Floral Bliss #42

This week some floral autumn photos. Maybe not much of a bliss, it is the season, you know. These are not from my garden but from a visit to a relative. On Saturday we drove to the west coast of Finland to attend to a funeral of a distant relative. It was a rainy & cloudy day, so no sunshine seen on the photos.

Muutama syksyinen kukkakuva, ei ehkä hehkeää kauneutta, sillä syksy on tehnyt tehtävänsä. Lauantaina ajoimme Turun lähelle Mietoisiin iäkkään suvun jäsenen hautajaisiin. Tihkutteli, joten kuvat jäivät hiukan hämäriksi.

I forgot to ask the name of this small flowered clematis but it was very pretty.

Unohdin kysyä Hannelelta tämän herkän ja pienikukkaisen kärhön nimeä, mutta kaunis se oli.

There was this magnificent old Sorbus pendula full of berries. So beautiful.

Hannelen pihan laidalla kasvoi tämä upeista upein vanha riippapihlaja.

At the cemetery there were also many sorbus decorated with berries.

Hautausmaalla kasvoi myös paljon kauniisti haarautuneita pihlajia.

The church was pretty and modest, from 1643. I'll tell more about it later.

Mietoisten kaunis harmaakivikirkko on 1600-luvulta, kerron siitä lisää myöhemmin.

All the way the scenery offered autumn views.

Maisemat olivat hyvin syksyisiä jo.

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FROM TUESDAY 4 PM TILL THE NEXT MONDAY 4 PM

Helsinki time

Please join & share your photos with us!

All previous Floral Bliss

Have a nice week! - Mukavaa viikkoa toivottelen!

An InLinkz Link-up

Weekend in Black & White

They call me The Black Sheep of The Pack. How come?

I ain't black but some are.

Weekend in Black & White

Sjundby Manor

Sjundby manor castle completed in the 1560s 

at rapids of Siuntio River, is one of the finest stone buildings in Finland

Sjundby Manor is situated in Siuntio / Sjundby. It is a bilingual community, therefore the community has name in both official languages. We had my granddaughter Helmi's high school graduation party a week ago very near. I knew that Helene Schjerfbek had spent many childhood summers at Sjundby Manor and also painted it. The Manor has long history, a bit more of it:

The grey granite manor in Sjundby has kept watch over the gently rolling landscape with its rapid on the river between Tjusträsk and Vikträsk for almost 450 years. But Sjundby Manor is mentioned for the first time already in 1417, at that point as a manor farm. It was the admiral and field colonel Jakob Henriksson Hästesko who built the manor which later was passed to the Tott family for four generations.

Kohta jo lähes 450 vuotta on Sjundbyn harmaakivinen linna vartioinut kumpuilevaa maastoa koskineen Tjusträskin ja Vikträskin välisellä joen osuudella. Sjundby mainitaan ensimmäisen kerran jo vuonna 1417, jolloin se oli säteritila. Amiraali ja kenttäeversti Jakob Henriksson Hästesko rakennutti linnan, joka myöhemmin siirtyi Tott-suvun omistukseen neljän sukupolven ajaksi. 

From 1698 onwards Sjundby has been the family estate within the Adlercreutz family, from the 20th century onwards in the matriarchal line. One of the most renowned persons to visit the manor in the 20th century was the artist Helene Schjerfbeck who was inspired by the manor and its surroundings in many of her works.

Helene Schjerfbeck: Sjundby manor 1901

When The Soviet Union took over the Porkkala area in 1944, the manor was situated on the wrong side of the border and was badly damaged during the years to come. The manor with its twometre-thick walls and deep vault cellars has undergone pious restoration after Finland got the area back in 1956. There are still texts in Russian on the gable wall of the old dairy which remind of the era of the Soviet Naval base. The manor is still today a private home and tourist groups are accepted to a limited extent, I could see the manor only outside.

The rapid was very vivid, on the other side of the bridge the view was still & idyllic.

Right beside The Manor there were huge old oaks.

Mosaic Monday

I wish you enjoyed a peek into our history.

Fiesta at Countryside

My sweet granddaughter Helmi finished high school  with great grades and got her white student cap. Now university either in Aberdeen or in Glasgow waits for this eager psychology student. Her graduation party was held at Siuntio, a rural community at less than hour's drive from Helsinki.

Helmi's brother Hannes celebrated his 16th birthday and finished his primary school with excellent grades.
High school now waits this handsome 190 cm tall young man!

Helmi's family had booked this pretty Fanjunkars Cottage that has great history. So I'll tell a bit about it. One of our most important Finnish writers, Aleksis Kivi  (see more at the link!) lived here between 1864 - 1871. His landlady was Miss Charlotta Lönnqvist who offered home and creating peace for this poor writer. Those years at Fanjunkars were the most productive in Kivi's life. He wrote there also his great novel Seven Brothers.

Helmi's cousins are pretty and sweet, like taken from Carl Larsson's paintings!

After the war Fanjunkars Cottage remained in the area that had to be rented to Soviet Union. Sadly under those years the cottage got ruined, only the stone foundation was left. The idea to rebuild Fanjunkars lived for long and gladly finally in 2003 the construction could be started. Three years later this pretty culture house was ready. The local council of Siuntio meets sometimes there and the cottage can be rented for private purposes as well.

