Traveling the country

As Coronavirus restrictions force us to plan our holidays at home, the need to escape the four walls seems almost unbearable. Here in Finland, as the new cases dropped further, shops and small businesses begin to reopen their activities, although the authorities still suggest safety measures to be in place until the availability of a vaccine.

For the Wandering writer, those have been hard times, but the rediscovery of the beauties of my country made it worth spending a few words to bring everybody to a virtual tour.

Today, I'm going to bring you to a small town in southern Finland, Fiskars.

What brings Fiskars to be famous, is the fact that it has been the birthplace of the most successful and prolific factories, producing knives, scissors cutleries, and kitchen appliances. It's one of the oldest companies in the world to be still at the top of the market in the country makes it a success story.

But today, I'm not going to talk about the factory, but of the lovely place from where everything originated. The town was founded in 1649 and developed around the ironworks founded by a German gentleman, Petter Thornwärste, which also produced copper. The development of the industrial community was fast, producing, since the beginning, various devices, from kitchen utensils to transmission devices. 

The village was annexed to the municipality of Raseborg.

Nowadays, the village is an active center of Finnish art and design, with just 600 inhabitants in its center. It's a popular place for artists designers and artisans, and particularly in summer is a popular tourist destination.

The town is immersed in a quiet natural environment, and we were very lucky to find a sunny day for our visit:

A cup of coffee on the socially distanced cafeteria, at the shadow of the trees, crowned the hours spent on that charming place.

Although our plans for retiring in a warmer climate remain, I know I will miss those neighborhoods. Therefore, I plan to enjoy them for as long as I can. This means that, if you stay tuned, I will bring you some more of those peaceful and charming places.

Take care, and stay socially distanced.

An alternative Midsummer in Finland

Midsummer fest is, for those living in Scandinavia and Finland, a very important day to celebrate. The long, dark winter days are gone and forgotten.

Yet, the midsummer, bringing to the whole country an endless day, is more than a reason to celebrate.

As a general rule, people would gather at the park for a picnic. They will go swimming in the sea, take long saunas, and enjoy the light, which is something more valuable than money or any material possession.

This year, however, the parks are looking like an ordinary day in summer.

No big gatherings, no cafeterias full of people, no grilling or meeting at the beach.

For once, people will have to feel glad to be allowed to gather with their families in their gardens or going in the woods, avoiding popular places, reaching the summer cottages, and enjoy what nature can offer.

The official midsummer day is the 20th of June, that is today, but most of the people will celebrate on its eve.

So, indeed the pandemic reshaped the way people are celebrating the holidays, but this doesn't necessarily mean that they quit having fun, or honoring old traditions.

To tell the truth, the change we've experienced is not completely a disaster. Perhaps it's a positive reshaping, discovering that we don't need to spend our money uselessly to be happy. All we need is to connect with the few people who really mean something in our lives and have fun.

Perhaps we will learn how to enjoy life with simple things, even with a walk in nature.

Concerning me, I will celebrate the midsummer today, and I will take this chance to drive with my husband in the nearby cities, to discover something new about the country I'm living in.

Next time I will show you something more about what I've discovered about Finland. Perhaps the Wandering Writer is back on the road.

Next release and cover reveal

Time's flying and things get a bit on my way, particularly when it's time for a holiday.

The funny thing is that, for the first time in my working life, my supervisor could ask me to postpone my holiday, and there were no problems with it.

With that, we 're reaching another point, which is the complete flexibility of my free time.

Not being able to travel, I should call it time off.

Of course, there are also positive sides to not being able to leave for a journey, and those are, besides saving money to be allocated somewhere else, more time for me to write and nurture my garden.

Big projects are going on concerning both sides of the business. 

One is nurturing my spirit through the garden activities, and the other is transforming those positive thoughts on the writing process.

Therefore, I'm pleased to announce that the process worked so far and I've been busy creating the new cover for the next mystery novel.

The title:

The Man From The Mist.

It's a mystery novel where a young man, Dave, who lives his gray life in the almost complete invisibility and anonymity, will have to stand up for his right and to defend the only person who offered a friendly relationship. However, there is something from his past, he appears having forgotten, and a mysterious man appearing every time the mist is rising will force him to remember.

Here is a short teaser for the novel:

I'm also working on other promotional videos to be released.

Here's the cover I'm planning to use for the book.

As usual, from the original version that was created in the beginning, this is quite an evolution, but this is what happens generally. You start with an idea and you have no idea where it will bring you.

So the question is where now it will be released?

Being in the hands of the editor, I presume it could be ready by the end of this month. Nevertheless, I'm planning to put it into a pre-order and see what is going to happen.

Stay tuned, stay home, stay safe!

Not giving up the hopes

As here in Finland Spring is considered over, at least if we're asking the calendar, the weather isn't really warming up. We certainly shouldn't be surprised about it, as I can count a few years when we kept the summer clothes mothballed until further notice. Yet, this year, also the weather forecast seems to add insult to injury, as they keep forecasting the arrival of the summer "within a couple of days."

Now, if this couple of days were indeed days and not months, I wouldn't mind.

Nevertheless, having been blessed with a very mild winter, when it didn't snow at all, the plants in my garden didn't suffer at all, and after a slow start, all the flowers are blooming once again. Due to social distancing, we won't have any garden party. Regardless of this detail, I am still glancing at my yard, wondering whether there is anything I can improve. Until last year, weed was my problem, until I saw how some bugs seem to appreciate their presence. Therefore, this year, instead of eliminating it, I've considered blending it into the garden, planting other random flowers to match.

The result is that now I have many flowers in a meadow-like garden. Today, was also one of those days when the only inspiration was to take my camera and go out, and so I have some pictures to show you.

I could get the shot of a duck's specie which is classified as endangered. It was a pleasure to see a male chasing one female on the riverbank.

On my wanderings, I couldn't take my eyes off this beautiful tree:

And on the way home, I had to stop to listen to a charming singer giving all his best to that special song:

Before entering a magical place where to lose myself:

I hope you all had a relaxing weekend and will be ready to start once again the rat-race tomorrow. Take care, and stay safe.