A Year of Reading – 2023

26.12.20231.1.2024 MarilkaLeave a comment

Last time I read this many books in one year I was probably in my teens, if even that. When I was studying in the Uni, I had little energy to read anything beyond the exam books (but of course I did, a dozen books a year, perhaps). When the kids were little, I had little time for myself, between the fulltilme job and family, and what time I did have, was late at night when I was exhausted. Still, I did read maybe that dozen books a year (disregarding all the kids’ books I read to them). Gradually, when they grew older, I started to have more time for reading and I think some sort of average was 35 books per year, for a long time.

Kids are all adults and living their own lives now. We have our dogs, we have our routines, we have our together time, but I seem to find more and more time to read. Last year it was 82 books (30 948 pages), year before that 63 books (24 563 pages), while the year before that was right at the average of 35 books. This year I have read 102 books, a total of 39 304 pages, books ranging from 56 to 868 pages long, with an average book length of 385 pages. There’s still almost a week left of the year. I’ll surely finish at least my current Kindle read by then, A Fate of Flame by Tessonja Odette (49% read currently), potentially even another one. I doubt I’ll reach 40 000 pages, though.

Let’s take a look back on my reading year, with Goodreads’ Year in Books as our guide, and see some highlights and my book picks, month by month. A little bit of insight and maybe even reading tips to the likeminded.

January

The pick: The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches (Sangu Mandanna)
A fun, sparkly, and warm story, where the magic could be found equally in witching and finding a love and a place to belong. I loved this so much I looked for more books by Mandanna, got a couple to my Kindle too, only to realize they are essentially totally kids’ books, not even YA, so I haven’t really gotten to them. I’m sure one day I will – I don’t really have any scruples regarding reading kids’ books, when I get to the mood.

The meh, the almost-DNF: The Witch of Willow Hall (Hester Fox)
A dreary gothic story with potential for so much more. None of the themes were really explored to their full potential, not the witchiness, not the love story, not really even the tragedies.

The predictable: 22 Seconds (James Patterson & Maxine Paetro)
I mean, you know what you get, and you get that and nothing more, nothing less. Good entertainment, guaranteed mystery.

The indie surprise: The Glory Box series (Claudia Marcin)
With indie, you never know what you get. Many I have DNF:d, most have been ok, some have been diamonds in the rough. This series was definitely in the diamond category. A scifi mystery series with an ending even I couldn’t predict until at the very end, right before the revelation. Sincere recommendation!

The new discovery: The Wee Free Men (Terry Pratchett)
i.e. the Tiffany Aching storyline of Pratchett’s Discworld series, also my very first of Pratchett apart from Good Omens (cowritten by Pratchett and Neil Gaiman) which I read in 2022. More accurately, I finally started Wintersmith (which I’d randomly picked from a used books table at the Helsinki Book Fair in 2021) in January, immediately realized I loved the writing AND that the story I was reading started in the middle of a longer story. In fact, exactly the middle, as Wintersmith is book #3 of the 5 Tiffany books. So I put my bookmark in that one and ordered the other 4 books from Amazon and started from the beginning with this one, The Wee Free Men. And loved it. Fun adventures and a bit of suspense in a fantasy world. Obviously went on to read them all, which segues us to February.

February

The sweetest: And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer (Fredrik Backman)
More of a short story than a novel, it is the story of a grandpa losing his battle agains Altzheimers, of his days inside his memories, of moments with his grandson. Warm and heartfelt, sweet while bitter. A piece of life.

The lightest: Mystery of Thorn Manor (Margaret Rogerson)
I loved the first Thorn book, Sorcery of the Thorns. I didn’t not love this sequel, but it most certainly wasn’t a novel with a fullblown plot or anything. I mean, it didn’t pretend to be either. It’s a book that would probably bear the number 1.5 if the Thorns were to become an actual series, which I doubt they will. It’s a lightweight, entertaining, and fun novella with bubbly magic.

The domestic (Finnish): Taikuri ja taskuvaras -trilogy (Anniina Mikama)
February was quite a bit of a YA month for me, between the Tiffany Achings, Thorns, and this Finnish scifi/fantasy series. I liked the series quite well, and in my opinion it got better as the story unfolded, book 3 being the best of the trilogy,

March

The pick: My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry (Fredrik Backman)
A Backman-kind-of sweet story that tastes like life. The grandma who, in her death, ties everything and everyone together after years of disparaging between people who really should just love each other, be a family even if they actually aren’t one. The little girl, the granddaughter, who serves as the glue and ribbon, by being the executor of grandma’s letter-legacy. Sweet and heart-warming, true Backman quality.

The doggo: Love, Clancy (W. Bruce Cameron)
It’s the doggo, Clancy, telling the story of humans - his and a few other ones – and their often incomprehensibly (to the dog-mind, anyway) complicated relationships and goings-on. That, and a bit of butt-sniffing and doggo-love. A lovely read, while it didn’t inspire me to get more of Clancy.

The LGBTQ+ love: Delilah Green Doesn’t Care (Ashley Herring Blake)
At this point, maybe I’ll begin by stating that I am bisexual (and actually polyamorous by nature if not in practise, at least not currently), and I would love to see more queer in books. I don’t pick books based on the sexuality of their characters, but sometimes I get tired of the heteronormative in romance, and even more the one true love (even when being torn between two love interests, making me scream “just have them both in a V and be done with it!”) trope. Polyamory is quite difficult to find in mainstream (i.e. not indie) lit, and the few indie titles I’ve tried, went to the DNF category for other reasons. Gay love (guys or gals), however is starting to be a bit more common, while still mostly only in their own genre, at least where main characters are concerned.
Anyway, Delilah Green is most certainly lesbian, and starts the delightful three book series by Blake, where a queer trio finds their loves (oh yes, still the one true love thing). Things get a bit steamy in these books, so if it’s not your thing, don’t pick them up. I loved these for romantic reads – the third one in December when it was published.

The grand finale: Chain of Thorns (Cassandra Clare)
This book ended The Last Hours trilogy, which has spanned over three years, at least? It also ended the Shadowhunters era, as after this book Clare moved on to create a new and different fantasy world, one I’ve yet to delve into (Sword Catcher, on my TBR, in my Kindle, waiting). IMO, the Shadowhunter books were getting a bit tired, a bit repetitive, so a good time to say goodbye,

The segue: Fractured Fables 1 & 2: A Spindle Splintered & A Mirror Mended (Alix E Harrow)
Looking for more of Alix E Harrow after The Ten Thousand Doors of January (my probably very favorite book of 2022), I found these Fractured Fables where the protagonist travels through (and fixes as she goes) a myriad of variations of the story of the Sleeping Beauty, until stumbling into a puzzling version of Snow White. This duo of fairy tale retellings plunged me head on to the next month(s) of Twisted Tales.