In the cottage there is a museum room showing portraits and the writing place of this great writer. Our happy graduate celebration was a sunny success in this beautiful cultural environment. The table was filled with all kinds of delicious stuff - thanks to my dear daughter-in-law!

Makrotex Challenge / June
Mosaic Monday
Five on Friday

I hope you enjoyed my happiness and this little piece of our culture.

Five on Friday

It's time to sum up 5 things for Amy's Five on Friday!

I noticed that the hostess is changing in March.

So I wish to thank you Amy for having hosted this lovely meme ❤︎

It's a lot of work, so I understand it is time to let others take care.

As to my post, I'm short.

1 Reading

I have read a lot, mostly newly released Finnish books.

But this book of short stories from the 1980s was a true find - I recommend:

The US Raymond Carver - What we talk about when we talk about love

2 Literature evening

Recently I attended the 2nd Kirja vieköön! literature evening of this year.

The guest writers on the stage were interesting, including Koko Hubara,

a multiethnic brown girl, writer, journalist and blogger at her 

blog Ruskeat tytöt / Brown Girls.

Me and some other book bloggers

3 Photographing challenges

I participate weekly in some challenges. Here my photos for

Makrotex Challenge 'Seasoning' & Color Collage 'Strong Colors'.

Papaver orientale, Meconopsis cambrica, Alcea rosea 'Nigra'

4 ATP Rio de Janeiro

It is great that I can watch the tournament live on my couch.

Top ten players are not in Rio, but I'm a fan of some,

for e.g. the Ukrainian Alexandr Dolgopoulos.

5 Winter vs Summer

We got a lot, I mean a lot of new snow. I'm waiting for spring, no snow  - no more!

A few days ago I posted a hilarious poem from the famous Finnish poet

Ilpo Tiihonen - Oh heiferiness and humaness.

It might be worthwhile to look at the link, the poem is really great fun!

Wishing you a great weekend!

Oh heiferiness and humanness

I just read a fantastic book called Danger of Verses. It consists of Finnish poems chosen by seven writers. Each writer has written a short essay of the poem chosen by him or her. The book was hilarious indeed. Then I found online the English version of this rural parody by the poet Ilpo Tiihonen. He is one of our most appreciated contemporary poets, born in 1950. In Finnish this poem was so cheerful and excellent that I thought his rural parodic scenes might be a joy for you too. Of course I and others who are not native English speakers miss its nuances but I know some can enjoy :)

A SUMMER EVENING’S SLIGHT CONCEPTUALNESS

Ah summer evening, and its eveningness,

its prodigious wonders and their bridgefulness

when the nightunited seamlessness

steals into one’s heart with restfulness

O heiferiness and humanness,

ah shivering shimmeringness,

innocents’ innocuousness

and vastness with its stresslessness –

five or six chicks of a dabchick,

and deep water, lapfulness.

Our blue sky’s mirrored changefulness!

the spruces’ tall topliness, their tips’ sacredness

the yellow-billed black singer’s flutiness.

Nested cosiness, mutual tootiness!

And oh the idler’s idling idleness

and the shuttling rower’s glidingness

on his holiday trip to goal-lessness

the fisherman’s undemanding uncatchingness

the innocent non-offendingness

of the leadhead’s letting-go-ingness.

Summer, great echoing summer’s heatstrokiness,

the haiku-puffs of the sauna’s smokiness, lip-lap

unsteady jettiness, lip-lap, rocking-about-edness

the naked skin’s nothing-about-it-edness

aerial echoing of seagulness

and goodies grilling for forkedness.

Ah gulfiness, lakiness, streaminess

ah featherlight set-free-again-ness

and seismic earth’s ecstatic staticness

and summer calm’s so easy boatliness.

Ah cows’ exuberant udderliness,

humanness, quiescentness,

ah Finnish horses’ trusty horsiness,

and foxcubs’ frisky foxiness,

hazelhens’ henness, snakes’ snakiness,

ah far-off-ness of quaky autumn, and its headachiness!

Oh microscopic wormy mouldiness

dandelions’ sunny harvest of goldiness

the headland’s swaying hayfulness

witchgrass’s whimsical playfulness

and sheep-sorrel’s sweet salt-tastiness!

Oh the saliva-licking of all unchasteness

hot musk-orchid’s scented headiness

passion flowers’ glad gift of unsteadiness

and the minty gluiness of sticky lipfulness

yes, and at the edge of happiness, thistliness.

But detail by detail the cosmic interdependenceness

and ref by ref its green inter-referenceness

sing the appendixness of human songfulness

Oh all the heiferiness, humanness, hoveringness

wafting cloud-loftiness, lofty melodiousness –

our heavenly household’s wallhung wise-sayingness –

oh summer cradling us, its total cradlingness.

Translated by Herbert Lomas (assisted by Soila Lehtonen) 

A summer evening’s slight conceptualness

III song: Summer symfony, dedicated to the author Joel Lehtonen (1881–1934)

From Eros (WSOY, 2002)

The Finnish lyrics can be found here.

Mosaic Monday

Natur-Donnerstag
I know, the poem is in English and it translates very poorly into German with Google.
But I wish you can enjoy the photos - and maybe learn some English...

I wish you enjoyed!