31 lokakuuta 2018

My October in Collage


October was a Golden Month because the scenery sparkled with
stunning ruska colors!


BEST BOOKS OF OCTOBER
Finnish: Mia Kankimäki - Women of Whom I Think at Night **** Otava 2018
Foreign / US: Lucia Berlin - Dancing on Roses ***** Aula & Co 2018
Poetry / Finnish: Heidi Pyykkönen & Niilo Rantala - Forever ***** Käsite 2018


Wishing you all a good start to November!
- riitta

#MAKROTEX CHALLENGE / Monthly Collages

30 lokakuuta 2018

Not so Secret Weapon


It is the time of the year when common colds attack people.
My smelling weapon against colds is garlic 
for it may combat sickness, including the common gold.
Of course there is no 100 % guarantee but garlic also tastes good!
And luckily my husband also loves garlic.




27 lokakuuta 2018

Glancing Back to Summer


The name of this gorgeous hosta is unknown to me, because I got it at a plant exchange.
It has very large matte leaves and lush, almost white flowers.
In a few years it grows huge as a berry bush and is ready to be divided.
...
The photos were taken at different times from June till August.


Flowers are never lonely when they have raindrops as friends.
- Anthony T. Hincks



Raindrops are like fairy whispers.
- Unknown


I grow plants for many reasons: to please my eye or to please my soul, 
to challenge the elements or to challenge my patience, for novelty or for nostalgia, 
but mostly for the joy in seeing them grow.
- David Hobson




26 lokakuuta 2018

Friday Bliss #7


End of October looks very colourless in Finland.
Practically all bright autumn leaves have fallen down. We have had some frost nights,
but mainly pretty warm & misty days.
The evenings are dark, so soon it is time to spread fairy-lights in the garden...

#MOSAIC MONDAY




I don’t celebrate Halloween and found only these fake pumpkins from my archive.
But to you who celebrate I wish Happy Halloween!
In Finland we celebrate more All Saint’s Day the 3rd of November.
Families get together and we take candles and lichen wreaths to graveyards.




Pierre Lemaitre is one of my favourite French writers and I have read all his production.
This week’s reading has been his newest novel 
Couleurs de l’incendie - the second book of the trilogy on World War I.
Lemaitre was awarded the Prix Goncourt, France’s top literary prize, for Au revoir là-haut, 
the first book of the trilogy.
I am not quite sure if this is already available in English. Excellent novel!




The link is open
FROM FRIDAY 10 AM TILL THE NEXT TUESDAY 4 PM
Helsinki time


Feel welcome to join in! - Happy Weekend!
- riitta 

21 lokakuuta 2018

Color Collage





Strange Grooves


With two faces in the whirlpool of a skyscraper,
silence being a strange concept.
Painted lips on the walls,
the gaze searching for an exit.
Lull me mum, lull me,
I still believe in tomorrow.

The fire leaves only ashes.

Before the Helsinki Book Fair I’ll show you how to circle publishers’ catalogs. Colorful catalogs are not just waste, but can be used for artistic purposes, as I did. I made four collages with a size of 20 x 20 cm, style being cut & glue. The finished collages still received a photo manipulation. They inspired my blog friend Esther Helmiä to write a poem on each.

Runot suomeksi täällä.


I run,
I run with winds of achieving behind.
I cry alone to the dark: I don’t manage, I don’t manage!
No one answers.
Colorful walls are my friends
and those who tap me on the back:
Try try, be better, be good!
Be beautiful, don’t be you, don’t be!

The steps mix blood and sweat,
but my soul is already detached.


You are so silent, illusion, illusion.
A ragged smoke curtain a protection against the tough world.
Your beauty is exhaled from the rocks, from the deep caverns. 
Have you already decomposed or is this a hallucination?
With pink eyeglasses on my nose
I’ve lost yesterday.

How daring, you would say
handing me poppies as breakfast.


Blood still flowing
gives color to the walls.
I see a drunken cat with the eyes of my soul,
it lives at its own pace, does not care.
I hear steps from the street,
the pain labours in the waves of suffering souls.
There is no one to see
who would gather hearts.

Maybe it's too mundane
in this all-allowing world.

I’m not able to reach your hand anymore.

