–:–Read week 1 journal here–:–
–:–Read week 2 journal here–:–
–:–Read week 3 journal here–:–
Mon 27 jun
Quick eggy brekkie then off to catch a train to tallinn with the NART bike despite its flaws.
Sandra greets me at her flat and I drop my stuff off then head out for a walk to get my bearings. It’s super sunny and i look in the windows of antique shops in old town. After returning to Sandra’s I cycle to Pirita beach and find some mushrooms right by the estuary. It’s piping hot and dry, there’s no way i was expecting to see chicken of the woods or dryad’s saddle in the middle of summer. Go for a dip / sun bathe with a book. zip back along the coastal path into the city and notice accutely the lack of mosquitos attacking my legs.
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Tues 28 jun
take a bus to the open air museum. look at trad self-built wooden houses that have been resituated in the forest. struggling for excitement in heat. return to flat and prep wild mushrooms in marinade then cycle to ekkm garden. Maria Muuk and her bf Patrick give me a lil tour then get bbq smoking. Sille comes down and Ruth from Reconfiguring Territories also arrives completely randomly; a super nice shared supper with fancy cheeses, nice bread and fresh garden salad.
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Wed 29 jun
Ferry to helsinki with trusty bike. Go to vintage stores and get a few nice blouses. every city I visit I go to their botanical gardens; these were free and open 12h a day, but the gardens were not well laid out or inventively planted. Tbf prob not the perfect weather iin the city if it’s snowing for 6 months. Top up my suncream while sitting on a hill, then cycle to Kaisa’s flat, where I work on some writing for a few hours. Kaisa makes a lovely dinner for her flatmates and I of leftover lasagne baked with slabs of goat’s cheese, with a green salad, cucumber raita and mushroom tortellini, then we clean up and walk thru the city to Muustikamaan island. It’s hardly built up (a rarity here) and mostly ppl are chilling on the big rocks watching the sundown reflected off office buildings. The sky is blue-orange-purple.
I get a quick socio-cultural tour on the way back. I love it when hosts decide to retell short architectural / culinary / immigration histories about the place they live. It feels super intimate coz they correctly assume I will be interested.
Just before I go to bed I find out we are losing DARP in a month and I will not be back in time to say goodbye. devastated
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Thurs 30 jun
Wake up to a frantic email from the guardianship company saying there was an error and that we are not being evicted. incompetent pricks
Crunched up crackers, chopped banana, greek yog, frozen blueberries and squeezy honey
Black drip coffee and honey
Later i go to varialambo –who i met at NART recently– a few blocks away for lunch. Varia is still heavily pregnant and kiwi is as cute as i remember. They put on a lush spread of focaccia, tomatoes and bufala, avocado with chili and black sesame, grilled aubergine, all nicely seasoned covered in lovely olive oil. An old girlfriend of mine was a olive oil snob and i think i’m finally understanding why she was right to be! We talk for a while about living as artists and then take a cold dip in their communal pool in the basement. These finnish apartment blocks were built in the 70s when socialist ideologies were embedded in social architecture.
I cycle through the park to lock my bike up at the top of Lammassaari, a swampy landmass with big rock sticking out, and walk down its rickety wooden pathways through the middle of vast reed beds. I stop at the designated areas to look for birds through my binoculars and take a sip of water.
There’s a book launch at a book shop in Kaisa’s neighbourhood so I meet her there. It’s in Finnish of course so I sit outside and read a zine called. Lambo arrives and whisks me off to Get a karjalanpiirakka and lihapiirakka (both traditional baked snacks; one with mash in a wheat case, the other rice and spiced meat in doughnut batter) which I munch in a park with a tube of sweet mustard, followed by an apple. I walk across the road and see Kaisa with the people from the launch. No one acknowledges me or says hi and everyone is speaking in Finnish so rather than take it personally or try and strike weak convo I tell k to carry on as she is and watch park birds with my binoculars. K occasionally points one out and when my arms are tired I lay on my back and read my book. Five, nah, two years ago I would not have able to brush this off and suit myself, it really reflects how far I’ve come. One guy, Pepe, comes over to have a chat as everyone’s leaving and is really nice. K and I walk back to her flat, I drop my bike off and we take a pint at her local before bed.
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Fri 1 jul
It’s a calm morning in Kaisa’s flat when I wake up on the cute floorbed. I eat the same as yesterday, have a shower, pack my shit up and head out, firstly to Hakeniemen foodhall to get some snacks for the ferry, then the oldest part of town. I skip the big, white, famous church and head toward a small brown church next to a park. As I walk in, a boy of around 14 clicks his counter and continues drawing Pokémon characters in his book. I sit on a pew and someone above me starts playing the organ except they’re not; Looooooooooooooong notes accompanied by clicking; A shooorter blow one note up with a click; they’re tuning it! I record the next 15 minutes on my phone and think of some possible uses.
here’s a clip
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Boring ferry except all the bikers with vintage sidecars
I cycle towards ekkm to take the coastal path for Paljassaare but get distracted by the old Linnahalle ruin. It’s a big modernist concrete slab with wide staircases and boulevards going up from street level, only half accessible due to safety fencing. Carrying my bike up and over (stopping for a few architectural pics I would have been pleased with aged 18), I spot a poster for boat tours.
As I approach, I’ve got Sille on messenger telling me the island of Aegna is really nice and I should see if I can stay at the monastery. Realising that I would be so pissed if I didn’t try, I ask (in Estonian) the monk in the queue with a supermarket bag of vegetables and oats whether he spoke English. Luckily he does and we have, at first, an awkward conversation where I try to get him to invite me to the monastery without being bait. He says they are quite busy with a meditation retreat happening this weekend. It is looking super unlikely and I almost give up then I realise it might be a lesson to push into the uncomfortable and take the open goal. I say would love to learn and he phoned his colleague? fellow monk? who said they have a few spaces free. Bam! I get a return ticket from the sexy cabin boy and jump on the boat with my bike.
The boat trip is short and bumpy. I ran out of water a while ago but can’t bring myself to buy some in a tiny, cold plastic bottle. So stubborn and parched. I get off the boat and see the monk –a few hundred feet up the road– jump into a golf cart with his bags. I catch up with him on my two wheels and he says to follow him to the big, obvious yellow house. As soon as I arrive I lock up the bike and head in, leaving my shoes under a radiator up a few stairs. There are loads of pairs of slippers and crocs against the opposite wall and I wonder how many guest they are expecting. I’m shown to a room with four unmade beds in a handsome formation, there is also a square table with a peace lily on it. The room is without curtains and the double glazed windows are being held in with expanding foam that reveals bare bricks where it stops short of the internal wall. There are two others here; we have a quick chat before a second monk comes over to explain that there is no session or dinner tonight and that we can fix a snack if we like, but also that we should take the opportunity to explore the island.
I am afforded the food, bed and education in kindness.
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Sat 2 jul
serendipitously bought the best fake silk shirt to meditate in
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Sun 3 Jul
i leave after lunch having said my thank yous and given some feedback
boat to tallinn, drop key with Rita, have a beer and shot to celebrate then take train back to Narva
miraculously, my green friends at Kreenholm Plants are not dead; in fact many are doing brilliantly. soaking them a few days in a row before leaving meant they didn’t get dry or stressed for the whole week without any attention or water. best of all i have a tray of lettuces and rocket that now desperately needs thinning and planting on. the rest of the wild areas have kicked off too, tall and glowing; yarrow, clover and dead nettle about to burst into flower.
back in my room what start as unpacking ends up just a floor mess. time for beeed