April

The three in one: White Haven Witches, books 1-3 (T.J. Green)
So, actually three books counted as one, so technically book count of the year should be 2 books higher… Anyway, a fun, witchy, and even romantic fantasy mystery series, the books 4-9 (in two 3 book sets) of which are waiting in my Kindle for the right moment to dive back into the quirky world of Avery and Alex and the rest of the White Haven Coven.

The doggo: A Spot of Trouble (Teri Wilson)
Dalmatians do it again: bring together two people who otherwise would’ve never. Light and fun, and full of dognanigans!

The best Twisted of April: What Once Was Mine (Liz Braswell)
The first Twisted Tale I got. Oh, I ordered a total of 10 of them – not quite all of them, but most, leaving out those I didn’t like/haven’t read in their original, erhm, Disney original, form. I was almost tempted to continue on to the Disney Villains series, but decided to pass. Anyway, What Once Was Mine is the retelling of Rapunzel, and the best one I read in April, but also right at the top of them all.

May

The most expected: In the Lives of Puppets (TJ Klune)
The most recent book from one of my very favorite (and very queer) authors, TJ Klune. A book that was supposed to be published in September of 2022, but ended up coming out only in May 2023, due to Klune changing publishers (which also resulted in full new beautiful editions of my maybe favorite Klune series, the Green Creek quadrology, which I promptly proceeded to order as they come out, even though I’ve read the series in Kindle already).
Oh so the Puppets. A bit of a scifi book, and also sort of loosely a retelling of Pinocchio, putting it right into the theme of things in May 😀 Not my favorite Klune book, but certainly guaranteed Klune goodness!

The best Twisted of May: As Old As Time (Liz Braswell)
Obviously, Beauty and the Beast, this one. And a lovely version it was too! I actually 5-starred several of the tales in May, but I think this one is my pick of them as my favorite in May.

The least liked Twisted: Once Upon a Dream (Liz Braswell)
The book I least enjoyed of all of the Twisted Tales was the retelling of the Sleeping Beauty. I don’t know, I’ve never been a huge fan of the original story, either, and this one simply didn’t hit the spot with me, at all.

The new author: Reflection (Elizabeth Lim)
Also at the top of my Twisted Tales picks is this retelling of Mulan, which also lead me to seek more books by its author, Elizabeth Lim. We’ll meet Lim again in my July books.

The curiosity invoker: Unbirthday (Liz Braswell)
I believe I have read (or listened to) Alice in Wonderland, the original story, as a kid. I’ve obviously seen a movie or two, most certainly the most recent ones with Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter. I was sure I had a version of the book in my library in Finnish. I couldn’t find it when I looked for it. Anyway, all this reading of the retelling and looking for the book that doesn’t seem to exist and thinking about the story and trying to remember it and how the retelling fits into things, I ended up getting the original book and reading it in August.
This book was also in in the top 5 of the Twisted for me, and it concluded my Twisted reading for the time being. One still awaits on the shelf.

The DNF: Borderline Personality Disorder Workbook (Daniel J. Fox)
Self-help. I usually don’t go for self-help anyway. This one I got 2/3 through, I think, reading one chapter per weekend or so, doing the excercises too. I wanted to help myself. Then I realized I really do have all the tools; the book wasn’t giving me anything new. Also, getting my ADHD diagnosis, starting the medication, going through the process of discovery of my neurodivergency – autistic traits on top of ADHD – removed most of specifically BPD related issues, leaving only what is explained by said neurodivergency. Can’t say going through the book as far as I did was futile. It just became redundant at this point in time and life.

June

The most expected: Atlas – The Story of Pa Salt (Harry Whittaker & Lucinda Riley)
Lucinda Riley died of cancer before completing her story of Pa Salt and the seven sisters. It undestandably took her son Harry some time to put together the tome of a book, that concludes the story and finally reveals what we readers had only been guessing at by way of the few clues given in the sisters’ books. Well worth the wait! Grand book, grand finale for the saga!

The FanFic: The Late Mrs. Willoughby (Claudia Gray)
The second book in Grays Austen based stories starring the autistic eldest son of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth, and the eldest daughter of Catherine and Henry Tilney (of Northanger Abbey) – combining my two favorite Austens! – and featuring a set of characters from different Austen novels; this one mainly restricted to those of Sense and Sensibility, though, while the first one, The Murder of Mr. Wickham brought together basically all of the main protagonists. Yes, I loved this like I loved the first one, and next summer should see a third one published.

The gateway book: Daughter of the Moon Goddess (Sue Lynn Tan)
Or maybe Reflection was the gateway? Be as it may, when looking for more books by Lim, I also found this book, book one of a duology, and for whatever reason started my stint into to Chinese mythology based books with this, not one of the Lims (which follow in July and August). Excellent fantasy, this duology, and those of Lim, if you ask me.

The pick: The City of Dreaming Books (Walter Moers)
Found this (as so many others) in the Bookaholics FB group, was fascinated, got it in paper, read it, loved it. Which set me on the path to get all of the Moers books, which are only six altogether; 5 of them stories from Zamonia (this is book 3 of them, all of them standalone stories), one a bit different, but we’ll get to that in December.

July

The magical realism: Book Charmer (Karen Hawkins)
Just a touch of magic, some warmth and caring, a town to save, and a bit of romance. The first book in the Dove Pond series of magical realism and romance combined. Sweet and easy reading.

The disappointment: Last Unicorn (Peter S. Beagle)
Somehow I expected a lot from this book, it came so highly praised, but I was disappointed. Kinda like I was disappointed by The Neverending Story. There’s some similarities in the style and the story building, and I simply could not love either, as much as I would’ve wanted.

The longest book of the year: The Priory of the Orange Tree (Samantha Shannon)
I’d like to say it was a fabulous saga. And in many ways it was. However, it was a bit unnecessarily long, in my opinion, and I would’ve enjoyed it more had it been just a tad more concentrated. Same goes for the second book prequel. Still, I did enjoy reading them.

August

The pick: Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe (Heather Webber)
Another find from the Bookaholics. Another author who spins a bit of magic into real life real world stories of love and friendship and finding one’s home. I loved this book, and I loved the other Webber I read this year, well, in August as well, At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities.

The sweetest: The Reading List (Sara Nisha Adams)
A warm and sweet story revolving around books that bring people together and resonate and console their readers separately. A list of books, left in secret by an avid reader, to be found by those they chose as receivers. I love books about books, and this wasn’t an exception, even though the books on the list were not exactly up my street.

The domestic (Finnish): Katariinanpyörä (Johanna Valkama)
Going back in history, to the time when Jaakko Ilkka, the hero of the Nuijasota (The Cudgel War, or rather the uprising of peasants in North-West Finland in 1596-97) had been beheaded, leaving his wife a widow. The book is otherwise fully fictive – nobody really knows much about his family – and takes the reader through Middle Age Finland, to Turku. Quite an enjoyable book, this one. I didn’t like the second book, Kuningatarlaiva (which started my September), quite as well.

