In Memoriam

This blog is dedicated to my mum, Helena.

She passed away this summer, August 2012 and ever since then I've been trying to pin down my thoughts and feelings about her.

I'd have to sum her up as a force of nature. Coming home from school we could always sense her presence in our home, right from the front door, before we even saw or heard her. 

As adults, mum and I argued about almost everything: political beliefs, movies, her lifestyle, my life choices. She rarely did or said anything that left me feeling indifferent - and more often than not, infuriated. But one way or another she managed to teach me the many important life lessons that I needed to be a mother myself.

Now, with baby Felix in my life, the mum I most remember is the one from my early childhood. She was a home making genius. Pastry chef, healer, cook, story teller, cleaner, chauffeur and second hand toy dealer - she was the queen of home economics.

When my brother and I were kids she made everything for us. Old clothes were transformed into Ghost Busters and Cinderella costumes for Halloween, on our birthdays five-tiered cakes and home made party favours appeared. There always seemed to be vitamin and fruit concoctions to cure anything from eczema to head lice and our teddy bears and Barbies wore clothes sewn by mum. One summer we had a real Red Indian tee pee in the garden.

We grew up in Finland, where on sub zero winter mornings, mum had to shovel away fresh snow that had fallen on the steep hill that was our driveway. Then she'd spread sand and salt onto the slope so that the minuscule, yellow Citroen 2CV she drove us to school with wouldn't get stuck, or worse, careen down the icy hill and into the ditch opposite. Oh yeah, and the car's rear window had cute brown and white chequered curtains held daintily with white ribbons. Guess who'd made those?

So as I've been thinking about my mum these last few months, I have come to relise that we did have one major thing in common - a mad passion for making things.

Luckily I did years of cake baking and sock knitting while mum was still here. Now there's a huge void. I have nobody to call to find out why the dough won't rise or why the sewing machine keeps tangling the thread.

So as a homage to my mother, I want to carry on the tradition of making things from scratch for my family and my home. That's what this blog is all about. 

Thanks for coming by! I hope you enjoy the things shared here.