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Charlie’s Adventure is a story I wrote along with a quilt I made. Charlie is my sweet little orange kitty who, contrary to everyone’s belief, has a sweet tooth that would rival anyone. He will do anything to get a lick of ice-cream, watermelon, sweetened cream, or anything else sweet you can think of.

One day, Charlie learned that on All Hallows Eve, if he puts on a wizard’s hat and a bow tie and sits very very quietly amongst the Jack-O-Lanterns, magic leaves will come and carry him to the Land of the Seven Sisters who would give him lots and lots of sweets to eat. So he came to me and asked if I would make him a hat and a bow tie. I was happy to oblige.

As the evening approached, he donned his starry hat and bow tie, smartly walked outside, sat down in the pumpkin patch and waited very patiently.

Charlie has a very bossy sister and two very clueless brothers. They all love to play with Charlie. His sister specially loves Charlie and keeps a wary eye on him at all times. Charlie excitedly told her all about his plan. She didn’t really believe him, but she was not about to let him sit outside all alone either. Who knew what peril would befall her brother! She was also not going to leave the other two out of sight, because then she would have to spend the rest of the night looking for all of them if they got lost. So the bossy sister pushed the disgruntled brothers out the door and all of them surreptitiously waited a little distance away from little Charlie as the sun sank below the horizon.

They waited and waited and waited some more. Then, when everything had gone quiet, all the kids had gone home after their Trick-Or-Treat runs and the Jack-O-Lanterns were about to go out, they heard a rustle and a swoosh. Suddenly they were off, all four of them, carried away on gigantic leaves! These were no ordinary leaves, of course! On each one of them, a different adventure awaited the little kitties. They stayed together, hopped around and rolled from leaf to leaf, played, and had amazing fun.

All this time, while they were busy playing, the leaves carried them onward and upward to the Land of the Seven Sisters. By the time the little kitties got there, they were exhausted. They sat in the midst of stars and each had their favourite food to eat while watching the Jack-O-Lantern-lit Earth turning down below. Charlie had his most favourite sweets to eat that day and nobody was going to stop him. Slowly as the night got deeper, they fell asleep on top of each other and were carried gently and silently back down to earth, down to their soft, warm beds.

I had a wonderful time drawing, creating the layout, and designing the patterns for Charlie’s Adventure. I definitely had just as much fun as my little kitties. Charlie was all right with sharing the story with all of you as long as he and his beloved Papa could have the quilt.

Now I am really glad to have finished the quilt so that they can huddle under it together and dream of sweet things.

Charlie sat and supervised as I wrote the story. Actually, he was trying to convince me to give him some sweet treats. He was most disappointed when that didn’t work, “Nobody at home ever gives me anything!” So he went off to bed to dream about his special All Hallows Eve adventure while snoozing with his pumpkin. Supposedly the pumpkin gives him sweet dreams.

He has always been the perpetual kitten of our home and continues to make us laugh with his antics. I was working on another large painting which I unfortunately had to restart after many hours of work, causing a fair bit of disgruntlement. As I have always wanted to illustrate this story, I put that painting aside to work on storyboarding Charlie’s Adventure. Storyboarding is usually done with rough sketches and no color, but I really wanted to play with my watercolors.

So, I did this very rough and quick watercolor sketch on a 3″x5″ card. It was hard for me to not add any detail, but I reminded myself that this is only a sketch, and I can add detail to my heart’s content on the larger painting. I am really looking forward to continuing with the illustrations and then turning that into a book. That will be my adventure!

Whether you read this story for the first time today or re-read it, I do hope you enjoyed it! Wishing Happy Samhain to the ones who celebrate and Happy Autumn to everyone!

Until next time,
-Soma

P.S. I always get asked – the patterns are available in my shop.

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This is the second part of our travels through Finland. After a few amazing days at the Arctic, we made our way down to the more historic Finland. Castles provide a good anchor point for learning the past history of a country and they have always been a huge point of interest for both of us. Over the next few days, we would be visiting cities with castles and travel between them by road to see the country a bit closer.

Please Click on the image thumbnails to see the photos.

We reached Olavinlinna (St. Olaf’s Castle) next morning right on time for a castle tour in English. We had a fabulous guide. A guided tour is the only way to see the upper parts of this restored castle. Afterwards, we had a few questions on two occasions, and both guides there answered all of them fully and patiently.

Two of the five original towers of this castle are missing; you can see the base of one of them in the photo. The last photo is of the topmost level.

We went back to the castle in the late afternoon and watched the setting sun color the castle walls with its last set of rays.

I took this picture as the lights started coming on around the towers.

After dinner, we went for a walk around the harbour talking about our journey so far. ( My husband took this photo as I had very deliberately left the camera behind. )

Next morning, we walked around the lake to the old town, snacked on an apple Lörtsy (a pastry of local specialty) sitting by the shore before starting our drive toward Hämeenlinna.

