....when it feels like this.No more words necessary on this one!
Friday, January 31, 2014
Monday, January 27, 2014
New Family Members Arrive
I have always thought that a house with animals in it is a happy place to be. Back when we lived in England we several times adopted dogs from rescue homes and regularly had a house full of cats. The children loved them all. 
When we left the UK, we had only one cat with us, but I assumed we would adopt some more pets at some point and get back to "normal". However, it turned out that my new husband had no time for animals and would not agree to any at all. So, apart from Caroline, (our lovely cat), we spent the next four years in a house devoid of animals. To the rest of us, it just felt wrong. Now though, we are free again to bring some furry friends back into the house. Following the arrival of our skinny pigs last year we have now also been joined by two beautiful little kittens from a farm in Pitkäjärvi.
The children were so excited to meet them yesterday that they didn't want to go to bed. They insisted that they needed to "look after" the cats, and were up this morning extra early to do the same thing. Luckily the kittens don't seem to be shy at all and seem to be very happy to be surrounded by little people offering them string to chase.
We are still thinking of names for the new arrivals. Minttu's suggestion is "kissa" - (cat in Finnish) which I suppose is functional if nothing else!Now we are just waiting for our dog to arrive from Romania and then the family will start to feel right again.
In the meantime we will get on with enjoying our new kittens, who are now taking a well-earned rest before what will no doubt be another session of intense playing, chasing and being "looked after." Exhausting work, being a kitten.
This Kitchen
This kitchen, in the picture, is the place I have some of my happiest childhood memories. And they are because of the two other people in the photo, my aunt Salme and my cousin Sari.
Being brought up in the UK, other than my parents, I had no family around me as I grew up - so our yearly summer holidays in Lumijoki were the only time I got to spend with people I was related to. You can probably imagine that Lumijoki (a farming community of 2000 near Oulu), could not be more different from the centre of London where I lived the rest of the time.
But even though I was only in Lumijoki for the summer holidays, my strongest memories of growing up are not of being in London, but running around in the forest with my cousins. They used to laugh at my long white school socks, and I used to wonder why everyone wasn't wearing them. We didn't always understand everything the other was saying, but we got along nevertheless.
Sari and I used to compete in our own version of the Olympics, (including the long jump into the sandpit and various throwing events, usually involving pine cones). However, even though I was a sporty child, she still used to beat me in every single event.
As an only child, I always used to wish I could live in Salme's house with my five cousins. There was always something going on and people in every room. I would walk into the house early each morning and ask for Salme to cook pancakes, which she invariably did. They have never tasted as good anywhere else. This kitchen is also the place I tasted mushrooms for the first time, after Sari and I had picked them in the forest. We ate fresh honey which Salme had collected from her own bees in the garden. Things like that didn't happen in London, at least not in the block of flats where I lived.
In most senses life is all about change. Nothing is permanent. Even things that we think are certain often turn out not to be after all. Experiences turn into memories, relationships end, even when we might not want them to - and people move on.
But in this case, thirty years on, I am lucky enough to still be able to visit one of my most treasured places in the world. That hasn't changed much at all. This kitchen of happy memories is still there, and for now at least, when I make my monthly trips to see my Mum in Lumijoki, I can still visit it.
Talking to my Dad, before he died, reminded me that all we really have at the end is the memories we have collected during a lifetime. I guess the best we can do is to make as many good ones as we can. And this kitchen in Lumijoki will always be remembered as the setting for many of mine.
Being brought up in the UK, other than my parents, I had no family around me as I grew up - so our yearly summer holidays in Lumijoki were the only time I got to spend with people I was related to. You can probably imagine that Lumijoki (a farming community of 2000 near Oulu), could not be more different from the centre of London where I lived the rest of the time. But even though I was only in Lumijoki for the summer holidays, my strongest memories of growing up are not of being in London, but running around in the forest with my cousins. They used to laugh at my long white school socks, and I used to wonder why everyone wasn't wearing them. We didn't always understand everything the other was saying, but we got along nevertheless.
Sari and I used to compete in our own version of the Olympics, (including the long jump into the sandpit and various throwing events, usually involving pine cones). However, even though I was a sporty child, she still used to beat me in every single event.
As an only child, I always used to wish I could live in Salme's house with my five cousins. There was always something going on and people in every room. I would walk into the house early each morning and ask for Salme to cook pancakes, which she invariably did. They have never tasted as good anywhere else. This kitchen is also the place I tasted mushrooms for the first time, after Sari and I had picked them in the forest. We ate fresh honey which Salme had collected from her own bees in the garden. Things like that didn't happen in London, at least not in the block of flats where I lived.
In most senses life is all about change. Nothing is permanent. Even things that we think are certain often turn out not to be after all. Experiences turn into memories, relationships end, even when we might not want them to - and people move on.
But in this case, thirty years on, I am lucky enough to still be able to visit one of my most treasured places in the world. That hasn't changed much at all. This kitchen of happy memories is still there, and for now at least, when I make my monthly trips to see my Mum in Lumijoki, I can still visit it.
Talking to my Dad, before he died, reminded me that all we really have at the end is the memories we have collected during a lifetime. I guess the best we can do is to make as many good ones as we can. And this kitchen in Lumijoki will always be remembered as the setting for many of mine.
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