This weekend we joined friends for a road trip to a brand new science centre open in Estonia.  The museum was great - one of the best science centres we've ever been in.  The kids loved it: curious, active, fearless - running through the exhibits, ready for anything, the first to jump into flight simulators, dark tunnels, mazes, elevators.   I was surprised to see my own reaction to things though.  A number of times throughout the day I found myself fighting mini panic-attacks...

It's not too late for this cosy romantic scene with a handwritten "Happy New Year!", is it?  I picked up this postcard at a collector's fair this autumn.  I think I was taken by the obvious chemistry between the photo subjects - and the absurd hand-coloured hot-pink flames in the fireplace. The heartbroken Sigurds has written to Elga in 1924 - a lovestruck poem he can only have composed himself, inspired by the image on the card.  After reading his verse, I can't help wonder...

 Years ago, my mother-in-law taught me a concept taught to her by her mother - that some days are just "days with holes in them".  Meaning that on those days you feel miserable, and everything goes wrong.  Or they are melancholy, and you just can't wait for them to end.  Or maybe something actually terrible happens, or you get some bad news.  A day with a hole in it is a great concept - it gives you the acceptance that today is a shitty day - and that some days are just...

If you ask me there's no better way to bring in the New Year than having a New Year's Eve sauna. Woodfired and super heated, with a refreshing rub-down of snow afterwards.  Leaves you feeling extra clean and saintly, and ready for just  about anything, I reckon.  That's how our sauna looked last night - cosy light in the window as we walked down to the bath-house through the shadowy, snowy landscape.  I am not a big one for new year's resolutions.  This year I've...