise I am out of basics. Even milk was out. Going to this lovely huge shop, some may call it supermarket or hypermarket. Whatever you call it, it’s big, not corner shop. Took trolley for my stuff. Strolling with trolley. For cats, TP, potatoes, sushi, hams and then milk. I see one guy, sort of shorty, watching me since I got to the store. Do I know him? No clue. Does he know me? Could be. Well, or, I am just so pretty he can’t take his eyes off of me. Obviously that’s the case. I notice him by the catfood. And then again in every isle I go. His enthusiastic face when our eyes meet makes me look for exit. I am sure I don’t know him because I barely keep any human contact physical. I am extremely bad with names but I rarely forget a face. So he sort of stalking me in this supermarket. I am loading 6 milk packets to my trolley when he comes straight at me with his trolley looks me straight into my eyes and has the biggest smile from one ear to the other. He asks me something. But I don’t understand what he said, I was so soaked in my own thoughts I did not even get what language he was talking in. Not one thing I recognised. I vaguely smiled and said “sorry, what?”. He repeated again and at the same time smiling wide at me the loudest, longest and most violent smelling fart came out of him. I was stunned. He repeated his question for the third time and acted as if nothing happened. I was in shock staring at him in horror. I still didn’t get what he said. I mean, I speak seven languages and that didn’t sound even like language. He was beaming at me and for a moment there I thought I am in “candid camera” being filmed right this moment. You know in the beginning of television they made such shows where they hid the camera and fooled some people to get some funny reactions out of them. Like the cash on floor being pulled by transparent thread…. things like that. Anyways, I could not breathe cos this stink that came out of him could kill! So for the lack of better solution I just nodded and left the milk section and hurried away laughing. I tried to speed up because he was slowly following me with his beaming smile. What kind of slow zomby attack was that now….
In beer and wine section I saw him again. People, he was with some other man waving hands and mouthing somehting. Oh, boy, they were deaf. Ofcourse! But that stink!
Stay cool and warm
XOXOX
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110 autumn/ keeping my word vol 2
Another run, another year coming to an end. With all the crops ready it sure has it’s charm. Pumpkins, apples, pears, my favourites mushrooms, everything for hearty dinner right from your own garden! When I was younger I had a strange urge to go to my island every autumn. I loved the smell of autumn, mix of mushrooms, pinetrees, rain, expectation and calm. Best reminder that we coming closer to the loooong bedtime are the colourful leaves and not yet freezing cold weather. And the fact that you have to dig out your wintergear again, in my end of the world that means pullovers, boots, hard core snowpants and jackets, hats and gloves. Or mittens. You sure are clever if you do like me – set alarm clock ten minutes earlier in order to get all the clothes on on time and not to run late to work (if you are the poor one working).
Going to island to find the peaceful mind. Put on warm clothes, had a stroll in my forests of childhood enjoying the fact that it had not changed over twenty or thirty years. All intact, each stone, each boulder, even each tree that I knew by heart. Imagine. Some of the trees looked new – those were the ones that were tiny when I was tiny. Now they have grown. For my luck the neighbourhood around my childhoodhome is national forest, not private. So no cutting trees there! All in all it really is exactly like it was before I left the island some thirty years back. Still is. I thought I did get over this painful longing but I was wrong. For some years I just have been too busy to go to island. It takes five hours one way. So if I go I would need to stay for a weekend or at least night or two. This is totally ok but when you go for your secret charging point you don’t really want to see people. No strangers, no own people. I love going incognito but when I am on ferry people already know I am coming home 🙂 coz someone has recognised me and the word travels faster than wind! The truth is I set my alarm clock a whole thirty minutes earlier in winter than in summer. You see, the snow that we can face here is pretty much always slowing us down. Either to enjoy or being pissed off and shoveling it while trying to get your car out of it ;). Plus not every driver is competent driving in winter with all of its pleasures, snow, black ice, zero visibility, no clue of what car does when you drive on ice. I, ofcourse, am pro 😉 when it comes to driving. My favourite is drifting on ice but you can only do it when nobody is around. Or, make a field for this exciting adventure yourself. We used to have farmfield for potatoes which we can now flood over with water in winter, just for this fun activity. Tho we are lazy as we have this sort of excitement all the time in regular traffic 🙂 and nobody would pay for such fun.
