Friday Bliss #99 - Warm Colors to August

Every year, the bright Scandinavian summer nights fade without anyone's noticing. 

One evening in August you have an errand outdoors, and all of a sudden it's pitch-black. 

It is still summer, but the summer is no longer alive.

- Tove Jansson

This week I noticed just that: I had to switch the light on in order to step safely on the upstairs staircase in the evening. August starts tomorrow, but we still have one summer month to go. The summer is still alive! Nothing much happens in my life, but I feel happy & content. After cutting my daily blogging time, I seem to have more hours per day. In the future I’ll try to find a better balance with all tempting social media and internet and spend more time with my dearest. Today’s photos are from a garden center & my bouquet from August 2016.

Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; 

they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.

- Marcel Proust

Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.

- John Lennon

August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time.

- Sylvia Plath

❤︎❤︎❤︎

Wishing colorful & warm August!

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Friday Bliss #98 - Women’s Week

It has been a normal Finnish summer week with sunny weather & rainy weather, strawberries, family gettogethers & many small joys. As to flower arrangements, I have thought for a long time to copy Eda’s beautiful & simple arrangements using three vases. Now at last I have these purple bottles! My arrangement looked very nice, bad lighting makes it uglier on the photos - but you can’t succeed every time :))

The past week has been in Finland the so called Women’s Week which means that every day the name day heroine is a female name. Name day celebrations used to be more important in the old days, nowadays they mostly go without notice. I’ll share the list of this week’s names so you can see which kind of female names we have:

18th  – Riikka

19th  – Sari, Saara, Sara, Sarita, Salli, Salla

20th  – Marketta, Maarit, Reetta, Reeta, Maaret, Margareeta

21th  – Johanna, Hanna, Jenni, Jenna, Jonna, Hannele, Hanne, Joanna

22th – Leena, Matleena, Leeni, Lenita

23th – Olga, Oili

24th – Kristiina, Tiina, Kirsti, Kirsi, Krista, Kiia, Tinja

My sister’s name is Leena, but she lives in Sweden, so could not celebrate with her... 

Contributed to a reading challenge with female theme & posted about these books by female writers.

It’s 100 years from Agatha Christie's debut The Mysterious Affair at Styles!
Only Rosa Clay is by a Finnish writer. You may know the other books -
Petina Gappah / Zimbabwe, Jill Mansell / UK and Rebecca Solnit & Tara Westover / The US.

One summer guest: 

Daughters cute Pauli who searched for shadow under the table while we had lunch.

❤︎❤︎❤︎

Wishing summer joys to your weekend!

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Friday Bliss #97 - Romantic Peonies

First, sorry for not visiting your blogs as much as normally, but I am tired of blogging at the moment. So, I decided to have a break. Perhaps after some quiet weeks, the blogging enthusiasm returns.

PLEASE, NOTE: Friday Bliss continues normally. 

This small bouquet of peonies was photographed in late June - now peonies have done their blooming, but fortunately photos preserve their beauty. Sarah Bernhardt, Edulis superba and Gillenia trifoliata go so well together.

❤︎❤︎❤︎

Sun, Joy & Happiness to your Verano - Summer - Sommer - Kesä!

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Spiraea - Like Cotton Candy

Makrotex asks for something PINK. I have a few species of Spiraea japonica. 

’Odensala’ has the biggest flowers - they are like cotton candy.

These are modest low shrubs that bloom with the same year’s sprouts.

Lysimachia mummularia grows all over on its own under shrubs.

❤︎❤︎❤︎

#all seasons #der natur donnerstag #digitalart dienstag #foto-tunes #gartenglück 

#image-in-ing #makrotex  #t in die neue woche #the weekend roundup #värikollaasit #willy-nilly

Colors of Elephant Hawk Moth

The Mysterious Affair at Styles / Stylesin tapaus by Agatha Christie

was released in 1920 - so it is the 100th jubileum year of her first detective story.