20 lokakuuta 2018

Rosy Summer Memories


When autumn darkness falls, what we will remember are the small acts of kindness:
a cake, a hug, an invitation to talk, and every single rose.
These are all expressions of a nation coming together and caring about its people.
- Jens Stoltenberg


The autumn has arrived, no blooming anymore in the garden.
So it is time to remember the gorgeous rosy beauties that delighted me in the summer.

#GARTENGLÜCK
Do not watch the petals fall from the rose with sadness, know that, like life, 
things sometimes must fade, before they can bloom again.
- Unknown



You can complain because roses have thorns, 
or you can rejoice because thorns have roses. 
- Ziggy


Rosy Dreams to Everybody, they are so needed right now!
- riitta

19 lokakuuta 2018

Friday Bliss #6



This week I’ll share a late August bouquet with Aster novi-belgii,
Sedum 'Herbstfreude' & Eryngium giganteum.
...
Loppukesän kimpussani tällä viikolla syysasteria,
syysmaksaruohoa ja hohtopiikkiputkea.



This summer my new & small aster plants suffered heavily from draught, 
hope they shall bloom better next summer!
...

What have you been up to this week?
Please, share your thoughts and photos!

I am a bit late in visiting you, for we have autumn vacations in Finland,
so not online so much...


 #FRIDAY BLISS 
replaces Floral Bliss from the 14th of September on.
The link is open
FROM FRIDAY 10 AM TILL THE NEXT TUESDAY 4 PM
Helsinki time


Feel welcome to join in! - Happy Weekend!
- riitta 

18 lokakuuta 2018

Fumando con Lucia



Lucia Berlin’s short story collection A Manual for Cleaning Women has been published in Finland in two parts. The latter Dancing on roses has been just released and I got as ecstatic with it as with the first part. I found online quotes from her short stories and publish here one of them. My Jockey was in the first Finnish part  ❤︎ - and I fell in love with it!

My Jockey
I like working in Emergency—you meet men there, anyway. Real men, heroes. Firemen and jockeys. They’re always coming into emergency rooms. Jockeys have wonderful X-rays. They break bones all the time but just tape themselves up and ride the next race. Their skeletons look like trees, like reconstructed brontosaurs. St. Sebastian’s X-rays.

I get the jockeys because I speak Spanish and most are Mexican. The first jockey I met was Muñoz. God. I undress people all the time and it’s no big deal, takes a few seconds, Muñoz lay there, unconscious, a miniature Aztec god. Because his clothes were so complicated it was as if I were performing an elaborate ritual. Unnerving, because it took so long, like in Mishima where it takes three pages to take off the lady’s kimono. His magenta satin shirt had many buttons along the shoulder and at each tiny wrist; his pants were fastened with intricate lacings, pre-Columbian knots. His boots smelled of manure and sweat, but were soft and dainty as Cinderella’s. He slept on, an enchanted prince. 

The only reason I have lived so long is that I let go of my past.
Shut the door on grief on regret on remorse.


I exaggerate a lot and I get fiction and reality mixed up, 
but I don’t actually ever lie.


I beg your pardon I never promised you a rose garden
Along with the sunshine there's gotta be a little rain sometime
When you take you gotta give so live and let live and let go oh oh oh oh
I beg your pardon I never promised you a rose garden

I could promise you things like big diamond rings
But you don't find roses growin' on stalks of clover
So you better think it over
Well, if sweet talking you could make it come true
I would give you the world right now on a silver platter
But what would it matter
So smile for a while and let's be jolly love shouldn't be so melancholy
Come along and share the good times while we can

I beg your pardon I never promised you a rose garden
Along with the sunshine there’s gotta be a little rain sometime
I beg your pardon I never promised you a rose garden

I could sing you a tune and promise you the moon
But if that's what it takes to hold you I'd just as soon let you go
But there's one thing I want you to know
You'd better look before you leap still waters run deep
And there won't always be someone there to pull you out
And you know what I’m talking about
So smile for a while and let’s be jolly love shouldn't be so melancholy
Come along and share the good times while we can

I beg your pardon I never promised you a rose garden
Along with the sunshine there’s gotta be a little rain sometime
I beg your pardon I never promised you a rose garden
Along with the sunshine there’s gotta be a little rain sometime


15 lokakuuta 2018

Autumn Yellows - Vahvaa keltaista




Autumn yellows have a strong shade, a bit towards orange...
I have practically no yellow items in the house, but in book covers it can be found.
Outside the maples shine still for a while...




... and yellow can be found in a few household items, too.

Wishing you all a beautiful new week!