September

The pick: The House at the Edge of Magic (Amy Sparkes)
As one can guess from the cool covers, it’s YA. But it’s FUN! A whole lot like The Moving Castle, but definitely no copycat. These are books of pure magical fun and mayhem. There may be a fourth book coming out at some point.

The political memoir: Maailmanparantajan muistelmat (Risto Isomäki)
The memoir of an environmental activist, a do-gooder, a journalist. Extremely interesting book, and while I don’t subcribe to his ideology as is, I can’t very well not acknowledge the good he and his posses have done. The book reminded me of the importance of balance, and that people like Risto are important drivers of balance in the world. The book also sparked a curiosity or interest in colonialism and how it pushed the third world into the poverty ridden state it was and mostly still is. It prompted the purchase of the book Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World by Mike Davis. Still on my TBR, waiting for the right moment.

October

The memoir: Muistista piirretty kaupunki (Elena Chizhova)
The story of Elena and her foremothers, the saga of a St. Petersburgian family before and after it was Stalingrad and Leningrad. The glamour and the beauty of the city as much as the ugly and the poverty. The exodus and the come-back. A city you can leave but that never leaves you.

The shortest of the year: Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (T.S. Eliot)
I.e. the book that became Cats, the musical. A book of cat poems. Bought because it was referred to in The Distant Hours (Kate Morton). I got another copy of this one for my son for Christmas.

The most miserable: Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë)
No worries, I won’t go into all of my dislike here, you can read all of that in my previous post (the last part of). Suffice to say, that despite the gloom, despair, and misery on me, this one actually is solely responsible for several new books on my TBR and in my library, all of which are still waiting, though. Perhaps next year?

The three in one: The Fair Isle Trilogy (Tessonja Odette)
Um yes, another book of three in one, so what’s the actual count now? 106 books? Fairies, humans, war, romance. All the makings of a thoroughly enjoyable fantasy book. You know, I believe there’s a word used for romance between the fae and humans, and while trying to google it, I came across some peculiar q&a’s like: “are fairies monogamous?”. I mean, like, what?

November

The pick: Hex and the City (Kate Johnson)
Some more romantic witchy fun mystery found in the Bookaholics group. Why is it that the witchy just makes it just so much more fun to read?

The doggo: A Dog Day (Walter Emanuel)
Another shorty. Just a terrier going through a day in a very different time and age than ours. Not exactly to my liking, but I’m mentioning it since, well, dog.

The most expected: Dirty Thirty (Janet Evanovich)
Evanovich is getting old, and book releases are less and further apart than before. Still a enjoyable reads, though, still as much fun! I just wish Steph would find a way to go poly for good with Morelli and Ranger. I mean, she really already is, so why not make it official?

The autobio: The Woman in Me (Britney Spears)
While I liked all three autobios I read in November, Britney’s gets the mention if only because it was such a mind-blowing experience to read about the circumstances of her father’s take-over of her life and career. Absolutely baked my noodle. More about this book, too, in the aforementioned previous post.

The finale: A Curse For True Love (Stephanie Garber)
This was the third and final book of the Once Upon a Broken Heart trilogy, which matured and grew better together with the protagonist. The best book of this trilogy.

December

The pick: The Lost Bookshop (Evie Woods)
Humm… another book you can read more about in the previous post 😏 A lovely magical realism duo-storyline book. Maybe my favorite of the year. Or was that the City of Dreaming Books?

The non-fiction: Remainders of the Day (Shaun Bythell)
In a way not much to shout about – a day-to-day diary of running The Bookshop in Wigtown, the booktown of Scotland. Then again, it painted a patchy but alluring image of the town, its goings-on, and the day-to-day life surrounded by books. It made me want to go and stay in the Open Book AirBnB for a week or few to run the bookhop just for fun. It made me start planning my dream world tour, jotting down places I’d like to go, routes I’d like to travel. All because of Wigtown.

The curiosity invoker: Mansikkatyttö (Lisa Strømme)
Ah, one more reference to the previous post 😂 Actually the book that originally sparked the writing of said post. This book mixes history and real historical characters with fiction in a way that had me googling for more info on the subject and the paintings and finding a love of sorts for the works of Edvard Munch.

The non-Zamonian Moers: A Wild Ride Through the Night (Walter Moers)
The only Moers book that is not of the world of Zamonia. Fantasy as it is, an action packed journey that could be just a dream, but maybe it wasn’t…?! The story is based on a set engravings by illustrator Gustave Doré, who also is the 12yo protagonist of the book. Apparently this was written before the Zamonia-books, but wasn’t published until after them. Still, it was the hardest to get.

Wrap-up and a what now

Sometimes I can easily pick a best read of the year. Most years not. This year, not so easy. The nominees would be:

The Lost Bookshop (Evie Woods)
The City of Dreaming Books (Walter Moers)
Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe (Heather Webber)
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches (Sangu Mandanna)

While this year was heavily fantasy – I do seem to drift more and more to the fantastical worlds as the years go by – and quite a bit of light romance, there were plenty of excellent historical drama / family saga kind of books and autobios in the mix, not all of them mentioned. Doesn’t mean I didn’t value or enjoy the reads – I really did! They just go into the comfortably good middle. Kate Mortons, always a pleasure. Bios and autobios, truly intriguing. The rest of the Moers Zamonias I read, and the Chinese mythology books I didn’t go into specifically, I loved. The bulk of the fantasy and romance I read, superb in my world.

I believe next year will be a similar mix of a lot of fantasy, a bunch of romance, some historical/family saga or other drama reads, some (auto)bios and other non-fiction, including at least the Brontë sisters book, the making of the third world book, and the book I got for Christmas: Putinin alttaripoika (Putin’s altar boy) by Juha Meriläinen – a contemporary political book about the nationalistic and religious games and motives behind the war in Ukraine.

Currently, I’m readung A Fate of Flame (Tessonja Odette), which is the last book in the Prophesy of the Forgotten Fae trilogy, and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (V.E. Schwab), which has been in my library for a couple years now, I think. The Fate I will definitely finish before the year is out, Addie Larue, probably not. I’ve got all these blog posts to write and work to do and dad to visit and floor to floor and whatnot taking up a lot of my daily time 😂 While I kinda would love to just read and read and read, it’s good to live and do things sometimes, right? And some things don’t really even ask 😏

My TBR is currently 129 books (and that is only books I already OWN). Last year at this point it was 104 books. Or was it 116? Less than now, anyway. So did I read my way through those 100+ books already? Are the 129 all new ones? Nope, nah-ah. The way it works is, I read two books at the same time, always: one in Kindle, the other in paper, and I pick my books by mood – when I finish one, I select the next one in that format.