Now, who would ever expect anyone saying it, but I am hoping for pretty and harsh winter so we will have iceroad to the island. Did I tell you the Top Gear was here to cross the longest iceroad in Europe but that year back then it didn’t work out because it was too mild winter. So instead they went to neighbours…. all the way up to Santas place in Lapland.
So now prepping for winter already. Closing the cottage, cleaning up the garden. I had two of the four toads that live in my cottage moving in, left the door open for them. Yes, I am perfect host among the other things:).
Also prepping for Christmas, yes, the earlier you start the smoother it will be. I will have special production of macrons for this season, 18 lovely macrons in a black tin box with golden trimmings. Now thinking of what flavours I will do them, probably will keep it modest, maybe maximum some 6 different colours and flavours so I will not go nuts. Would be nice to get some christmassy flavours for the first time too. Thinking of cinnamon-apple for instance. And old favourites orange and lemon, some nuts, some pear. Will do the list to not forget all my grand ideas!
So, now I am going to do my winter gear check. Boots to be cleaned and sprayed with protection, coats and jackets, see if the hats are clean and if gloves have pair still. On Sunday will start the day with 12 centimetres high pile of pancakes, comedy show and a lovely mug of Colombian coffee. Just coffee, no addins you naughty reader thought of :). Then a stroll in my garden, maybe do some last minute planting of tulips and such, and hopefully enjoy some of the last rays of sunshine.
Stay hot and cool!
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109 I am keeping my promise vol 1
I am keeping my promise to write weekly even if I fell ill suddenly. Ofcourse on Friday evening. As always. You know just in case it’s serious then you have to go to emergency room not your regular doc. It’s a no brainer – important health things always start on weekend or at night of the workweek. To keep it on edge, your life that is, to keep you living on the edge. As apparently your life is way too boring otherwise. So enjoy the sudden forced vacation. Make the best of this. Read a good book that you have put off for, again, year or two, you lazy arse!
I could only sleep sitting up. How annoying is that!?! The moment I leaned too much someone (I swear it’s someone!!!) started to tickle my throat and I coughed so hard I could feel my brains and eyes and lungs coming out. Every bit of my upper body wanted to leave me and was actively showing it. I could not breathe in with this violent coughing so once I got it someway under control I was totally exhausted and pretty close to fainting. I was sitting straight up, face wet, tissuepapers everywhere as I tried to not “spray” my mucus and batsillus all over my bedroom, I was shaking from this attack thinking damn, this is not how I am going down! Coughing uncontrollably was never my choice for death. I am more like laughing to death, that’s what I have booked.
Made another round of mushroom sauce from the “coma” mushrooms growing in my backyard. Lovely! Just incredible! The only minus with these is one can not drink alcohol when eating exactly these particular mushrooms. I read it in several languages and I refrained from testing the possible outcomes myself. To be honest it was a struggle because I love one beer for my dinner (unless I make fish, then I’ll have wine), usually even AS a dinner. The last is especially valid if I run late as I don’t like to eat after 6 or 7 in the evening. That is valid for cold seasons. In summer I can eat when it’s light outside, so up to midnight if I have company. When alone I still have just beer or wine as dinner. Yes, bubbly too every now and then. Nothing beats good cava, prosecco or sparkling rose!
I was chilling in the backyard one day, reading about orcs invasion to Finland in 1700s. Nice day, out on a sunbed, naked, taking last drops of the sunshine we have before roughly six months of darkness coming our way to enjoy…. Depressing piece, but truth as our own stories of these swamp-people invading our country, I recognised many a scenes in this book. Reading my book when suddenly I felt someone watching me and immediately felt someone snifing my elbow. For a moment I thought someone is pranking me but I have perfect hearing (I can hear you charging your phone, yes, I am not normal, we have established that many moons ago) and I did not hear any footsteps on gras. Thousands of thoughts in a millisecond in my head, I don’t even turn my head yet and from the corner of my right eye I see it’s animal. Big one, not cat. Sudden heatburst goes instantly throughout my body, instantly sweating because I obviously don’t know the “guest”. Next second I turn and I see very lovely, clean and healthy young fox! He or she came to have lunch, eating away the catfood that I put out for the homeless cats in my neighbourhood. I have seen the evidence in my field because they do not cover their shite, so in my mind I sort of knew it’s a fox before I saw him or her. Do we use “it” for animals we don’t know the sex of? It was a very lovely lucious thing, strong, certainly well-fed :). My neighbours caught it on camera while it was eating away the pears in their garden. I bet it eats leftover pizzas too as it’s been proven half of people do not eat the edges of pizzas where is no topping. I can bet those edges don’t go to bin at neighbours pizzaplace or, if they go, it serves like buffet table for the fox as it’s an open air pizzeria. And I knew there is fox coming to my place because I know shit. Literally. I saw some ten piles of shit of fox before I saw the fox. There are particular looks for each animals shit. For your future reference, as you might need it, foxes’ shit is full of berry seeds, berries themselves, and it’s pretty dark brown and you can see some hair in it that is probably from mice or rats or bigger meals like rabbits. I am pretty good in shit 🙂 being a wild cat myself as I spent most of my days in forests and seasides since I was five years old. So foxy fox was right next to me and as it looked very healthy with its shiny coat and clean unsuspecting face I was not much worried, you know, of rabies or anything. I have seen rabies too, not a nice site! So for a moment we stared at eachother, then it decided to be scared, jumped with all fours and magically turned 180 degrees while airborne and took off. Well, maybe next time we will get acquainted then.
