rafael pyton

For the third year running, winter came at us with the sole intention of perfect suffocation. In fact, we’ve been climbing out the chimney to get to the surface all winter long.
BUT. But for some reason, my back is not broken and my spirit is running naked.

That some reason is this; I present to you my other baby. 350cc of pure power and poke! It’ll spit nature sideways and ten meters away.

Yes, it is worth its weight in gold. It’s actually so good I barely know how to formulate myself. It even comes when you call, like Lassie the collie!

Bake a cupcake:

One Fiat 500
Too much snow

Add sprinkles.

After lots of sanding and painting, the so-called “christmas room” was finished just in time for, er, christmas…

Yes, we have an elk. He’s Albert. Say hi.

Sometimes, she’s so me it’s scary.

When I say “market”, chances are you know what I mean, if you’re from around here. It was common practice. When we were small, my family took us there once every fall. Rode the carousels, the ferris wheels, ate the colored liquorice, felt sick afterwards. I hadn’t been there for 20 years, and I had almost forgotten about it… but here we are. Again. Or for the first time, if you ask Scarlett.

Merry-go-round. That’s fun 101.

Choo-choo.

Hey. I am my father. Well over thirty years ago we were here, riding these very same bumper cars. And when I say the very same, I mean they have not changed the bumper cars since. But what matters are those dimples in Scarlett’s cheeks. This is quality time!

Helicopter pilot. Of course.

And in the backseat of a jeep, with two boys driving. Well, I’m going to be watching. Forever.

Babies grow up, they turn 3. Scarlett was no exception. Here she is posing with her shiny new bike, black-and-white Sparky. For now, and to her, the most interesting feature on this vehicle is the bell that, when you ring it, not only does it make a sound, it also flashes in flashy colors. I certainly never had that. When I rang my bell back in 1977, it went “rinnnggg”. Being three and ignorant of future tech, I thought it was wild.

I’m being transported through time at the moment. Altho I had an orange plastic three-wheeler called Snoopy before the age of three, my first bike was a spectacular thing and the first taste of freedom. Oh freedom.
It was very much red, had a white seat, and I ditched the training wheels while still three years old. My dad had to run behind – and I was not just going around the block, I was going far out into the brand new world. It was magnificent. It still is.

It is again time for the electrical bunny with the plutonium heart. Yeah, you know the one, the one that just keeps on going, the one who calls himself “the regenerator”. And he likes to restore his old crummy house until it becomes a mansion. A proud villa. A house of some pretension.

But lo and boohoo, I cheated a little this time… I hired builders! Ha! I hear a collective gasp. No need to worry, however – I was up there with them all the time. Mostly in their way, but as passionately determined as ever. Our target for regeneration was, this time, the helmet of the house – also known as the roof.

Back in not-so-distant 2007, I restored (sanded, painted, cried and nearly fainted) the roof by myself, thru gargantuan effort (flip back for reminiscence). Well, the roof – the fucking roof – refused all my tender loving care, and in the past few years of megawinter, it opened up and said aah to water.

I furiously swore to get back at it. Trust an angry man to not sway from the path of revenge…

We began to cut it open like it was a tin of sardines made out of butter. Let there be no doubt what a joyous occasion it was.

The miserable 80-year old sheet metal well and truly dispatched, all rotten wood was chewed out, and in with the new, the kind that you can knock on. Tock tock!

The old insulation – sawdust – was scooped out, and replaced by fluffy ekovilla (recycled newspaper). Sawdust is a fine natural breathing material, and potential mould had been kept at bay rather effectively. However, sawdust does not insulate as well as “modern” materials (like recycled newspapers, hehe). This is an invisible but major improvement to the house.

New beams where needed. I must say, I was prepared for the worst. In the end, I’d say we got away with far less than the people on my favorite TV-show, the British Grand Designs. (Watch it! Intoxicating!)

Ah, they are truly a thing of beauty, the timber battens over strong waterproof underlay.