I constantly find new interesting books in the Bookaholics group, in bookstores, and through books I read. The new and shiny usually cut in line and get read before the ones that have been on the list for longer. I do get to them, I get to all books eventually (unless I die first), but if they sort of pass their window of opportunity, it may take me quite some time to get in the right mood for them again.

So, only time will tell what I end up reading next year 🤷‍♀️

[Edit 1.1.2024: I actually DID finish both A Fate of Flame and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, the latter one yesterday evening. Addie LaRue actually goes right there to the top reads of the year, wonderful tale of life and love and the love of life!

This put my book count to 105 (plus 4 as two were three in one books 😉) and the page count actually did exceed 40 000, even disregarding the maybe 50 pages I didn’t read of the one DNF. A Fate of Flame was longer than I thought – with Kindle, the page count is a bit hazy. I’m starting my reading year 2024 with The Brontê Sisters by Catherine Rayner (the paper book) and Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer (the Kindle book).]

Warning! Reading books may cause ideas!

10.12.202310.12.2023 Marilka1 Comment

[Warning! This post contains spoilers of (at least some of) the books discussed so tread with care!]

I read a whole lot of books for the sheer pleasure of being immersed in the story, the adventure, a world that is not my own. Correction, that is my main reason for reading anything at all. I want books to provide an escape, to take me to someplace else, to capture me so totally that I basically become someone else while reading their story. This goes for fiction and non-fiction alike, though sometimes I do read out of simple curiosity and the need to learn more about something or someone, but that’s just a different kind of pleasure.

No matter what I read, though, I always learn something, always yearn to understand more. Even the fantasy book with no seeming connection to our real world may invoke ideas, thoughts, feelings, a curiosity that has me exploring the topic further.

H once asked me what I’m doing exactly, am I reading or facebooking, when I go back and forth between my book and my phone.

I was googling. When I’m reading a book, be it fiction or non-, there are references to things, people, places, events… And I need to know. I need to know if this or that is accurate, if real world references in fiction are pieces of real history inside of the story, and to what extent. I need to know if a character associated with a real historical character is real or made up. I want to see a picture or a painting that was described, I need to listen to songs that are referenced, I need to see pictures of the actual places of the story. I need to know MORE than just the story. So I google. Read more. Google some more. Read more.

In this sense, those people of olden times, who were scared of [women] reading, were most certainly right: reading does cause ideas and thoughts and thought processes. It’s just that that shouldn’t scare anyone. It doesn’t scare anyone who isn’t afraid of losing their power over said readers.

This brings me to one of the things I’ve been pondering, or encountering, in my recent reads. Not exactly the fear of women reading, but the fear of women living their own lives, without the influence and control of men [in their family]. How horrible it is, for a woman to have their own mind! To refuse to marry, or to have a career, to be successful! Not to all men, maybe nowdays not even most men, but we still live in a highly male-dominated world, where grave injustices are inflicted on women, just for the audacity of not needing a man.

Reading about women, whose life is controlled by the men in their family, to the extent of sticking them into a mental asylum (or psychiatric ward, nowadays), just because they’re not succumbing to their will, puts me in a state of frustrating helpless rage. How can they do that? Why are the men listened to, the women silenced?

Real life, 21st century – Britney Spears: The Woman in Me

Britney Spears whose abusive alcoholic dad was given full control of her life, career, and estate when she was devastated after her husband and kids’ dad brutally abandoned her, and essentially took the kids he’d had no interest in before the divorce. Everyone listened to Kevin Federline, to Britney’s dad, even her brother, never asking how Britney was really doing, how she could really be helped. Sure, she did some crazy shit, but how many male rock stars do way worse stuff ALL THE DAMN TIME and nobody thinks they should be controlled and locked up!

All because a greedy MAN wanted to get his hands on HER success and money.

Fiction, 20th century – Evie Woods: The Lost Bookshop

Opaline refused to marry the total stranger her brother had picked for her, trying to force her. So she ran away, making a life for herself in Paris, until the bro found her and almost got her. She escaped to Dublin, where she established her own business, her own bookdealership. She had the audacity to get pregnant out of wedlock, was found by her bro again and taken to an asylum due to “hysterics and delusions”. And the doctors, even the female nurses, believed the bro, not her.

Opaline’s thoughts right before her brother caught her the second time: “Secrets are all very well and good, but having a fake name, a hidden pregnancy, a forgotten manuscript and forbidden feelings were all making for a very complicated and lonely existence.”

No kiddin’, rite?! While she really shouldn’t have had the need to hide herself anymore than her pregnancy, or really even the manuscript, at least not for the reasons present, i.e. trying to prevent a greedy MAN taking it and making it and the success it might bring, his own.

I’m not a feminist, but I’m also a rather priviledged woman. I tend to forget, that this world STILL is mostly run by men, and still to this day their word weighs more, they have the power at the end of the day. And I really don’t even know how and what would ever change that for good. Feminism as it stands, doesn’t really cut it anymore, at least not the kind where women become the very men they say they despise. Because I know it’s not only men who aim to control; women can be beasts quite as well, too, but that’s still way more uncommon, at least outside of the home walls. The society used to be and still is, leaning toward male rule.

I wish people would be less powerlusty, would live and let live, would allow people to be what and who they are, mold their own lives. I cannot understand the need to control the life of another human being. I mean, the rule should go along the lines of as long as you don’t hurt other people. Not by ways of “but this is proper” or “this is how I want it”. THAT is one of the biggest ways people hurt other people. Control.

Quite a bit of the same theme can be found in the book I finished yesterday, The Strawberry Girl by Lisa Strømme. It is a fictive story about the girl behind the painting of the same name, by Hans Heyerdahl. I mean, not the actual girl (no one really knows anymore), but in Strømme’s book, the narrator is the girl of the painting.

Strømme created a summer of romance and drama, mixing in the Ihlen family (they were real) and setting the story around Edvard Munch staying in Åsgårdstrand for the summer (he bought a cabin there later on, but in the book, he rents the place) and having a scandalous romance with Tullik, the youngest of the three Ihlen girls. The book is a mix of actual history and characters and fully made up ones, of actual details and paintings set into the time and context of a fully fictive story (that got its spark from a rumor, something mentioned once in a memoir of the times and places), that culminates in the creation of The Scream.

Munch is a controversial character, a (still at that point) poor artist, and the Ihlen family forbids Tullik’s and Munch’s romance, causing so much pain, that Tullik is sent away to an asylum (see? see!) because she is deemed insane while she herself claims she is just broken down with pain. Munch pours his anguish and devastation into painting The Scream, which the narrator herself, stuck between the lovers, being a friend to both, can hear, even after the painting is hidden under loose floorboards.

