A year ago I was reading a book (Keskiajan maut by Satu Hovi, Art House, 2015) on medieval flavours in Finland, that is, ca 1150 – 1500’s. It’s a fascinating book. What did food taste like? What did ordinary people eat? How did different seasons influence what you ate? Food’s position in society, who ate what, how food was used as means of paying your taxes. How food was prepared, what did the utensils look like, how was food preserved. The utensils pictured in the book look just like my grandmother’s old wooden spoons and whisk she used for cooking. Those are my grannie's utensils.
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These past two days have been glorious. A few degrees below zero (Centigrade), brilliant sunshine, just a little wind. Yesterday loads of people out walking, long queues in cafés. Many places are closed – I guess that’s only fair, they need their holidays like the rest of us. One of the buildings in Eiranranta (rather posh and terribly expensive) built about ten years ago is covered in scaffolding. Water damage. What ever happened to quality control??
The sewage of the condo I live in is undergoing renovations. The pipes are being lined with something, so it’s a fairly quick procedure. Nothing needs to be ripped out or installed. Still, I’m not allowed to use any drains for three weeks. The closest toilet and showers are either five floors up or five floors down, out, and then into the next building. No cooking facilities available. I mentioned this to a friend of mine last summer, and she said I could stay in their apartment. Thank you, Friend! My Facebook friends will know this already: I’m running out of ink for my fountain pen. A Mont Blanc. I bought it at Harrods in the autumn of 1994. Up here I’ve been able to get ink from the Academic Bookstore. They have recently been sold and the new owner has decided to concentrate on books, so I had to hurry to get a new bottle of ink before they run out.
The Japanese have a philosophy of treating breakage and repair as part of the history of an object. They have a fancy way of going about this using golden joinery. I bought a small 14 ml pot of gold paint used for model airplanes and such to bring out the history of two objects. I used cheepo brushes bought from a stationary’s. The cup was my father’s breakfast cup, the pattern on the side long ago faided. With the cracks it can no longer hold liquids so I use it to hold nuts and other titbits next to my TV chair. The green thing is the top of a piece of ceramic pot also good for holding goodies next to my TV chair. The paint is practically water soluble. However, I would recommend using tight rubber gloves to avoid golden fingers and fingernails. The headache? I've just had Office Home & Business 2013 installed on my computer and it no longer has Office Picture Manager. I've spent at least an hour trying to figure out how to pack photos. Looks like I have to figure out how to archive my photos all over... Actually, this is a refreshing headache, similar to the one when drawing on the right side of the brain although, probably, this is on the other side of the brain.
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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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