Thinking of...

Thinking of faraway places...

and at the same time quite content to be where I am,

in this wintry but by no means cheerless part of the world.

Everyone sang (Siegfried Sassoon)

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on - on - and out of sight.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away ... O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never
          be done.

Siegfried Sassoon (8.9.1886 - 1.9.1967)

"A book is a gift you can open again and again." (Garrison Keillor)

 Who can be without books? Not me. And no kindle or some such books, please. They have to be proper, 'old-fashioned' books. I never get tired of them. The only problem is where to put them all... especially now that we have some new ones stacking up.

My mother-in-law has moved to a care-home, and therefore doesn't have the space for them all anymore. What a gift it was for us, to be offered the chance to go through her bookshelves and choose what we wanted! The above are some of the books I picked. My mother-in-law is especially interested in Finnish and Swedish history, memoirs, art, architecture. How true it is, that looking at the books a person has will tell you who they really are.

I was pleasantly surprised to find, among her books, one by Merete Mazzarella, in Swedish called Där man aldrig är ensam or Where you are never alone. A book is always company, sometimes even the best company. Merete Mazzarella is a professor of literature, and my daughter attended her classes at university. She - Mazzarella - has written about some very interesting and often controversial subjects. Her latest book (which I haven't read but hope to) is about falling head-over-heels in love in your senior years, while already married to a husband who is over 80 years old. This happened in her own life. 

I can't wait to start reading and browsing these new books. But before that I should finish reading my current book, Nothing to envy, by Barbara Demick. It describes unbelievable facts about ordinary people's lives in North Korea. The title says it all.

Bye-bye Christmas tree

Taking down the Christmas tree ends with a trail of scattered pine needles.

Epiphany at my sister-in-law's

My sister-in-law has moved into a new house. She has spent the last few months having it renovated, so we went over to see it in all its newness and finery, and to enjoy the last of the Christmas season. Epiphany is somehow such a pompous word... Twelfth night sounds better, although I always associate it with Shakespeare (not a bad thing). Being in my sister-in-law's home was just like being in Mrs. Santa Claus's house; everywhere you turned your head you saw Christmas decorations or something relating to a finnish-swedish Christmas. Not to mention our twelfth night feast. But now it's time to 'leave thy vain bibble babble' (Shakespeare again) and the festive season.