The author explains the fiction vs. facts in her afterword, but I had to know more, so I googled. I also had to google Munch’s paintings a bit. I knew The Scream, obviously, who doesn’t? But Strømme described a whole lot of other ones in the book too (listing them all at the end of the book), piqueing my interest. And while I’m no art enthusiast nor connoisseur, I felt like Munch should be known for so much more than just The Scream, which really isn’t even at the top of my list, maybe not even on the list of what I now call my favorite Munch paintings, after scouring the Internets for them. Obviously still just the tip of the iceberg. But a love was born.

Another kind of intrigue – as much as it pains me to admit it 😀 – started after reading the Wuthering Heights (by Emily Brontë). An abomination of a book, if you ask me! Jane Eyre (by Charlotte Brontë), which I also read only a couple years ago or so, is a bit less brutal, but likewise describes harsh, miserable existances void of any joy. Extremely heavy reads that bring no joy to the reader either, which is why I personally cannot comprehend why both or either of those have become such icons and favorites, that frequently are used as the literary obsessions of protagonists in modern books – as is also the case of Opaline in The Lost Bookshop.

Around the time of finishing the Heights, I poured out my full appallment into a Facebook post in a bookish group:

If I thought Jane Eyre miserable, this book is downright horrible! What kind of mind conjures up these abominable stories? What kind of life did the Bronte sisters have to produce such cruel and unusual characters and narratives? And what has compelled the later generations to deem this utter social garbage some sort of classics? Why are these so often depicted as comfort reading for a protagonist of a contemporary book?

I have read these out of curiosity and now that it has been satisfied, I will never ever open them again. Horror stories I can comprehend, while I don’t like them either, but these are pure gluttony on human cruelty and misery, without even a twist of any other plot than to narrate the spiteful life of a bitter lot of people poisoning one another further.

I sincerely hope life was not like that back then in general, but that these books dwell on something as not mainstream as such would be today. I know similar stories could be written just as well about and in any time and age, and surely have, but my point remains. What has one suffered to be able to write a novel of sheer hate and malice? And why do readers dwell on the shit so?

And no, I don’t like that style of realism in contemporary books (or movies) either. Anyway, a rather interesting discussion followed my post, leading me to learn more about the sisters Brontë, their life in the moors, and their less known and popular publications, and more over: want to undestand and learn even more!

So what did I do besides google? I bought more books. Not just the recommended Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, but actually nearly all of the combined sisters Brontë non-poetry books (by Charlotte: The Professor, Villette, Shirley, and by Anne: Agnes Grey, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall), and a combined biography of the sisters: The Brontë Sisters: Life, Loss and Literature, by Catherine Rayner. I quenched my curiosity of the two most popular books, but I gained further curiosity about the books that people all but forgot, and about the life of the authors themselves.

This intrigue is yet to be fulfilled, though, as the books are currently just staring at me from the shelves a bit accusingly, while I’m waiting for the right mood to hit me. It might, after the story of Opaline, due to her obsession and research. Actually, that manuscript she’s hiding? The fictive manuscript of Emily’s second book, which also magically appears tattooed on the back of the modern time protagonist Martha, after appearing in her head line by line.

The literary world goes up and down and round and round and my interest in the written word between two covers never dwindles; if anything, it keeps on growing as new books feed new ideas, new intrigues, into my head. By new, I mean new to me, not necessarily new to the world, not necessarily new as works. And since I dont’ get paid for submerging myself in the literary now and then, nor all of the other intereseting topics to research, I need to choose. Some stuff I contend on reading simply the wikipedia article, then move on. Some I hang on to more tightly, resulting in new books to read, new ideas to have.

So many books, so little time to read. Thus, I rarely anymore read the same book twice. I pity on some occasions, too.

[Cover pic: cropped from Edvard Munch’s painting “Andreas Reading”]

Bunnies! Aww, I love to watch bunnies!

7.10.20237.10.2023 MarilkaLeave a comment

I now have two rabbit tattoos. I once mentioned to my tattoo artist that I’m a rabbit-person, when admiring a little rabbit ornament on her shelf. While she was inking March Hare to my calf, she asked: “So what is it then with you and rabbits?” Yeah, what is it with me and rabbits?

My first tattoo ever, taken in June, 2002

[From 2002-2020 my tattoo count increased bit by bit from 1 to 8. During the past 3 years I’ve gotten 10 more, added a bit to one older one, and in two weeks will have one more inked, last one for now. Yeah, things kinda escalated in the autumn of 2020…]

So, let’s see. Me and rabbits. Those soft and furry long-eared creatures with a quivery nose and big front teeth. Even though I have dogs, terriers, and am very much a terrier person (oh, I’m really just an animal person, I love animals and will bond with any animals I encounter as much as possible), I was a rabbit person first (despite growing up with a terrier) and will be a rabbit person forever.

I think the very initial rabbit fancy started when I learned as a kid that I was born in the Chinese year of the Rabbit. That would supposedly make me gentle and loving, creative, compassionate and sensitive, stubborn and hot-headed. And while I can totally see myself here, I DON’T see all of my same year born peers there So, you know 🤷‍♀️ Still, I was born in the year of the rabbit. In my mind, it made a rabbit, of sorts.

Still, the actual infatuation came via real living bunnies. We got our first rabbit when I was 9 years old, thanks to my sister’s persistancy. I loved her, our “Pupu” (really, our imaginative name for her was simply “Bunny”, in Finnish), she was my dear sweet friend. I took care of her to her quite untimely death; she was sick for the last few months of her less than 3-year-old life. I mourned for years. And I started collecting rabbits. In any and every form. Little ornaments, cards, everyday items with rabbit patterns, you name it. Rabbits became my obsession.

Pupu
(or Vanha Pupu, Old Bunny, as we started to refer to her after getting the next ones)
Pupu was a huge “country rabbit”, “maatiaiskani”, as the farmer we got her from put it. She was a pure white albino, with red eyes and all, as an adult the size of a cat. Looking at the Wikipedia rabbit breed page, I note that she quite resembled the Blanc de Bouscat, but the farmer knew nothing of this. Not that any of us cared. She was our sweet bunny, breeds be damned.

Pupu lived in our kitchen, where she had her cage with food and hay and water, but was allowed to run free; in the night time and while alone at home restricted to the kitchen, in the daytime when there were people at home she had free reign of the entire apartment. In the evenings, she liked to snuggle with me in bed, until my lights out, when mom took her to the kitchen. I would whisper my secrets to her, and take solace in her soft neck fur when feeling agitated, which was often. Neurodivergent (though never even heard the term back then), teased in school, my life was not all happy happy joy joy growing up.

Even though Sis was the one who wanted it and whose wish was granted, it was me who was appointed to cage cleaning duty, and poop collecting duty, and later on poop cleaning duty, when she was sick and her stomach was permanently loose. I was a bit grumbly about this, but 1) I did understand that my 4yo sister was too young, and 2) in the end, I very rarely minded it for real, because she was my best friend.

