Village People

Only few days to Christmas, so high time to remember the last big gathering together in our village. It was June and the event Open Villages.

Like all big events we had the guardians, August and Cecilia in the picture taken in front of the main house year 1904. There weren't so many visitors but if I can count our reliable nice neighbours who came twice, we got 15 guests! And we did not count ourselves...

We decided to take part in the Open Villages -event by opening our farm, showing the traditional way to renovate and offer vegetarian lunch & café.

Soup and Salvation!

The visitors got a ready dose of information - about materials and technics, hints and inspiration.

The big living-room could be presented as "a before" example...

And veranda as "after"...

In the laundry-sauna cottage you could mostly see the former stages and surfaces that will be then hidden behind paper and panelling.

I have already for some time wanted to arrange something during the winter season, too. A glögg-afternoon, X-mas decoration work-shop? Grand-mother Anita has told us how in the old days people of our village used visit each other especially during the Christmas days, today here, tomorrow at the neighbours - a nice tradition to take up again..?

Sweet Days of Hush

Memories and thoughts along this autumn...

Some days are just like the door of our fridge!

Does your door look like ours?

And then you need just a small reminder...

that there is not rush...

but hush.

And walking in the garden makes the days seem endless in the same way as...

I could just sit and watch the new family members, the kittens Trissa and Elissi when they start their gymnastics after the breakfast table - I have trained them well, haven't I?

And Isak 6 years learnt how to write before he learnt to read.

Very useful scill now that we are waiting for the Christmas...

so Santa, here it comes!

But first some work!

The windows are getting frames one after another.

Then the pleasure! A day-trip to Turku - and with only a short to-do-list...

The river Aura and the cathedral on a crispy autumn day

Can you guess what are we about to do? 

Our new favourite Osteria Ovo 

But no pictures of the main course - they just vanished!

If I have learned something this autumn,
it is to have less rush and more hush,
shorter to-dos and longer to-bes.

The Charm of December Days

When we manage to get out despite of the weather the colours and soft light feel comforting.

Over the Pellas fields into the home forest and back home with some greens in the basket.

Time before Christmas is filled with traditions - for me the 1st Advent is one.

To sing Hoosianna in our lovely medieval church. 

And baking the ginger-bread house... I love the ginger bread models. Many are made at my childhood village Hyyriä in Vähäkyrö, Ostrobothnia where they still have the knowlegde of the old craftmen. This years novelty, The Iron Lady, Eiffel Tower is though a memory from Paris.

...even if I manage to forget at least one plate in the oven every year... They are then called the perfum gingers, stored in an open jar on the top of the kitchen shelf...

Last Sunday it was our independence day which I began in church and then followed the ceremony outside by the graves of those died in the 2nd World War. 

Korppoo men.

It did taste nice to have some glögg and ginger breads back inside - and then home for the church coffee, a good black cup in the Sunday morning.

Another weekend with lovely moments ahead of us. Lucia, the girl with the light will visit our school already today, better remember my hankies... This is Christmas at its best to me, moments, silence, the near ones, sharing.