So reading away I tried once more but then sun gave up on us and I had to get dressed. The weather is so confusing now I call it PMS weather – it’s nasty and can’t decide what to do. Sudden turn of the weather meant I had to do something useful in the house or in the garden. I chose planting hydrangeas. Yes, I am good like that. Excellent gardener, excellent designer. I made good progress in the garden that day. With me the problem is if I have choice, I choose doing fuckall. I always choose doing fuckall in summer or in good weather because it’s sacred here. We go months without seeing sun, barely any daylight at all, it’s just constant fog or gray or just zero to enjoy. Soon will be snow but that’s fun just for awhile, until you have to dig your car out of the metre high snowdrift. Or, even worse, some idiot crashes into you on the icy road. The heating bill does not contribute to happyness either. And Finland has been voted the happiest country on earth for six years in the row…. go figure. I wonder if they are aware that they are happy. I doubt it big time.
In addition to planting the hydrangeas I started to clean up the garden for winter. Dragged the tomatoes out to compost, washed the pots they were in. Then cleared the lavender flowerbeds off weed, mainly nettle, now it looks like there is a proper lady living in the house, not witch. Tho I have black cats there that i feed :). And I am redhead and a tad crazy so I fit the bill perfectly 🙂
In spring I will open part of my cottage for accomodation. Rustic, even primitive, in the middle of nature, basic stuff for people loving simple things. So now prepping for it already. Will be some investments, some building, some cleaning, some designing. Over the winter I will prepare all the textiles I need, I sew part of them from scratch. Then I will have to prepare the online site for bookings, etc. Photomaterials, videos, some I already have. It will all take time as I am not professional and I still have two jobs that I do every now and then :). 24 hours seems too short for a day. So I set achiveable goals to not get pissed off on myself….
Off to take a walk with mr Sandman now,
stay warm and cool
XOXOX
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108 yes, I’m sorry
Again, I must apologise for this long gap in my mighty blog.
First things first. I went to my house/ cottage and hold and behold! there they were, muschrooms! Right on my lawn. Right the same way as every year with the exeption of me being on time to pick them. They are called Coprinus comatus. Right so, did I say “comatus” as in coma??? Funny isn’t it! Let me get straight to this – I have never tasted better mushroom sauce in my life! And I made it! The best part is I am still alive. That, in fact, means, that those mushrooms indeed were edible :). I know some mushrooms we have here, and we have a lot. Most common ones are not to be seared on pan just like that “coma” mushrooms or boletus. Instead most are for marinating for winter. I love those too but I don’t marinate them myself. It’s pretty exhausting work to clean them up in the first place as you always bring some spruce or pine needles or even spiders and other creepy crawlers in with the mushrooms. Luckily we have some enthusiasts scavengers that pick the mushrooms for some fair money so you in fact can order what you want and they will go foraging. Or, the other way around the foragers go to forest, clean stuff up and in the morning advertise in Facebook. I bought some sea salmon like that, or other fish some time ago. Real salmon, real fats, real taste, not the orange-pinkish thing they grow in farms. Let me tell you: once you try real fish, wild one, you will never like the farmed ones. Yes, that’s the sad reality of being in small country with cleanest nature :), we get spoiled early on. I am pretty sure I have written about our foods earlier too, but repeating is the key to success, right. In addition to clean (I mean as clean as our seas are…. that’s another question with not the best real answer….) real fish we also eat real butter, real meats, and more and more people now refuse bying the cage-kept chickens eggs. Wheat and other crops are local and one of the best things people say we have is black bread. It’s pretty commong around here, extremely tasty but probably we have inborn taste for it. Maybe for foreigners it is strange as our meat in jelly :). Whenever someone goes for longer period to live in foreign country there are the unwritten rules for everyone visiting a fellow countrypeople. One must take black bread, our herb liquor and canned sardines or herring with you as a gift. Let me tell you the bread and the herring tastest exquisite in London or Paris after tons of croissants and beans! I have witnessed half a kilo loaf disappear within half an hour!!!