Pupu came to us as a “small” kit, in quotations because even then she was already the size of a “regular house bunny adult”, if that is a thing; I believe everyone can sort of understand the concept. Maybe. Anyway, as said, she grew up to be huge, and being a female, she also grew a huge bag under her chin, a dewlap. She was an active family member, liked to be where the peeps were, was social and snuggly and most certainly very bonding.

One of Pupu’s favorite activities was to “organize” our dry laundry, which our ND family simply dumped on the sofa from the drier to await the moment when mom either was in the mood to sort them out or (more likely) ordered me to take care of the pile. Either way, the pile of clothes often stayed on the sofa for days, bunny “sorting” it in her leisure, which obviously resulted in all our clothes having little holes from the rabbit teeth. When she died, I revered those holes; they were a long-lasting memory of my bunny.

In February of 1987 mom took me to Japan to visit the family of my best (human) friend; they lived in Tokyo for a year or so at the time. We were away a mere week, or 10 days, but while we were gone, Pupu refused to eat. She missed us, the two family members who were her main caretakers and feeders. This resulted in her getting sick. Dad took her to the vet, but for some odd quirk of luck and life, the vet misweighed her, giving her too small of a dose of the antibiotics.

So, instead of getting better, she developed an ear infection, which caused balance issues, which broke her heels, which got infected and despite everything we/the vet tried during the following months, the infection spread to her organs and we had to put her to sleep. She wasn’t quite 3 years old yet. I cired for years. Seriously. And promised myself never to get animals again, never to get attached again. I’m both glad and sorry not to have kept that promise, but losing my furry babies has never gotten any easier and I dread the moment our dogs start dying..

Pupu, 1984-1987

Some 5 or so years later, when I was 17, my dear sister hit again and smuggled two baby bunnies home from my godmother’s “bunny farm” (she got a mini bunny and a floppy eared bunny and they were supposed to be of the same sex, but oops, they weren’t and next thing she knew, she had 80 bunnies in the barn of her parents’ old manor in the countryside) and I was sold again. My Jeri was a bit of a bull terrier of a rabbit, really, and in no time at all I was fully bonded with him. People often forget or don’t realize it, but dogs really aren’t the only animals with personalities and ability to bond with people. Cats do too. Rabbits do too. Rats do too. And so forth. And me and Jeri, we were bonded.

Unfortunatly Jeri needed to be returned to the farm only two years later when I got married. I couldn’t take him with me (when the marriage was unraveling 14-15 years later, this was quite high on my list of resentments, for I did want to take Jeri; he forbid), and he couldn’t stay with mom and Sara due to him terrorising the house and fighting with Sara’s Jami, even after being neutered. So Jeri went back to live at the bunny farm and my heart was broken. I believe his was too, at first, from what I heard, but fortunately for them, bunnies have a shorter memory than us humans.

Jeri lived quite happily for two more years there on the farm with a bunch of other bunnies, though not 80 or so anymore at that point; closer to 10 or 20 retirees. In the end he died of heartbreak, after his best pal ran off and probably got eaten by a fox. Jeri mourned and stopped eating, withered away, at not quite four years of age.

Jeri and Jami
(Jeri: Jercy, Jercyrotta, Jercyrat, Jerry Cotton, Tamiilikamiina / Jami: Jamsi, Jasmine, James Bond)

Jercy and Jamsi (because that is what we mostly called them, instead of their “official” names – as official as a bunny’s name gets i.e. what read in the vet’s papers) were tiny baby boys when they were smuggled to our home. Small enough to fit on the palm of my hand (one at a time). Jamsi was fully white, Jercy gray as a kit, but turned brown when he grew up. Both were of moderate size, maybe 4kg at most.

I originally wanted to have the white one, Jamsi, for the memory of Vanha Pupu, but Sis was adamant: she looted the bunnies, she gets to choose, the white one is hers. I had been taught to be the older and the wiser so yes, I gave up (my normal strategy with Sis was to first want the thing I didn’t want, so when she wanted it, I could gallantly give it up and actually get what I really wanted, but in this case, my emotions ran hot and took over). In the end, I was happy having Jercy. I would’ve loved Jamsi just the same, but Jercy’s nature matched mine better.

Jamsi grew up timid and calm, probably mostly due to being partly blind. His eyes turned a peculiar violet when he grew up and according to the vet, he was most probably quite bad-sighted, if not blind. What the ailment was exactly, we never knew or I don’t remember, but with it (and maybe just the way he was born), he was the sweetest gentlest little creature, and lived a good full bunny life with my sister.

Jamsi died a few months before Jercy, in the spring when Jercy died in early summer. Sis had to make the tough decision to put her sweet boy to sleep when he fell quite severely ill. The summer before that he was still very much alive though, but gave me a bad scare. Sis and mom were both away for a couple of weeks, so I took care of Jamsi, visiting him on my way to work at Linnanmäki amusement park where I had my summer job. While I was in charge, he got the sniffles, and I needed to take him to the vet, and was scared shitless that he would die in my care! Those sniffles didn’t kill him thoug; instead, to my utter relief, turned out quite harmless.

Jercy, on the other hand, was quite different. He was a fierce alpha male, who started fighting for dominance with Jamsi, as luck would have it, while Sis and I were at my then boyfriend’s family cottage for our autumn break. Up to that point the boys had shared a cage, but after Jercy beat up poor Jamsi quite badly, they were separated: Jamsi to Sis’ room, Jercy to the combo of our small kitchen and my adjacent small bedroom. Needless to say, they never roamed the house free, but were allowed free roam of their respective territories.

Jercy spent the nights in the kitchen because I was a light sleeper even in my teens and Jercy was night-active as bunnies are wont to be. I the daytime, while I was at school, he had both rooms to himself. When Sis came from school, usually before me, she was faced with the task of shooing Jercy to my room, behind a closed door, while she got a snack, for my tiny warrior-bunny attacked Sis (who permanently smelled like Jamsi) as soon as she stepped into the kitchen. Sis came up with all sorts of tactics that included e.g. my tall rubber boots, and usually succeeded in this dangerous quest.

Usually. However, it wasn’t an unusual occurence either, that Sis would call our mom at work: “Mom, come save me! I’m in the living room, held hostage by Jeri!”. If Jercy managed to slip out of the kitchen, Sis ran to the living room and closed the door behind her, after snatching the phone with her; the phone table was right next to the living room door, on the other side, though.

And my rubber boots, then. I still have the same pair of the tall Kontio-boots I had back then (since I was 14yo; back then Nokia still made proper quality rubber boots). Those boots of mine are the last remaining physical memory I have of Jercy. All the hoodies and tees he chewed have long been disposed of, but my rubber boots will probably last until I die. And bear the mark of Jercy: he once managed to bite through them, so I patched them with my bicycle patch kit and while I never would’ve guessed, that patch-work still holds as strong as ever, just like the boots.

