Waiting for Godot...

Somehow the summer holiday season sort of crept upon me and I just wasn’t prepared. Spent almost the whole July back home in Finland, and most of the time there was wasted on waiting for something. First, my luggage got stuck somewhere (note to myself: avoid connecting flights at all costs) and it took it five days to reach me. Let me tell ya, it’s not nice to first spend hours and hours thinking of your whole summer elegance, choosing shoes and outfits and just cramming them into your suitcase – and then it stays behind for a good part of your stay. Other parts of the waiting game was to have a car serviced and one of its warning lights turned off. Couldn’t quite drive around as much as I would have wanted, so most of the time was spent waiting. Waiting for the weather to become sunnier and warmer so that one could go swimming or inline skating, waiting for Harry Potter releases, just killing time the best possible way I know: bought a cross-stitch kit in advance and had it delivered directly to Finland, and there it was waiting when I arrived. Here’s the darn sunflower thing I left behind, photo taken just before I left and took the flight up north,


then a photo of the kit, taken only 8 hours after I'd landed in Helsinki.



And here's the whole cross stitch project finished. Too bad I forgot to take a photo of mummy's cat who likes to take a nap in an outdoor storage room - it's almost similar to the situation pictured here. (Kit: Vervaco's Garden Shed)



I only made one prolonged weekend trip, visited Mikkeli area in Eastern Finland. One of the attractions there is Kenkävero, an old vicarage turned into an art and crafts center. There’s a lovely old fashioned cafeteria in one of the buildings (ok, I confess, I did buy some yarn and other things but let me introduce them a bit later on).











Our accomodation was provided by Satulinna where I found these lovely dark red lilies. Aren't they gorgeous?

While their sheep remained a bit suspicious and just wouldn't let me touch them, no matter how hard I tried to convince them I was harmless.




I guess the highlights of this holiday were, once again, staying at my primitive summer cottage, that round trip around Mikkeli and knitting meetings in Tampere. Not that I did too much knitting, I was on a schedule to get that cross stitch project out of my hands so that it could be finished and framed and ready to be given to mummy as a Christmas present. Funnily enough, I made her another thing too and what a great timing: just as I’d finished knitting an Icelandic Hyrna shawl, it was put into good use. One of the members of Tampere knitting group was invited to a wedding, and as often is the case, she had plenty of shawls in other colours but not quite the gray shade she’d set her heart on. Jatta has promised to send me photos of her and Hyrna in action, so I’ll be back later to add them.

In the meantime, here’s list of the weirdest google searches which have brought people to this *a-hem, a-hem* knitting blog. Yes, I know that there hasn’t been much knitting around lately, but there’s a reason behind that fact. I will be back in a while, hoping to show some items finished earlier but till then, enjoy these:

- fancy useless anteeks [anteeks is ’sorry’ in Finnish]
- mari perankoski [a Finnish actress] naked
- convertible cars’ meeting 2007
- ideas for viking costume making(dull)
- closest airport to kiire [rush / hurry] in japan ?
- rollaattori [walking aide] city guide
- puffy sleeves
- stiff legs
- unbearable towards everybody
- let’s rent a castle in Italy
- paintings with angel, horses and boys from finland
- knitting Tampere [my home town where I spent most of this summer holiday] pregnancy