So for now on I will keep you updated better. I promise. I have some notes that I need to write down now and stop embarassing myself with this lazyness…. or whatever it’s called.
I shall try to make a chapter every week, even if it’s short and maybe not much of an interesting topic or outcome.
Stay tuned!
XOXOX
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107 I’m coming!
Just kidding. Coming or going. Doesn’t matter. It’s all rotating around. Ain’t nothing interesting going on. Thought I’d do two parts of this meditational writing so I would have something to post later on and I would not be “dissapearing” for too long like, again, it happened now. My apologies for that. I was well aware of dumping my readers yet I had nothing to say nor write. I did some TikToks, some actual work, some dreaming and some planning. Planning is based on hypothetical win of few million Euros. Or a few hundred thousands, does not really matter as long as it’s six digits or more. More taxes, more desperate men commiting suicide, more fatherless children. It’s also rotating. Forever and ever. Exhausted. And, fearing of the upcoming autumn and winter. Rowan is crazy this year, every tiniest tree is full of berries witch, by our experienced witches, means that the winter will be extremely cold. Halleluja. That’s what’s missing in life of poor people. Poorest in Europe. Not visible when you look at the salaries. But, when you are a tad educated, you look at purchase power. And then you see we are the poorest fuckers in Europe. Which I have been telling for ten years already but who cares….
Have been doing some more singing now. As I usually prep dinner with singing for 30 minutes or an hour I now do other things when singing. To keep my voice “on the go”. Nothing special, just my favourites like Bruce Springsteen, Richie Sambora, AC/DC, Metallica. These kinds of magicians. I can’t do that much because I start to cry. Who can sing The River without crying??? Or Tougher than the rest??? I can’t. I am pussy. Oh fuck, I am again crying! Tried to complete the Harlem rain. Guess what? I could not finish it. Must be full moon or something. I am not usually such a vuzz. Is that even a word…. My singing means I do a-capella. I can’t play guitar or ukulele or anything because of my secret little thing with my hands and some other bits…. My hands are falling apart and I can barely write or prep food. I could do some piano but my two pianos are both just dusting away merrily. Yes, I have autoimmune disease that comes and goes in violent waves that is not killing me physically but surely killing me mentally. Oh, and I am now again limping because of it. Yes, it’s on my feet too and I am now struggeling walking. It’s coming and going means I usually don’t have it visible. But now I have had it visible for some half year or so. The for this shitty thingy is is stress as for most autoimmune diseases. And boy, stress is the only thing I have!!! The outcome of this wave of disease is my hands and fingers are popping into halves and bleeding. They grow up together very slowly. In fact I have two fingers broken and bleeding just as I write this. In addition to fingers my feet are affected aswell. I wrote about it many posts ago but now it has become constant feature again. I can cure it only by being in zen all the time, or by relocating to Italy, France or Greece. Or some other country with sunshine and salty seawater. Here I don’t have much
I was on island some week ago…. yes, My hometown started to play in my head as a backround again as I was thinking back on that trip just now. Instead of Buick I have Moskvitch and instead of dad I have my mom in this song. I am cursed with something now. I can’t stop the waterworks. Who is thinking of me?
I just act like I don’t remeber, Mary pretends she don’t care.
Harlem rain by Richie Sambora started to play in my list (something I accidentally created without any understanding and now it pops out every now and then). As a huge music lover and somewhat entertainer I recognise every song I ever liked from the first note. However, I can sing or hum it, and maybe say the artists name, but not always. That is because I had stroke some 18 years back and I learned to talk-walk again. So apologise in advance for that too. So you will not have high expectations.