My daughter Scarlett calls all cranes “Cranky”; it’s a character from the Thomas The Tank Engine children books. Well, here comes big Cranky, lifting a pallet of tiles like he’s been to Gold’s. It is quite amazing to see the arm go ten meters up and then stretch out over the house, all the way to the back. Cranky sure has some tricks. Please do not drop the pallet, because it would just go through everything all the way to China.

What kind of tiles have I chosen? The suspense must be tangible, but if you lower your gaze, you are about to discover….

Black glazed clay tiles from Monier! Not the cheapest. Just the best. And they look sensational. Glossy, like glass!

You have no idea how long I pondered on materials, on tiles, on shapes and colors and so on. When I had decided on tiles, I soon knew it had to be clay tiles, because this material has been around for at least 600 years and if it was good enough for the Chinese Emperor, it was good enough for me. No moss-friendly concrete for me, please. And then I fell in love with glazed clay tiles – it’s like porcelain – delicate, yet lasts forever (as long as you don’t drop them…). Or when was the last time you wore out a porcelain surface? The final choice was the sleek “Scandinavian” bend, common on houses from 1800-1930s.

The final prep, streetside with little Cranky. Badabing badabong. I die with this roof. It will probably outlast Scarlett’s grandchildren, too…

Is it not just? I mean, is it not? I could just eat this roof – it looks like liquorice candy! It is a fairytale roof, without the ugly witch in the oven.

Can a man get any happier? No. He most certainly can not. And then the bills came in.

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A little bonus section:

For those with eagle eyes, you may have noticed a faint change with the rest of the house in picture number eight. “Somehow”, the corners have grown fatter, the lower panel taller and chunkier, and the midsection has been adorned with a border of blocks. It gives a really solid stance to the house, and looks positively charming. It took some cutting… god bless Makita.

You see it now? Also, as you can see, the little roof was not left behind. And do notice the new silver drainpipes! And after this, I began work on the windows. And. And.

Hey, it’s a hobby/a disease…

Whowhatwhy, I’m still in summer mode. I live in blank denial. I feel yesterday’s rays. The remains of the summer day, the green, the blue, the glow, the hue… abandon me not.

Me and Scarlett gave mamma Madli a cherry tree for mother’s day. Che-che-che-che-che-che-cheeeerry pie.

There is spring in those steps. So much spring. Ah, love this picture. Soaking up early summer at the famous Hanko beach.

Sealed Air had a sales meeting on Sardinia. Choice of venue much applauded. In fact, on the way there, I spent some time in Rome. All roads lead there anyway. Rome… nowhere else is history so present. Mindbending.

Staying at Le Dune in Sardinia. Cool as a fool in a swimming pool.

Grandma-mum celebrated her 60th with a garden party in the archipelago of Nagu. Huge turnout, everybody old and young had a great time.

Scarlett stole the day, obviously. She can steal anyone’s day every day of the week with the blink of an eye. My little princess was utterly adorable in her white dress, pearl necklace and flower hat from New York, glass of bubbly (Pommac) in her hand.

In Tallinn for festival, waving the flag for liberation, cute as a kitten in traditional head gear.

Chocolate icecream. It is her vice. Tucking into melting Pappagallo with addicted passion.

In paradise, there is all of this. In July, it’s is all we do.

She swims in the sea, like a swan, like a swan-eating shark, like a walk in the park, embark embark.

Christoph and Diana in da haus! Here, Lady Di and Madli My are gutting fish. Bet you never heard “Lady Di” and “gutting fish” in the same sentence before?

Perch fillet, a delicacy bar few. We had the best of luck this year – a stock of one hundred fillets should make winter taste like summer.

Pappa in education mode: It is a fish. You remove it like this. Then you make tasty bouillabaisse.

Mamma pulling up net like she was born to do it. By now, I call her kalastajan vaimo. Scarlett and Natalie observing.

