The Life and Travels of Mrs Suvi

Once again, I found myself abandoning my blog for other exciting activities. I did say that I want to savour summer for all it’s worth but it’s been months since summer ended here!! I’m not sure what I’ve been doing with the time I used to use for blogging, as I certainly haven’t had any free time whatsoever.

I’m not sure if anyone is even reading this blog any more but here’s a recap on what’s been going on since my last Weekly Favourites post in May.

We did manage to get the boat into the water in June and back up again (!!) in September. I must say it’s a whole lot of fuss for a few silly months of sailing. I’m not sure I’m really up to it anymore. When you combine the work our house needs with all the boat maintenance it feels a bit too much at times! Especially since I’m a very active person and like to do lots of other stuff too.

In July I was on holiday and we went sailing. No surprise there. These were lovely trips but it could have been warmer. For those of you sailing-oriented people, our first trip was with my BIL to Espoo-EPSNääs-Elisaari-Merivalkama-Sommaröstrand-Hanko-Dirhami (Estonia)-Lohusalu (Estonia)-Haven Kakumäe (Estonia)-Espoo. Our second trip was with our daughter and her boyfriend to Espoo-Porkala Marin-Elisaari-Merivalkama-Inkoo-Espoo. The only new places we visited were Haven Kakumäe in Tallinn, EPSNääs and Inkoo.

Lucky for me, hubby agreed to take me on a road trip to Tartu, Riga and Tallinn for a few days when our son was at camp for a week. I’ve been wanting to go on a road trip for ages but sailing seems to always be the first choice. Unfortunately hubby got a bout of food poisoning, to the holiday really wasn’t very enjoyable for him and getting back home was an ordeal.

In September I went to Tallinn again, first with a girlfriend for a weekend break and then on a day trip with my old colleagues. I still haven’t managed to visit the new museum Fotografiska but hope to do so in October. Technically I did visit it but I haven’t seen any of the exhibits as the queue for the coffee was so long that after waiting for that for ages, there was no time to actually go into the museum!!

Our son had his confirmation party in September which was a lovely albeit rainy day. The confirmation was at the Olari Church and the actual party at Villa Pentry. They have a cosy upstairs where we had our daughter’s party too. In Finland confirmation is a rite of passage, an important life event. Our son was so handsome in his suit and such a good host to all his guests, mingling and chatting with everyone! I can’t believe I’ve managed to raise such great kids.

Since May, I’ve read quite a few books. My goal for this year was 30 books but as I already achieved it, I raised the goal to 40. Now I’m at 36 books. What has been disappointing is that most of the books I’ve read since May have been three star reads (for me). I have been reading books that have been hyped on social media, so maybe that is where I’m going wrong and should start to look elsewhere. I’ve also read some books in Finnish (which I haven’t done for years) as I decided I wanted to read something by Finnish authors too. I must say that so far, most of these Finnish books haven’t been anything to get excited about, the style of writing seems so weird to me.

My recommendations are Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed (entertaining and moving) by Lori Gottlieb and When the Doves Disappeared (this one I read in Finnish and loved. But then, I am fascinated with Estonia’s Nazi/Soviet history) by Sofi Oksanen.

 

October has started beautifully as the leaves have turned vibrant colors and even a little rain hasn’t managed to dampen my spirits. However, our dishwasher broke which is stressing me out as no-one seems to have time to go and buy a new one. I’ve started knitting again and have really been enjoying the relaxing effect of it. I even started on my first hat. Let’s see how it turns out, as I’m not exactly impressed with how it looks so far, LOL.

My goddaughter and I decided to celebrate Halloween early and decorate for that, so now my house is looking very cheery with all the cute Halloween stuff we put around. In addition, we baked all of these goodies. Looking back, we should have picked one instead of three dishes as we were slaving away in the kitchen for hours!

Speaking of Halloween, I’ve been thinking maybe I should start growing pumpkins. You see, a few weeks back we visited the only (known to me) pumpkin patch in Southern Finland and they ran out of pumpkins in one day! So there must be a market there. Who knows what the future brings….

How has October treated you so far?

xx