Hilla

Today I subjected my pearly white and nerdy skin to all kinds of parasites and bugs. Voluntarily, too. There is a highly elusive and popular berry found in the undergrowth in Finnish forests. It's called a mesimarja, and it's not what we went looking for. Here's a picture of mesimarja anyway, since Boyfriend found some.
The value of these berries is probably something like 5 euros. Super rare.


We went looking for the second most popular berry - cloudberries. In Finland they're known as hilla, lakka, muurain, suomuurain and even valokki. Calling it the wrong name will cause your boyfriend to shout about the berry not being the same as varnish, also called "lakka" (think lacquer).
This is not varnish.

So we piled the dog and Boyfriend's mum in the car and went to the most mosquito-infested place in Finland. Boyfriend has so many mosquito bites on his back that he looks like a burn victim. The dog loves the forest. She bounces around crashing into bushes and chasing mosquitoes. It's really hard to walk there since it's dense forest, so she just bounces forwards and hopes she lands somewhere safe. We suppose.

Luckily for us the rest of Vihanti had either not stumbled across this particular place or else have at least some sense in their head and stayed at home, because we got TONS of berries.
Boyfriend's mum got half a large bucket as well. Look at them all! Look! Here's another picture.

Boyfriend's mum is of an almost militant opinion that the berries should be eaten straight from the forest with sugar and cream. So we did:



But we still have two buckets left. We sorted the berries into perfect, alright and "okay those are for "soup"". I'm making jam out of the "alright" group, but I'm having problems of thinking of something sufficiently scrumptious to make out of those "perfect" berries, since we spent about two hours sweating and being eaten alive in the middle of a swamp-forest. Ideas are welcome :)

P.S I just googled and someone made a toffee-cloudberry swiss roll. Well done, that person.

An open letter to Blink-182

Attention please. Today I am posting on a matter of utmost importance. Blink-182, I totally need your autographs. Since people probably want your autographs all the time I have decided to argue my case with bulletpoints and crappy art.

1) (mostly to Tom and and on behalf of the 11 year old me) Marriage is kind of out of the question now, huh? Considering we're both either married or engaged, the space between continents, timezones and pretty much everything else, I suppose it's for the best. An autograph will do.

2) I first heard Blink-182 in 1999 and immediately became a fan. I would probably have liked Blink's previous stuff but I was 11 and I was going through that "I love horses way more than boys and music" phase and I had to get that out of my system first. In any case I still bought Buddha and Cheshire cat because I was a fucking dedicated 11 year old and wasn't in it just for All The Small Things.

3) I'm 23 (so no-one likes me anyway) and run my own business but I still listen to songs about aliens and masturbation loudly and without shame.


4) I have faithfully followed your advice in important matters. I have never, for example, drunk dog semen as advised on the Mark Tom and Travis Show. My breath is minty fresh and my dog is not traumatised.

5) You ignore Funland Finland :( I know that it was me who moved here and therefore the blame cannot entirely be pinned on you, but could you possibly come to Helsinki? Even Sweden would do. You can tell which one is Finland because there's a well-known joke that Norway and Sweden resemble a flaccid penis whereas Finland is, quite obviously the ballsack of Scandinavia.



6) I'm willing to try to convince Finland that Tom's surname corresponds to his genitals.

7) I'm originally from England and I have heard that Americans sometimes like the English accent. If you like the English accent I can phone you and tell you the time, weather, or a dirty joke whenever you want.

As I now believe that my argument is watertight, I will wait for you guys to get in contact to post me my autographs.

Lots of love,
Stacy