I just read it and Mr. Hastings and Hercule Poirot were so charming & bright ❤︎

Color Collage 28/2020 

Elephant hawk moth / Horsmakiitäjä / Deilephila elpenor

T in die neue Woche

An old hospital building in the middle of a wonderful park, Helsinki

❤︎❤︎❤︎

#all seasons #der natur donnerstag #digitalart dienstag #foto-tunes #gartenglück 

#image-in-ing #makrotex  #t in die neue woche #the weekend roundup #värikollaasit #willy-nilly

The Weekend Roundup B

Starts with B:
Small flowered traditional Delphinium shines in Blue.
The flowers are small, but this stays upright and needs no support.

Starts with B:
Bouquet of peonies with Sarah Bernhardt from end of June compensates for
the present Bad weather.

Tom’s Choice Black:
Black Lives Matter. I have read The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas a few years ago.
Recently I read Born a Crime by Trevor Noah telling about his childhood
in the shadow of apartheid of South Africa.

This is of course not my photo, but from here: History.com. More signs on the site.

❤︎❤︎❤︎

#all seasons #der natur donnerstag #digitalart dienstag #foto-tunes #gartenglück 
#image-in-ing #makrotex  #t in die neue woche #the weekend roundup #värikollaasit #willy-nilly

A Sunny Day for a Change!

I have been complaining about the July weather in Finland. Today was a gorgeous day, but pouring rain & strong winds returns tomorrow. I have been out in the garden the entire day. One bright side of gardening are the abundant materials for bouquets. I made a joyful mixed bouquet of what was growing here and there.

 

  A simple coffee break with salty biscuits was so needed!

It is Campanula time as you can see. The light was not the best possible but I love
white Campanula latifolia. The blooming could last a bit longer.

Astrantia major

Wishing you a sunny & pleasant weekend!

❤︎❤︎❤︎

#all seasons #der natur donnerstag #digitalart dienstag #foto-tunes #gartenglück 
#image-in-ing #makrotex  #t in die neue woche #the weekend roundup #värikollaasit #willy-nilly

Friday Bliss #96 - Visual Art Day

Today we celebrate in Finland The Visual Art Day. It is the birthday of our beloved painter Helene Schjerfbeck (1862-1946). I love her art and have seen her paintings in many museums & exhibitions and read her biography. She is famous of her brutal series of self portraits - HERE my post from the exhibition On my Travels I Found Myself at Ateneum Art Museum last winter.

I have this wonderful book with poems of Edith Södergran (1892-1923), illustrated with Schjerfbeck’s art. Södergran was Swedish-speaking, is highly praised, but died tragically young of tuberculosis. Poem Hunter has on their site  more translated poems. She loved cats. On the photo with Totti.
HIER zwei Gedichte von Södergran auf deutsch.

THE STARS

When night comes

I stand on the steps and listen,

stars swarm in the yard

and I stand in the dark.

Listen, a star fell with a clang!

Don’t go out in the grass with bare feet;

my yard is full of shards.

THE LAND THAT IS NOT

I long for the land that is not,

For all that is, I am weary of wanting.

The moon speaks to me in silvern runes

About the land that is not.

The land where all our wishes become wondrously fulfilled,

The land where all our fetters fall,

The land where we cool our bleeding forehead

In the dew of the moon.

My life was a burning illusion,

But one thing I have found and one thing I have really won - 

The road to the land that is not.
***

Jag längtar till landet som icke är,

ty allting som är, är jag trött att begära.

Månen berättar mig i silverne runor

om landet som icke är.

Landet, där all vår önskan blir underbart upp-

fylld,

landet, där alla våra kedjor falla,

landet, där vi svalka vår sargade panna

i månens dagg.

Mitt liv var en het villa.

Men ett har jag funnit och ett har jag verkligen

vunnit –

vägen till landet som icke är.

Trees in Wind 1918, private collection / Ateneum’s exhibition Silent Beauty.

 See more paintings by Helene Schjerfbeck at Wikiart.

❤︎❤︎❤︎

Sun, Joy & Happiness to your weekend!

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