Afar, little girls in summer’s dress, playing in heaven. Happiness does not know this strange thing called sorrow.

I promised myself not to build anything this summer, while in the archipelago. Well, I lack the willpower to be lazy. Take care to note the hand imprint in the concrete of Hollywood starlet Scarlett… and from here on out, I know that every summer and every time I see that eternalized little hand for as long as life there will be a wide smile on these lips of mine.

Better stop, or I’ll get sentimental.

For summer retrospects, look no further. Instead of bemoaning the fact that autumn is already here (how did that happen?), now, as silent rain is falling on our new (unbelievably awesome) tile roof, is the time to cosy up in front of the fireplace with summer in mind.

Scarlett loves the trolls. She’s been brought up on a diet of white fluffy aliens. So, we (and half the Japanese population) went to town…

Grandma and Scarlett, posing in front of one of the more known buildings of the world. Hint – it is blue, round, and there is lots of jam in the basement…

Hugs aplenty. We hugged them all. I mean ALL. No one, particularly the white and soft and fat kind, escaped our hug-hungry arms. A great sport! Ah, imagine a world without the Moomins. Children would grow up with Teletubbies, horrible things would ensue.

Dad trying Moominpappa’s hat. It is a tad big. But superbly stylish.

Many adventure novels have been created on Moominpappa’s old writing machine. Here’s another one in the making. Keys were pounded in passion. Oh, this will be one of those you can’t put down.

Hat testing continued; the Moominmaiden classic was made for Scarlett.

Ahoy me Scallywags, rascals and people from Turku. Captain Scarlett at the rudder. Sadly the ship is anchored… or we’d be in the Caribbean by now.

Every girl and woman and bra-burning being is Lilla My. But I’ve got the real one.

Luxury got left behind in Palm Beach. To get to our hotel in… Brooklyn, we had to use primitive ways of transport such as bus and tube. Agh. And then the damn tube didn’t cooperate as expected due to repair and idiocy, so we had to go all the way to Coney Island to turn back. What a rude awakening. That never happened to Lou Reed. To push and pull on your suitcases for three hours in the NY subway system does not rank highly on my enjoy-o-meter.
Ah, they say Brooklyn is hipper than Manhattan. Bullshit. Only hippies could say that. It smells and is dirty and comes equipped with suspicious-looking people leaning against derelict walls (keep in mind we have just returned from Palm Beach where every straw of grass is watered with Acqua Di Parma).
However, when we finally had found our little hotell next to some oily car repair shop and a religious center for god knows what kind of sect, we crammed our suitcases into the little floorspace there was, jumped into the shower, escaped into town, grabbed a burger, and walked down Broadway, the city suddenly opened up.

First time in NY? Well, you go ooh and aah and holy shit, look at that and that and that. How to put it? Well, it is so unbelievable you can not believe it. There is not a more (magnificently) overdeveloped plot of land anywhere else on this planet. Skyscraper after skyscraper, raping the sky…

There is probably too much of everything in NY – particularly far too many people. And I used to live in London (maybe I was more tolerant back then). But then you gaze over that skyline from a great vantage point and too much of everything turns into just right. Here is testament to man’s strange drive to build. And build. And build.

They have certainly moved along – at least physically – since angry narrow-minded men in jumbo jets managed to topple over the twin towers. Hard hats are working around the clock here, Ground Zero is filling up fast.

Nice colors, busy bees. And for effect, just after being here soaking up all the We Will Never Forget, Bin Laden was gunned down in righteous glory. Justice moves in mysterious ways.
Speaking of NY-related justice, Strauss-Kahn, you must be the dumbest dick around. Rape a maid when running for president? Wow.

Ever heard the one about the guy who sold his soul on Wall Street, and turned into a bronze statue? Of course, the price of bronze would drop dramatically, considering how many that have and would, and certainly in the past decade, where greed passed all meters of acceptable. Don’t call me a commie – money is my guide to happiness, just as it is yours. Having said so, is it not painfully obvious that speculation is the root of all evil?

