After dinner I went out walking with the youngest daughter. She had a flashlight with her, and we walked some of the darker paths, because she wanted, and she had the flashlight.
I took photographs, handheld, up to 2 second exposure, and what can I say: blur is good.
(Posting title is from the poem They Sit Together on the Porch by Wendell Berry.)
After sunset I went to a nearby playground with my youngest daughter, who eagerly investigated the puddles the rain had produced. It was dark, but the leaf colors lightened the landscape nicely.
(Posting title is from the poem Said the Toad by Patrick Lewis.)
Today it rained, a lot. I was planning to walk on a swamp today. I thought for some time about the choices, and finally decided to go to Revonkorpi ("Fox swamp") in Luukki. However, the children wanted to come with me, so I changed the plan.
We made a picnic of the walk, walking for half an hour using the ready-made paths at Luukki, eating a bit, and returning via another route.
It rained, but not too heavily, and it was all rather nice. Well, different kind of nice compared to what I was initially planning - a two-hour walk across the wet open swamp at Revonkorpi - but no matter, it was good to be out with the daughters, who chattered all the time and seemed to enjoy the rain, the puddles and the streams.
(Posting title is from the poem He Thinks of His Children by Hittan Of Tayyi,
translated by Charles Lyall.)
Today was a fine day for commuting by bicycle, dry, sunny, +7 °C in the morning and +20 °C in the afternoon.
The school starts tomorrow for the children, and today we made some preparations for it. I had to take my oldest daughter again to see a doctor because of the ear infection; I hope she will now get better with the right medicine. And for the youngest one I had to make bicycle repairs so that she can ride the bicycle to school tomorrow.
(Posting title is from the poem A Pot of Red Lentils by Peter Pereira.)
Here is the fourth installment of photographs from my trip with the children, this time from Särkänniemi amusement park in Tampere. We spent six hours there, and even though it rained a bit every now and then, the weather was just right, not too hot or too cold.
Many other people had come to the park. Both of the big parking lots were full of cars, but luckily we found a space in a hidden corner of the parking lot farthest away. And there were long queues in the park, although later during the evening it was better as people started leaving.
Six hours in the park made me rather tired, but the children seemed to have surprising reserves of energy. But it wasn't difficult to get the children to sleep that night, after a enjoyable day.
One of the things I discovered during the trip was how difficult it is to find good tea in restaurants or cafes. When there was brewed tea available, it was so dark that you couldn't visually distinguish it from coffee, and the taste was awful, one would have needed to put a lot of sugar and milk in it to make it tolerable, and I don't put either in tea.
And if there was hot water available for tea, then the type of green tea bags which were available were those to which an additional flavor has been applied, so that it is impossible to taste the tea, you only taste the added flavor.
So, even though my tea brewing experiments have sometimes given awful results (because of using too hot water), I was very pleased to come back home and brew a cup of tea for myself. Or several cups.
Currently I'm drinking Temple of Heaven gunpowder tea. This particular tea is quite mild, but I like the taste a lot, and even though the recommended brewing temperature is 70 °C, it seems to tolerate hotter water as well. (I'm sometimes too impatient to cool the boiling water.)
(Posting title is from the poem The Swing by Robert Louis Stevenson.)
Today I was too busy to take any photographs, so here are three taken yesterday at Petikko. My daughter is really good in spotting things such as butterflies. She has better eyes, or then she just sees better. I have realized that most of the time I see only a fraction of what she is able to observe of the world.
It rained this morning, but I commuted by bicycle anyway, and towards afternoon the day turned sunny and dry.
(Posting title is from the poem Walking by Thomas Traherne.)
In a recent comment there was a deep quotation: "We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are." I discussed this today with a colleague, when pondering different ways of proceeding forward from a problematic situation. Or perhaps it is better to say that I was, sadly, mostly lecturing about this and not really listening.
But anyway, it is very much true, that whatever the subject, understanding it is a challenge because we only see ourselves. And perhaps understanding anything at all starts from understanding yourself in relation to others.
And thus, while trying to discuss this topic, I failed miserably because I was not listening.
Anyway, at the end of the day I went for a walk with my daughter, who likes swings.
(Posting title is from the poem The Swing by Robert Louis Stevenson.)
I commuted by bicycle today, and was a bit tired afterwards, but I'm starting to recover faster from the exercise.
Today my two oldest daughters were on a course learning how to make kites. The instructor was a "kite guru", and I must admit the results were impressive. My daughters had several kites with them, two of them ready for flying.
After dinner we went to a hill in Malminkartano to try the kites. Climbing up the hill was a bit exhausting, but it was good to be up on the hill, and the wind was about right for these kites. I haven't played with kites in ages, but the old skills came soon back, how to position the kite properly for flying, how to control the kite and so on.
The daughters had a fine time flying the kites, and the varying wind was just right to pose a bit of a challenge.
(Posting title is from the poem Wind on the Hill by A. A. Milne.)
We went once again to Luukki today, as the children wanted to swim. One of their friends also came with us. It was a warm day, and even though the water isn't yet really warm, the children spent quite some time swimming.
After the swim we went to a concert where our oldest daughter played the piano. The youngest member of the audience wanted to perform as well, and was running around and making happy noises on the stage, giving people a reason to smile. A lot of things for one day.
(Posting title is from the poem Playthings by Rabindranath Tagore.)
I went today twice for a walk in the Luukki forests, both times with my daughters.
At noon my second youngest daughter suggested going for a walk, and we went to lake Kaitalampi in Luukki, walking by the shore looking at the scenery. It was sunny, not too hot, and the green of spring was advancing rapidly.
Later my oldest daughter also wanted to go for a walk. We went again to Luukki, this time to lake Myllyjärvi and lake Hauklampi, where there are fir forests, and rather rocky terrain.
Both times we had a little picnic at the final destination, on top of cliffs beside a lake. It was nice to be out walking, and talking with the children.
(Posting title is from a poem by Harryette Mullen.)
Posts
All Comments
