Houses and Gardens

I took this picture on my way to my mother's place. I've realized that there are actually equally stunning flower arrangements here as in Ann Arbor. But maybe not so many. For those who know: this is from the really small park behind the Kela building in Sofianlehto.

I went to water my mother's plants since she was out of town this week. And after I'd succesfully watered all the plants – and a couple of my toes on the side – I gladly sat on her garden chair on her porch. I sat about two seconds quite happily before all of a sudden a couple of liters of rainwater hidden under the supposedly dry padding decided to soak through. So instead of walking to the department I decided to stay at my mother's place and dry my jeans – and my other sock.

In the evening we were invited to Tommi's former advisor's allotment garden. Allotment gardens are something quite typical of Helsinki, I think. They are areas divided into small square gardens with small playhouse-like houses. It's like a summer cottage. There are quite a lot of these areas in Helsinki. There's one I walk by every day on my way to work (except on Thursday when I dryed my pants instead). But we were invited to the one in Herttoniemi, in the eastern part of Helsinki, you can take the subway there.

We had a grand barbeque with wine, Ultra Bra and many stochastic friends. We also took a walk in Kivinokka, a cape by the allotment garden. I'd never been there before. It was super cool. It's a recrational area, sort of. With forest and paths and small small cottages built here and there in the forest, like huge mushrooms. The cape used to be a summer place for the working class in the early 1900. People would build their own tents and small cottages for the summer and tear them down again for winter. But in the winter of 1940-41 all the men were at war and nobody came to pull down the buildings. And so the houses became round-the-year houses. The're all very tiny with virtually no gardens and just small paths leading to them.

It was fun how different the cottages in the allotment garden and in Kivinokka were. The allotment gardens are small Hansel and Gretel houses with flower arrangement and cute curtains and nameplates. The Kivinokka houses looked like someone just carried them there and put down wherever they happend to get tired of carrying not even caring whether the place happened to be level or not. These are houses that one is supposed to sleep in and store ones stuff in when one goes to the beach or has fun outside and not for playing playhouse garden owners.

We also saw some environmental art and a goats' running contest. Obviously, there are pictures. Although, I have to say that Oskari had a camera that made me almost embarrassed with my tiny little thing. But if we would have had a competition on the smallest camera there would have been no arguing about my victory.