The scenic road we took was beautifully dotted with lakes. We stopped by a few to break up the journey.

We reached Hämeenlinna right around sunset time. Here, my husband went to experience his first Finish sauna, which he enjoyed very much.

Although Hämeenlinna (Häme Castle) is very old, it looked very modern to both of us.

Please Click on the image thumbnails to see the photos.

Missing walls and flooring have exposed previously obscured structures. We found windows that had been blocked off later on by interior walls. We had fun spotting them. We have not seen another castle like that in our multitude of castle visits.

Outside, we walked around the castle and the park that surrounds the area. It was a very windy day which kept us cool despite the warm temperature. It was wonderful to listen to the rustling of the trees, one of my favourite sounds.

For lunch, we visited small bakeries which also had sandwiches. I had a slice of cake everyday for lunch, that’s it! They were soooo good. By the time I got home, I found out that I had actually lost weight from all the walking.

Post lunch, we went to Aulanko Tower, which is set in a beautiful park.

We climbed up the 322 stone steps to the top.

Pictures do not do the 360-degree view justice. A conglomeration of lakes and forests as far as the eye can see; a perfect representation of the Finish landscape.

Originally we were going to stop by Tampere on our way to Turku. However, we were having such a lovely time at Hämeenlinna, we ended up extending our time there and drove directly to Turku.

Next day Turun Linna was awaiting us. It is so HUGE that there was a point where we thought we would never find the exit!!

Please Click on the image thumbnails to see the photos.

As that was the only thing we were doing that day, we took our time with all the rooms. One of the rooms was filled with unbelievably detailed models of this castle from different eras.

Post dinner, we went for a walk around the Aurajoki (Aura river). It was raining hard that night. We stood on one of the bridges that crosses Aurajoki to take in the view.

We had a little errand to run in Turku, which took up most of the morning. We headed toward Helsinki after lunch with a short stop at Raseborg castle.

The castle was nowhere near where the GPS said it was. Instead, there was a permanent sign with these words: “Google maps is wrong” along with the correct address to use to find the castle. We found it readily enough after that. Honestly! This is why I don’t rely on GPS 100%! Ever!!

Please Click on the image thumbnails to see the photos.

There are ships that travel daily across the Baltic Sea between Helsinki and Tallinn in Estonia. From Helsinki, we took a tram to the ferry building and boarded our ship toward Tallinn. Our destination was the old town which is only a few minutes’ walk from the harbor. The old town is small, so we pretty much walked the whole place within a few hours. There also happened to be a street festival that day. We spent the rest of the time people watching and sipping on local mead before our return journey.

We felt the area was more like a tourist trap, and there was not enough time to really experience the proper city itself. We have never done this kind of country hopping before, and we decided we won’t be doing this kind of trip in the future.

We had a really lovely view of the central station from our Helsinki hotel room. It was raining so hard that I had to take an umbrella with me to the balcony to take this photo. I loved every moment of being outside in the rain.

Remember that special errand I talked about in Turku?! While reading about Finland, I fell in love with the sound of the Kantele. I found a music shop in Turku that happened to carry a eleven-string Kantele.

Unfortunately, it happened to be just a couple of inches too large for our suitcase. That morning in Helsinki, we found a luggage wrapping service at the airport. The two agents at the shop packaged it securely in a box for us. Its safe journey the next day from Finland to Northern California was now assured!

I am happy to say that it is safe at home, wrapped in a blanket until I sew a case for it. Now I of course need to learn how to tune and play it.

With that out of the way, we took a boat across the sea to Soumenlinna in the afternoon. The ships on each side are from the Viking and Tallink Silja shipping lines that sail between different countries across the Baltic Sea.

Please Click on the image thumbnails to see the photos.

We had a beautiful time walking around this sea fortress. Nature is slowly taking over the old artillery. As we reached the edge of the island, the rain came. The fierce wind made the rain drops feel like ice shards. I tried using my umbrella, but gave up. My husband decided to sacrifice his.

The storm cleared and gave us this gorgeous sunset during our dinner in Helsinki. That wrapped up our 14-day roadtrip through Finland.

I hope you enjoyed this photo journaling of our travels.

Here is the first part of the trip

I did my best to create an itinerary of venues that fit our interests and helped us get to know the country within that time. We started with exploring around the Arctic Circle which included experiencing a Northern Lights display of a lifetime. Then we made our way back south for historic Finland. It is not only a beautiful country, my husband and I fell in love with the wonderful attitude of its people. It is not hard to see that it truly is the happiest country in the world.

Until next time,
-Soma

Charlie’s Adventure…and Mine

Finland – Land Of A Thousand Lakes – Part II