lunedì 12 ottobre 2015

October is here

October is here and so is the more unstable weather. It's still not cold here in Rome, but there have been some rainy days and the weather sometimes changes very quickly. Between these two shots taken from our porch, there is only about fifteen minutes!

domenica 11 ottobre 2015

September collage

The Pieni Lintu and the Mona's Picturesque blogs inspired me to make a monthly collage and look back at our September. So here it is finally: My September collage.

We came back from Finland and as it was getting a bit autumnish there, the summer weather still continued in Rome throughout September.
Schools started here in September, so we went shopping for school supplies.
Me and the girls spent one night in a farm house in Alviano where we went to see Sofia's friend's show jumping competition. We found a nice place with a pool, pear trees and a lovely view.
Before schools started we went on a relaxing beach holiday to Marina di Camerota in the Campania region. It was just what I needed to cheer me up after having left all my dear persons in Finland again.
I invited our friends for a barbeque party in our garden and we spent a really nice day there. There were some rain drops, too, but fortunately the clouds soon disappeared and we could enjoy our day with good food, wine and lots of laughs.
Sofia had a show jumping competition in September. It went well one day and bad the second day.
We went for beach walks in Ostia where we saw some beautiful sunsets.
Of course we couldn't keep away from the lovely ice creams while walking.
Took some photos of Sofia and Danhill when Sofia was riding bareback a little bit. Without the riding helmet, because she had got a permanent hair straightening as her 15th birthday present and for a few days she couldn't tie her hair or wash it.

giovedì 1 ottobre 2015

Last nostalgic days in Finland this summer

The last days in Finland we had to hurry in order to do as many things as possible before leaving. We had nice weather ant the sea water had got warmer.
So we finally went swimming to Laajakoski, which is the place where we love to go for quick evening swims and to Äijänniemi, which is the nearest beach.



I took the girls for a photo shoot in a wheat field.  Took lots of photos and we had fun.


We went to Katariinan Meripuisto, a lovely park in Kotka where we had an evening picnic. I really love that park. You can see the sea all the time and there are lots of things to do, you can have barbeques there, there are good picnic tables, you can excercise or just relax and breathe in sea air.














We went out for dinner to an Indian restaurant with my mother and I went out with my sister's daughter to a Thai restaurant and the girls wanted to go to Subway once more. That's there favourite restaurant in Finland.




We went for bicycle rides and picked some more blueberries in the nearby wood. They were getting a bit dry and you could see from the trees that autumn was arriving.



Then we had a nice day in the countryside at my sister's home. The girls tried pony agility and  driving a pony carriage with my sister's cute Shetland ponies.







It has become a tradition to buy sweets here in Finland before leaving. The supermarkets in Finland have a really good selection of them.


We went to the swimming pool in Kotka and to the shopping center for some last shopping.  It was a cool and rainy day, but the outdoor pool still was open and the water felt really warm compared to the air.



We went to Lovisa because Daniele had left his watch at Onni's home. That day it was also the old houses' day there, where you can visit people's houses, but we didn't have time to do it this time. There were lots of people and we walked around a little bit before driving back to Kotka.





The last night in Finland we had a get-together with old school mates in a beautiful restaurant by the sea in Kotka. I got to see some old class mates and we had a really nice evening. There were people from different graduation years, so many of them I had never met, some of them I didn't recognize and others were just like 30 years ago. Only four persons from my class came, including myself. Two of them are my close friends and fortunately I see them every time I go to Finland. The third one I hadn't met for many years and it was really nice to see her. I hope we will meet soon again. She even came to my home to meet my parents before the party and the four of us had a drink in the bar near the restaurant before going to the dinner. 




Posing with my parents before going out.