March- monthly recap

I know, I know.. I owe you April as well.

Patience, my friends.

March, documented with my phone.

I do like clever lighting in public places, the lights at this mall changed color.

Why was I there? Well it was next to the movie theater where I was meeting a friend.

Yes, it was good.

What a man.

One of my favorite things at the Maxim movie theater are the golden walls.

I was back there just two days later for a different kind of movie/theater experience.

Not a light piece of theater, but oh my what actors.

Don't you just love this place?

The city was quite empty at 11.30pm on a rainy Tuesday night.

We bought a new lamp for the bedroom.

It is lovely.

On the subject of lamps, this one fell on my head at work.

Lucky I have a hard head.

I only got a small cut on my hand.

These guys on Niina's book shelf.

Happiness.

I ditched the winter shoes.

But not the coat.

Breakfast date before work at a (new to me) café near school.

Now I know what to do with that rug I wove!

The day I wore pink and a little bling a first grade girl looked at me and sighed that I looked so beautiful.

Left over bananas from the winter sports day and one amazing colleague, resulted in a smoothie bar in the teachers' room. Yum.

No, that haze is not mist.

It is dust.

coughcoughcough

Marimekko outlet.

Color therapy and happy shopping baskets.

More city light details. This at the metro.

First blooms.

Your week can start with awesomeness by sweet colleagues.

"Good morning, Susanna dear. Would this be needed on a Monday morning?"

Isn't this quilt the most amazing thing you've seen?

My colleague Irina makes wonderful things from Marimekko fabrics.

Go check her out on Etsy.

Our dollhouse club will finish these houses that were left in different stages of unfinished when our friend Jaana suddenly passed away in 2009.

They will be on display at the big fair in October.

We had a leprechaun visit at work...

And the most amazing apology from a parent after he was a few minutes late to pick up his daughter.

Two days later the restaurateur brought us pizzas out of this world.

My cousin and I escaped for the weekend to check out the Stockholm dollhouse fair.

I have two words for you:

dessert buffet.

We had some great looking drinks that turned out to be horribly sweet. Ick.

And then we got a preview of a performance with hula hoops by a guy who rendered us in to a hot giggling mess. 

It was a like a really bad stripper wanna-be from the eastern block from the 80's.

Let's just say that the people in the nearby tables were looking at us scoffingly while we laughed with tears on our cheeks.

They really needed to wash those windows...

Always beautiful.

Stockholm.

Even if the weather was bitterly cold.

At work the kids needle felted Easter eggs.

This one was my favorite.

There was a rabbit who chomped on my crocuses...

I leave you with photos from my big camera.

We had the rare pleasure of seeing northern lights this far south.

They kept me outdoors craning my neck for quite some time.

Their dance across the sky is magical.

Allotment, April 25th to May 3rd

April 25th.

The rhubarb is coming up.

While I worked at the front where flowers will be planted, Mika built me some raised beds.

These are 3x3 feet, that is 92x92cm.

I did  a lot of studying over the winter (just in case) and decided that square foot gardening was the way to go. This summer I'll have ten of these beds.

April 26th.

My seedlings needed repotting.

Perfect time to watch gardening programs :)

Alan Titchmarsh's Love Your Garden.

I urge you to check it out.

Good stuff.

Like Extreme Makeover Home Edition, but for gardens.

I try to avoid disturbing the delicate roots of these babies and so this is what I use.

The pellets pop up once wet, and once the roots come through those I use the peat pots I can then just pop in the ground.

The sweet peas needed some help, so I made curlicues from wire.

I cut some Coke bottles to make small cloches.

I drilled a few holes on top.

These house broccolis.. I'm not sure how or even if they will turn out, they are so spindly...

I used the bottoms too.

These will get planted in these tiny greenhouses, but outside...

May 3rd.

Sun. Finally.

We've gotten quite a bit of rain during the week.

In fact my feet kept sinking in to the soil (read: mud) while laying out the newspaper that will be the weed barrier under the new soil.

Oh, they do look pretty, don't they.

(that sky gave us some hail about 90 minutes later... Spring in Finland: all seasons in a matter of five hours.)

Out with the old...

...in with the new.

I'm looking forward to it weathering some though.

I have spent a ridiculous amount of hours sorting out this front bit.

Digging out weeds, moving random plants from all over the lot. Like those daffodils.. there's about 20 of them, randomly popping up here and there. I decided they needed to be together.

I've also added compost soil and sand to help with the clay.

Look at that rhubarb now!

Platform sneakers of mud.

And as you can see.. dandelion minefield...

 

Next on the agenda: soil.

And actual planting.