lovely, beautiful

The sun finally made its way to my little corner of the world and to celebrate I've been out walking. 

Above are pictures from a favoured walk on which we take in the Great Alms Cliff and views, several farms with their dry stone walls, fields of cows, many sheep (sans winter coats) and a couple of innings!

A summer walk in lovely, beautiful Yorkshire.

my travel journal

I've been gathering bits for my travel journal in preparation for a journal-along I'll be taking part in sometime soon (I promise to share details the moment I have them). Before now, the extent of my record keeping was a diary.

But why a travel journal and not an album or diary? Well, a while ago S and I thought it would be a good idea to highlight the most memorable bits of our trips. And as we keep many mementos anyway, it didn't seem like this would be such a stretch. So I made a book

and then kinda got stuck. What now?, what do I include?, how much detail is appropriate?, how do I lay things out? how do I, a non-artist, make my journal pages 'pop'?, 

For answers I turned to the trusty interwebs and below are the points I found most useful.

• when and where: name of city, date, your exact location (ferry terminus, church square...) if journaling on the spot.
• stuff to ALWAYS include: an itinerary, your route, interesting people you meet on the way and your best bits of the trip. 
• expand on words: include train tickets, maps, airline ticket stubs, wine labels...
• describe EVERYTHING: the smells, sounds, accents...
• pre and post-journaling. This I found particularly interesting as it's something I do anyway but hadn't thought to add this to a travel journal. 
• Leave gaps to add forgotten details later! something else that makes sense.

Other considerations (of mine) included the choice of journaling on-the-go (while everything's still fresh in my mind) versus journaling post-holiday (details are a little fuzzy but all the bits [pictures, scissors, glue etc.] are at hand).
I also had to decide whether to have one journal per trip or several trips per journal. 

As mine is a shared journal, I came up with a few tweaks and ideas for the future. In no particular order these include:

• S journals on-the-go (which is more his style) while I journal post-trip because I prefer to have all i need at my fingertips.
• taking candid shots of each other by street signs, paying for a coffee, writing postcards...photos of us "being normal" in this foreign place
• photograph certain things everywhere we go. This could be taxis, letter boxes, street signs
• (almost) anything goes: doodle, paint, even write about the weather. 

I admit, I'm very excited to collate my "best of" in one volume, I'm especially looking forward to picking up tips from seasoned journalisers (yeah, i'm having trouble believing this is a proper word too!). 

Last week S and I had maps and guide books out for reference, this felt like a mini-holiday to me - I do enjoy my cheap thrills :-) I'm already thinking of other journals I could make. Hmmm, all those wedding pictures that weren't quite good enough for the album, my birthdays over the years, our dream garden...oh the possibilities! And I don't even need to make the journals myself, a store bought notebook will do! 

Is journaling something you've thought of? Or (like me) would like to get into? Wanna join us? As with any craft-along, the more the merrier. Just think about that poor pile of pictures waiting to see the light of day. In the first instance, all you need to do is pick a theme, buy a notebook and report back for further details. 

Here's to a good week.

bonfire right of the sun

By far the best part of my recent trip to Finland was spending time with Iscah. We are very similar beings with a shared sense of humour, similar tastes in music, we're both carefree and vivacious laced with a very wicked side - I think I'd forgotten how deeply I ADORE her. Add to this our shared love of  biking, good food, deep conversations, silly conversations, strong sense of adventure and you start to understand how exceptional the week with her was. It's probably not very wifely of me to say this but I'm happy S wasn't with us - he wouldn't have 'got' most of our jokes, our chatter, our endless reminiscing nor any of our silliness. I would have either had to (i) constantly explain it all (such a drag) or (ii) leave him out of conversations with Iscah (which would not have been very nice).

I did have my reservations about the trip, of course I did, who wouldn't? After all It had been 12 years since Iscah and I had seen each other, that's a long while in any friendship. Beforehand I wondered; how much had we changed? in which ways had we changed? had we changed at all?
Another concern I had is that I don't do well being away from home/S for long periods. My limit is about 3 days after which my discomfort rises to intolerable levels hence I tend to make my escape before then. The boy understands this, which explains why phone calls in the latter half of the week consisted of him marvelling at the fact that I was still having an amazing time!

Iscah is a night owl and I'm an early bird. In the summer months her city, Jyväskylä, has long hours of daylight and white nights, something I was keen to experience. And so for that week I was a night owl too :-)
The first three pictures were taken during one of our midnight walks.

{I couldn't wrap my head around how light it was at midnight!}

Below are shots from the island. You know, the one with the sauna and BBQ and lake one jumps into in-between 'sauna-ing'...

{well, hello me!}

{I finally got to photograph Iscah in the hand knits I made for her last winter}

{as well as the afterthought heel socks that she just had to have
because they were the perfect complement to a hat she owns!}

{even MY hand knits - which had been languishing for 10 months(!) without a photo on Ravelry - got its photo-op. }

{me dipping my toes in}

{And here is Taru, my red belt girl. Thrice I saw her cycling about town on her cute little bicycle wearing a 

skinny red belt. I liked the look and informed Iscah that I would buy a skinny red belt to wear with dresses too! 

Imagine my surprise at meeting her on the island (it was her first visit!). I introduced myself, we took pictures of 

each other (she takes beautiful photographs) after which Iscah and I left her to enjoy her novel and hammock. 

A sweet encounter.}

{this was taken at 11:30pm on midsummer's night. do you see the bonfire right of the sun?}

Pictures can't adequately convey the magic of the moments nor how at peace I was in this space. There aren't a lot of places in this world where I am completely naked (metaphorically speaking) and alright with it. Iscah took tonnes of beautiful photographs of me (hey, if I don't cringe at them they're beautiful), strangers photographed me...in my bikini(!!!) and that was alright too. I didn't freak out, didn't meltdown, didn't ask them to delete my pictures, it's a time I'll always remember. 

And there you have it, an account of my time in Jyväskylä, central Finland. Thanks for visiting with me.