Fairy lights on cafe terraces, garden hedges and balconies seem a bit out of date this time of the year. I’d rather expect to see little daffodils and pearl hyacinths in pots. So it’s still a bit cold for them, the poor things would be shivering on some days, but why hang on to Christmas decorations in late February. It’s late February and I’m reading the March issue of Country Living (UK). Their April issue is on sale from 26 February. What’s the hurry? I was watching Shakespeare in Love. Watching and watching – at the same time I was checking my email, setting the table for tomorrow's breakfast, painting a birthday card for my youngest niece, testing different kinds of papers for this technique. There are lots of things you can do when you watch a film at home. You can listen to a film, a bit like an audio book. Then you go to the cinema and you can’t do all those other things, but that’s a different story. I want a wide window ledge in my study. I went to two DIY centres and both said they didn’t have wide ones. I went to one of these DIY centres today looking for something else and what did I find? I found wide shelves. What is a window ledge but a shelf under the window? I’m taking the ledges I bought back to them and coming home with wide shelves. Where I live now I see more people outside, going for walks and to the sled hill with the kids. There are more apartment buildings here, hence more people. The services are closer, hence people walk to them instead of taking their car to maybe as far as one whole kilometre. And people here talk to strangers. Just the other day I was observing, concerned, a man winter fishing on ice although it looked like he was sitting on water. Then I heard a female voice not far from me wondering why people can’t stay on shore on winters like this (two skaters were rescued a few days ago, they hadn’t seen where the ice ended and water began), how winters were different in her childhood (they were different in my childhood) etc etc. Two strangers just chatting with each other. This normally doesn’t happen on this latitude unless one of you is walking a dog. Or both. We even chose to recognize each other when we later met again. Quite unheard of. While waiting for books I’ve ordered from the library I’m trying to plod my way through Jacob Burckhardt’s Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien, though not in German. This book was written in 1860 and I don’t know how much German as a language has changed or developed since, but the Finnish translation from 1956 is nearly as heavy. Burckhardt goes into such detail that I find myself lost on every single page. I’m hoping something will rub off. Eventually. PS Spring is on its way. This is very early for spring so a backlash is to be expected.
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AuthorI'm Piisa and I will be sharing with you my thoughts on this and that, maybe even on whatever. Archives
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