With me, Jercy was a loving and devoted baby boy, much like Ace-mah-bully-boy is now. When I came home from school, he hopped happily around my ankles, nearly tripping me many-a-day. If I was away for the evening, I could be sure to find a protest pee in my bed (despite my best attempts at building walls to prevent this; he always found a way to get over them).

If I spent multiple evenings in a row with my friends, away doing whatever, third or fourth evening at the latest, I would find Jercy hiding under my desk drawers, refusing to come out no matter what. This always broke my heart, so I was constantly torn between having my “own life” and spending time at home with my baby-bunny. Needless to say, Jercy always came around and forgave me. Next day it was all forgotten and my lettuce offering gone from the floor, munched away in the dark of the night.

The only time I ever got hit by my “killer-rabbit” (as my classmates dubbed Jercy after the incident) myself, was this one time I was sitting on our sofa next to mom, Jercy calmly in my arms, and Sis had the audacity to approach! She came to tell us something, I guess, stepping one step too close for Jercy’s liking. Jeri went nuts, struggled to get out of my arms, but I held on tight. So he bit the closest thing he could, which just so happened to be my cheek. Unlike the bite scars I have on my hands from both Meggie and Timmy (quite similar situations of confusion and fight-whatever-comes-close), Jercy’s bite didn’t leave a mark on my cheek. Goes without saying, I would’ve carried the scar proudly.

Jercy, 1992-1996 / Jamsi 1992-1996

Jeri & Jami on a piano stool the day they came

So, my career with bunnies ended with this second heartbreak of taking Jercy back to the barn where he was born (though to be honest, I had another heartbreak and mourning time when I learned of his death, despite the distance and not having seen him for a long time).

Nonetheless, or maybe even more so because, I still collect rabbits. I don’t have my card collection anymore, nor do I have all of the little proceline etc. rabbits that I used to have, but rabbits are all around our house and I stil try to find a new rabbit item from each trip, as my own little souvenir. I have bunny mugs, bunny plates, bunny figurines (of all sorts of materials), bunny lamps, bunny hooks, bunny pictures on the walls, bunny “statues”, bunny soft toys… you name it. Kids always laughed when their friends came to visit and were like: “Hmm, your mom seems to like rabbits”. Yeah, no kiddin’, right

Be it due to Chinese horoscope (krhm, not) or those two way too brief times of having a bunny in my life, I have always identified with rabbits in general. They’re quirky, bouncy (ah, ADHD), loving, intelligent, alert, even fierce. Rabbits are my totem animal. Or one of them anyway, the initial one. That’s why my artowrk page is Artzy Bunny. That’s why I paint and draw rabbits so much, always have. That’s why my first tattoo was a rabbit and my “We’re all mad here” tattoo is March Hare, not Chesire Cat. I am rabbit.

So, that’s the deal with me and rabbits.

P.S. The title of this post is a Snoopy quote. Back when I was a teen I had this desktop cover mat of solid color (boring!), so I decorated it with all sorts of pics and whatnots. One of the things there (the only one I remember, actually), was this comic strip cut from a daily paper, where Snoopy had gone missing and Chuck finally found him at the mall, looking at bunnies through the window of a pet shop. Snoopy had the bubble explaining his absence: “Pupuja! Ooh, minusta on ihanaa katsella pupuja!” – “Bunnies! Aww, I love to watch bunnies!”. I have tried and failed, multiple times over the years, to find this strip on the Internet. Not found. Total Internet fail.

My body, my positive

1.10.20231.10.2023 Marilka1 Comment

I have no before and after pics. Or rather, I have no real before pic, because I shied away from the camera – except for face only selfies or photos where I’m bundled up in winter gear like an eskimo – for the most part when I was overweight. A couple of on-the-way pics are available, but for the before pic, the one from September of 2020 will have to do (I don’t know exactly, but I think last autumn I even had 6-8kg more than in the autumn of 2020). So here, before – getting there – there (or so, for I’d still like to go down 1 more kilo, but it’s a very inconsequential kilo, really, just the last bit of flab to be rid of).

I have now ~~lost~~ gotten rid of thirty-fucking-five kilos in these past 10 months. 35kg. That’s damn near 80lbs (77,2) for you non-metric peeps on the other side of the Atlantic. And I feel good. My overall health is good. My liver values are not hovering on the border anymore, my energy levels are back to my “normal”, I feel like myself again. Sure, there’s a bunch of mental shit bundled into the equation of me, too, but getting some of that resolved was the key to getting my body back in shape too.

I’m all for body positivity. I mean, the most important thing is to be able accept yourself, to embrace your body as yours and be healthy. Needless to say, while I maintained my style (though changing things to hide the fat as well as possible), I was not positive about my obese torso, nor will I ever be, or even aspire to be, My body, my positivity. I decide when and in what shape my body is good. Isn’t that what body positivity is all about?

Sometimes it feels like it means that you shouldn’t strive to do anything about your body because you’re good as you are. But it’s not always true! However, it IS up to each person to decide. To love yourself, to love your body, is to want what’s best for it. And for me, it’s keeping my weight and my size here where I am again. Where I was for a decade, until shit hit the fan in our lives and stuff got out of hand, and for some years, I lacked the mental capacity to do anything about my weight gain. All I could do was to accept that it was happening and mourn the slim me until it was time to turn around again.

I was never a skinny kid, nor a skinny teen, nor will I ever be a skinny adult. I wasn’t overweight either, just average, with natural muscle. But when you’re not a skinny kid/teen, you’re automatically fat. Because kids are idiots. Some of them grow out of it, some don’t. So anyway, I was called fat my entire school life. I guess it was the easiest hate-word those idiots around me could come up with, for a bit strange neurodivergent not-skinny kid in their midst.

So I started to think myself fat. And became ashamed of my perfectly normal size body. At twelve, I stopped eating pasta and pancakes and white bread to lose some weight. Interestingly intuitive for a 12yo, since (fast) carbs are my worst enemy, as I came to understand as an adult. I did lose some, but not a whole lot. Not that I needed to, and I guess I had sense enough to understand that I never would be skinny like the others and didn’t need to be.

It is true, that I gain weight super-easy – I call my genes the survivor genes, because my body tries to hold on to every calory I eat. Those damned carbs are the bane of my existance, because they pretty much suffocate my ability to understand when I’m hungry, or when I’ve had enough, and so I just keep on eating too much to feel full and my portions get bigger and bigger and my sugar addiction ramps up and… It just slips. Thus, it’s better for me to keep away from medium to high glycemic index foods, which is what I really mean when I say carbs.

Just a few links for you, to understand what I’m talking about:

What Is the Glycaemic Index (GI)?
Glycemic Index Chart for Common Foods
In Finnish: Hyvinvointia ruuasta eli mitä syö ihminen joka ei syö perunaa, pastaa, puuroa…

For weightloss, there’s multiple factors and it’s not so simple – medications and medical conditions included – nor is there one way that suits all. To me, it’s always been more intuition than science; I found the science behind my “system” only after I was already there.

