Porvoo, part 2

This will be a long post, so you may want to take a cup of coffee (it is still my birthday party!). Yesterday you saw the Cathedral of Porvoo in snow. The first church here was built in the late 13th and early 14th century, and the present church in the 1450s. Let's go in now through this door.

Behind the altar ther is a window and a crusifix. The altar painting is on the far right (not in sight), a version of the Last Supper.



The church's roof was badly burned in a fire in 2006, and it took two years to rebuild it. I think the dark colour in this vault is fire damage. The chandeliers fell on the floor but the ceiling was not damaged.  The church has suffered several fires during the centuries, but it has always been rebuilt. During reformation it was usual to cover all the paintings in churches with white paint. The original paintings could be restored only partially.

The four apostles are painted on four pillars in the church. St. Matthew

St. Marc

St. Luke

and St. John

Miniature ship  hanging from the ceiling. Some ships were donated to the church as votive ships by grateful seafarers after a dangerous voyage, or before one. This tradition has spread to Finnish coast areas from Sweden.

I thought you wanted to have a better look at the unicorn.

The organ opposite to the altar.

Two galleries on both sides of the church. Usually there is just one, but this is a cathedral. The wood is painted to look like marble. 

This was the end of the tour. - In the evening we had the most delicious meal in the restaurant Wanha Laamanni. They have a special organic and local menu for this month. I had the soup and Mr. K. chose the Islander's plate with various cold fish. We both took Fried whitefish with Beurre blanc for the main course, and Colostrum panna cotta with lingonberry sauce for dessert. Yum! The restaurant was very close to our hotel, and we enjoyed the walk in the snow after the meal.

Back home I had the lovely gifts from friends waiting. Big sister P must have read my earlier post about bright flowers, because she brought me a bucketfull of tulips, one for every year. I needed three vases for them!

Then I admired the presents again. ( I must admit I opened them before I left for the weekend.) These are all from my European blogging friends, it takes surprisingly long for mail to cross the Atlantic. In alphabetical order, first the presents from Anne Marie from Norway:

Two beautiful cup mats, four lovely fabrics folded like a star, and some Easter marzipan chocolates. Thank you, Anne Marie!

Next comes Melanie, she has been busy sending me presents - I showed the wonderful book already. We share a love for mushrooms, and she knows I have a messy sewing room, so she made me a unlose-able pincushion in the same style as her houseelf's house.

  

In my Christmas parcel came a birthday-wrapped present I have kept in the closet waiting, and finally got to open it. The prettiest ever Miss Bunny was there, cramps in her legs and her pretty dress all wrinkled, but after some ironing (for the dress and apron) and some stretching (for the legs and ears) she was happy to find Christobel's old place on the fireplace corner.

This is Christobel, the Christmas elf from Melanie:

She is spending the off-duty time in my sewing room, and I bet she'll tell Melanie that I don't deserve any gifts for next Christmas because I'm so messy.

The last lot is from dear Suzie. She sent me a fabric with old sewing machines, very inspirational for the cutting mat bag I have ben planning to make for several years already. It will be perfect for the front side. Under that fabric is some "pocket Coffee", chocolates with liquid espresso filling. The first night Mr. K. and I had three of them each, and stayed awake half the night! Now they are restricted to one/night or two in the afternoon.

Here is a closer look at the sewing bag Suzie made. You can see part of the heart stitching on the right.

Inside she used other lovely sewing themed fabrics, and I found some hand sewing needles and machine needles and some quilting thread in the pockets. Thank you, Suzie!

I think I need to show you one more present, this is from Mr. K and DD Kaija. Some of you know that Kaija has started a new blog showing old black and white photos taken by my Great Auntie Saima's husband, Emil. She has scanned the photos from an album my mother gave her, and now she has hand picked lots of them for me and had them made to a book.

The front cover shows Saima at very young age in a white summer dress. In the next pictures she is a grown woman, with a lovely hat. Kaija did a wonderful job with the layout of these not-standard size photos, and now I finally have some photos of my dear Great Auntie Saima.

This was the end of the birthday party. I hope your liked the whitefish as much as we did. Don't eat too many chocolates!