Luxury condominiums, downtown Manhattan. Ah. A dreamy dream. But I want more out of life than so. A little more breathing space, a green garden with berry bushes and apple trees, empty winding roads for a Ducati, a safe school for a daughter. They have a pretty nice view from out of there, mind.

Jockeys, jockeys.

The East River, the bridges, the cars, everything is brown.

We took a stroll out onto Brooklyn Bridge, the neo-Gothic landmark of New York. Excellent first-time tourist activity, another box ticked.

You know, outside City Hall, they still have the old gas lights. You can see the flame flickering, you can smell the gas. Now, where did I park my horse?

We did not settle for the outside of things. We walked right into Waldorf Astoria – great lobby, by the by, heavy on history – and we just had to see what the Trump Tower looked like. Safe to say, Donald has more money than taste. Everything is goldplated, and there is an indoor waterfall…

Fifth Avenue, Louis Vuitton. We loved the ostrich.

We gambled until last minute before leaving for New York, confident to find a Manhattan four-star for bargain dollar. Well, the reason we ended up in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, was that the Tribeca Film Festival was about to kick off, leaving no cheap rooms to be found on good locations. We blame you, De Niro. We didn’t even see you, even tho we went looking everywhere in Tribeca. Had such an itch to “You talkin’ to me?” He probably doesn’t get that a lot…

Times Square. Here, everything, every slogan, every color, is screaming for your attention. We chilled by going cinemabound for the remake of Arthur. Hilarious, altho we ate too much popcorn and ruined our dinner plans.
For contrast, a bit of art and a few words about MoMa. As everywhere in NY, the queues are far too many blocks long and my ankles detest people. At the Museum of Modern Art, we did not take it anymore. In fact, we just walked past this unfathomably incomprehensibly long several kilometer line of flesh, asked for a wheelchair, and then spent the day in MoMa actually not suffering for art, but enjoying it. Madli was pushing, I was cruising, and we had the best of times pouring over Jackson Pollock’s finest.

Everybody goes up to Empire State. We went to the Top Of The Rock, Rockefeller Center. Crane your neck.

The view was so utterly mindblowing that a tiny picture like this one is embarrassing. I must have something better in my folder? But anyway, you got to walk around the Rockefeller Center 360 degrees, getting the bird’s eye of everything that counts. Breathtaking, glorious, fantastic and everything else. Ah, Central Park below, in full spring, magically beautiful, the pink azaleas, the white blooms of horse chestnut trees, the ridiculous mime artists, the Nuts for Nuts stands, kids yelling, horses crapping, oh I love parks and Central Park more than even Pumpviken in Karis…

Parking, NY style.

Somebody got lucky with a bold color scheme.

Chinatown. Like everything Chinese, growing by the hour, eating up Little Italy, then the whole of Manhattan, finally the world will be one big Chinatown. Full of personable junk and lethal-looking foods and people who have lived here for fifty years yet can not utter a word in English.
I have always wondered – and will continue to do so – about exactly what kind of a customer that goes into one of these so-called Chinatown jewelry shops and actually buys something? They are smockfull of cheap trinkets, but nothing is worth anything and nothing is nice. Even so, someone must buy their stuff all the time, because these shops are absolutely everywhere, full of little silver dragon ear rings and purple stones and horrible clutter. Highly perplexing, completely senseless. I guess that, when things do not add up in your mind, the culprit is usually this incredibly vast concept called culture.

Little Italy, streets of the Godfather. I’m not afraid to admit to this tourist pleasure – we had pizza here. Wasn’t bad at all, and a couple of Nastro Azzurros later the streets seemed a bit slower and more gentle.

NY in a nutshell. Lots of steel and limestone and concrete, but with some very delectable bits in between. We returned with full stock of Calvin Kleins from Century 21, and those stupid millions of boxes in your mind a little more ticked.