My weight-loss system put simply: I don’t eat carbs (see above), my daily intake of calories is less than I use (I have never really counted calories, so it’s purely instinct), and I only eat once or twice a day. Because in the end, I’m really not even hungry more often than that. I don’t really force anything – though the beginning is a rather slow and decisive process to ramp down from the carbs and overeating – I simply guide myself to what I know is healthy for me, and then start listening to my body again when the carbs aren’t there to lie to me anymore. And the thing is, when I get those carbs out of my system, I really don’t crave them anymore. In fact, they don’t taste good to me anymore, even.

Upkeep? More of the same except I eat a bit more. Still not more than I need in general, but obviously not less either. Carby stuff can be eaten sometimes, just not on a regular basis. Though, that’s the case even now. I have no forbidden foods, I eat what I want. It’s just that I’ve molded my want to what my body wants in order to stay healthy. If it makes sense. Point being that weight loss or weight upkeep has never been a struggle for me. Not when I’ve been ready for it. When I wasn’t, it didn’t happen. And as much as I’d like to swear that I won’t ever gain weight again, there’s no guarantee.

Getting back to being happy with one’s body. I can easily promise I will never be happy being overweight. To me it represents the slippery slope to major obesity, to health issues that are just incredulous, to something I can never let myself slide into. So even when I do gain some, even a lot, there will always come the point of turning back before I’m too far gone. I watched my mom eat herself to death, even though in the end that’s not what she died of. To me, obesity is the ultimate form of unhappiness with one’s self and there is nothing positive – body or otherwise – to me about it.

So what’s my point? Be happy in your body. If you’re not, do something about it. If you can’t do without help, ask for it, be it medical or some other form of help. What works for me, may or may not work for you, we are all different. I’m lucky that my husband is actually similar in this weight loss/control as me (as well as tastes in food), which makes it easy for us to help each other, while also easy for us to slip and slide together.

Top: September 2022. Bottom: September 2023

As an end note of sorts. The one cool thing about this getting back to slim after years of weight gain is that I (well, we, both of us really) got to renew my wardrobe practically entirely. Maybe 10% (not counting shoes) of my current wardrobe is old – some dresses even from my former slim years – but everything else is new. Expensive? Sure. Rewarding? Oh, hell yeah 😂 I’m loving it! I love to be back to the size I, in my mind, should be and feel best in.

Summer as it’s supposed to be

31.7.202331.7.2023 MarilkaLeave a comment

Which really has not been the case much this summer. We had a nice little heatwave in June, but the entire July has been a jacket-July. Cloudy, rainy, windy, cold. I’ve never worn jeans in the summer as much as this July. Nor have a worn my summer dresses as little as this July.

So the moments of summer as it’s supposed to be are gems to be beheld. Like yesterday. It wasn’t really hot or anything, but a gentle 23-25C, with the sun out and only some wisps of clouds in the sky. I donned my long light semi-sleeve dress with an open back and slipped my feet into some sandals, and left my jackets home, as we packed ourselves into the car for a little roadtrip.

As usual, our roadtrip took us west along the coastline. It could’ve been a day for Hanko or Tammisaari, even, but we had other plans for the late afternoon and evening. So we drove down to Inkoo. An ant’s spit of a place in size, it has a church, an S-market (grocery store) pharmacy, a couple of artisan shops 💜that were surprisingly closed yesterday, a museum house area, and a nice harbor with some restaurants and a dog-friendly coffee shop.

For reasons (of limited daylight, mostly) we have twice visited Inkoo in late autumn/early winter. Wanting to go somewhere, but not enough daylight to go too far. This was our first visit during the summer, when there’s actually some life in the town, thanks to all the boats venturing into the pictureque harbor.

With the sun high in the sky we parked next to the Café Wilhelmsdahl and selected a table with half shade, half sun – shade for H, sun for me. Cappucinos for us, water for the dogs, and a lunch of smoked salmon pie and carrot cake. Oh, right, doggos didn’t get any of the pie and cake, but they did get some meaty stick snacks.

I love the atmosphere, the ambiance, of Café Wilhemsdahl be it winter or summer, whether we sit inside or out on the terrace. There is something serene and warm about it. The personnel is friendly and kind, they like the furry four-legged visitors instead of merely tolerating them, the coffee is good, same with everything I’ve ever eaten there. It’s cosy and homey. The café alone is worth the visit, in my opinion!

Once we’d finished our lunch, we took a walk around the harbor. How different it is in the summer when boats are docked, others come and go, there’s people milling about, instead of ice and snow! The only disappointment was the closed artisan shops, well at least the Kiurunpesä curiosity shop next to Wilhelmsdahl was closed. So we just hopped back in our car and drove home.

Sun was still high and the sky still blue as we got home around three. H went to prepare the grill while I prepared a couple of chickens for the rotisserie before changing into some bikinis and settling into my terrace chair to read in the sun.

I had a good hour or so of direct sun left in my hanging egg chair before the sun disappeared behind some tall trees at the edge of our yard. Even then, the air didn’t turn cold, so I was comfortable in my chair as H tended to the grill with the chickens roasting on their skewer. “This is what summer is supposed to be like”, I noted to H.

Finally, when the chickens were done, I pulled on a short mid-sleeve dress over my bikinis and helped with the doors as H brought the grilled goodness inside. The chickens were crispy and emanating such a delicious smell that I literally started salivating and decided to leave the chair covering to a later point in time, when my belly is full of chicken.

Needless to say, I suppose, that I forgot the chair. We ate. We took dogs out. I read some more in the library. We took the dogs out again and retired to the bedroom. I read some more, until I fell asleep. So then, this morning, everything was soaked. Of all the times to forget to cover the chair, I obviously selected the time when it then proceeded to rain cats and dogs all night long or something.

Not that it matters too much that the chair pillows are wet (and drying on the heated floor in the bathroom). It’s not like today would be a day to sit outside reading anyway. It’s not raining anymore, but it’s cloudy with all of 18 degrees C. It’s back to jacket-July, for one more day anyway. Then it’s jacket-August.

While the rest of the world roasts, we here have had a cold airmass all summer long. We’re so close to the North Pole, that while the hot air has been enmassing elsewhere, it’s pulled the cold on top of us from the North. Or something. This summer makes me sing. “I was cheated by you, and I think you know when!” And yet, “just one look and I forget everything!” when the sun is out for one day.

Despite the weather, however, the summer’s been quite good. Good times with family, little sailing cruises of Schooner Kathrina in Helsinki archipelago, birthday parties, reading and resting and taking it easy. My vacation is half done, half to go still. The weather I cannot influence, but everything else in my summer I can 🌞