I'm off for a trip abroad

This has been a busy time, making things not to be shown yet and preparing for an exciting trip to Germany. Exciting for two reasons: only this morning we heard on the news that the strike is over which threatened to cancel Finnair flights and we can travel in the afternoon as scheduled, and exciting because I'm not only meeting my sister Maija, but I'm also going to meet Suzie of Littlebusybee! We (Mr. K and I) are visiting the EuroBLECH Sheet Metal Working Technology Exhibition (can a girl ask for more?) and staying at Maija's house like so many times before. For tomorrow we have arranged to meet Suzie in Hannover! She lives not too far from there, so we finally can sit down with a cup of tea and meet face to face. We have been good blogging friends for over two years already.

Before the snow covers everything here for many months, I thought I could show you some before and after pictures of Mr. Kotkarankki's five-year project in our yard. Like I have mentioned in some blog posts and e-mails, he is building us a new terrace for coffee drinking out in the open air. This will be the path to the said terrace, picture taken last year when he started by removing the old concrete tiles (under the sauna window by the wall).

Here is the same area this week, with new tiles and new soil for a small lawn. We can't plant anything here because this is where the snow falls from the roof all winter and stays a little longer in spring. The first snow we had two weeks ago lasted several days but it is all gone now, and there have been sunny days. It is cold though, and the ponds in the village are for a large part covered in thin ice. The swan family and ducks are still there.

This is the newly paved area late this summer.

Back to last year: here it all started. The old concrete tiles are gone and Mr. K has started to build a very good foundation for the new terrace. Frost can make such tricks in our climate, if the foundation is not properly built. The old terrace had some dales and hills and no chance to place a table steadily any more.

This summer's picture is taken from another angle. Everything is built on level here, measured twice and some more (I was at the other end of the tape most times), and just waiting for the boards next summer. The black square you can see down on the lawn is the roof of the new pump house Mr. K built on top of our old well so we can get water for the garden hose and for the little spring to be built in the old round swimming pool he has filled with sand, on the right lower corner here.

 

All I have been able to do here to help was to make coffee and bring him bottles of cool mineral water when he was working during the hot summer days and evenings. Now it is time to put the hoe, showel and rake aside and concentrate on preparing the garden for winter. I'm grateful to have a lovely husband like Mr. K. I'm happy to go with him to the big machines at the fair and see how they cut and bend and weld and drill sheet metal, and be his interpreter and act like I understood something about the things. There will be a break in blogging (like that would be some news at the pace I have been posting in the last weeks) and a travel report will follow some time next week. I know it is not as interesting for you as a quilt show would be, but I'll do my best.