I shall share this for now so you can get exited of the upcoming post. I will try to keep myself on the line with this now. I did punish myself already for being lazy, believe me. I only have one beer every evening as a dinner. It’s both blessing and a curse 🙂
Stay hot and cool
write to me themaddesthattereverseen@gmail.com
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106 heatwave
I choose to love you in silence
for in silence I find no rejection
I choose to love you in loneliness
for in loneliness no one owns you but me
I choose adore you from a distance
for distance will shield me from pain
I choose to kiss you in the wind
for the wind is gentler than my lips
I choose to hold you in my dreams
for in my dreams you have no end
Thats shortly about today 🙂
It’s so hot now I just sit and sweat. During day some +30C, now it’s almost ten in the evening and thermometre shows 22C. I sit and sweat. No wind. Had beer and it just pouring out of me. Ladies, you know what part of female body sweats if the bra size is 38G. Yes, under boobs. For a moment there I thought some bug is crawling on my belly but no!! It’s sweat running down!! Unbelievable. I haven’t even moved and I sweat. Last I sweat like that in delivery room. And before that when I was 13 and running long distance competition fighting for my country. Sweating is nasty. I need cold shower. Or just lay down on stonefloor. It’s pretty difficult to sleep in this heat and it runs you down in few days. I could not take it anymore today. Or, in fact, my body could not take it anymore. Came home at about noon, did my work in computer and had lunch and then my eyes! I just could not keep them open anymore. I suspect it’s either from the constant “non-sleeping” at nights or I have some sort of insomnia. I have had this weird “insomnia” attack before several times. It’s not insomnia, it’s weird. Let me explain.
For instance one of the times IT attacked me in the middle of the day. I looked up the shop that I needed (today I don’t remember what it was, but then I needed to get to one particular shop that only excisted in one particular place) opens at 10 in the mo. No, I avoid shops at all costs but this time I wanted to go early as in hopes that there are not so many people around. So. I wake up, have my slow morning, get dressed and drive some 15 minutes to that shopping centre. Huge parking lot, free parking (good ol’ times). Imagine, I barely made it to that parking lot. I left house, sat into my car and thought weird, my body is more exhausted than ever yet I just woke up. I drive, barely able to keep my eyes open. I am pretty confused by that time as this was the first time this weird thing happened to me. I sit up straight in my seat and open all windows to stay awake. Put on some loud music. I make it to the parking lot and that’s when it really hit me. I could no longer move nor keep my eyes open. No, there was no pain. My eyes just closed to sleep. I locked cardoors, opened windows so that I would have air, switched off engine (because here we have 2 minutes rule for parked cars) and let my seat down. Let me tell you! I was fast asleep within 20 seconds. It was 10.15 when I parked the car. I woke up without ever moving at about 16 in the early evening. Just slept whole work day in parking lot. Whole day. Without moving slightest. I don’t know what IT is.
Another attack of IT was in the highway. Going 120km/ h I suddenly felt I can not do it one second longer. No, we have no emergency stops, no places to pull over. But I had to stop. I kicked on the blinking emergency lights, pulled over to side as far as possible from the lane and the moment I stopped, it seemed, I was already sleeping. I slept there on the side of highway for three hours. Again, no moving, nothing. I probably looked like dead person. Luckily nordics don’t give a damn so nobody bothered me. I woke up and continued as if nothing happened.
It has happened at work too. This is tough one because I work at extremely dangerous places with heavy mashinery around me at all times. Let me tell you, you can not sleep standing under cranes or when berthing ship is next to you :). At work I have only one option. To go to car or to toilet, put alarm on 20 minutes and pray I wake up when the alarm goes off. Before that I have to find someone who can take over for 30 minutes or so and that’s another thing that usually is not possible. Luckily all my workmates are men and more or less decent ones so when I say I need to go they usually nod and take over.
Today it happened again. Luckily I was on the way home anyways. I can’t do anything to fight it, nothing works. I just fall asleep when I walk or sit. It must be something medical. I have been sleeping in cars on roadside, parking lots, airport, parks, beach. Today I made it home and slept from 14 to 19, again without moving a bone. It’s a weird thing.
Anyways. Off to cottage now. Driving at night is my favourite as nobody on the roads. Will be one night there and then off to beach in one of the famous Kurorts we have. One of which VIP from St. Petersburg visited eagerly in 1800-1900s.
Stay cool and hot,
XOXOX
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The Mad Hatter 