Saturday, April 29

 

 

I went for a walk before breakfast. As I left it drizzled briefly then stopped again. I came back forty minutes later and then, after some breakfast kerfuffle, we left on a mystery trip. It started drizzling properly.

We arrived at Gumbostrand konst och form to see an exhibition that has started yesterday, to discover that in fact it will start in forty five minutes time. We have arrived in time for champagne with the artist. As we wait Irma will buy a painting by Antonio Arosa, whose work we have come to see. She had seen it in an article earlier in the week and felt she absolutely had to have it.

We wander around the second larger exhibition, of recent works by Netta Tiitinen, and I see a painting called Logick that I feel exactly the same about. I keep finding myself drawn back to it, until I realise two things. Someone has already bought it, and the reason it speaks to me hangs on the fact that the girl looks like Auo doing a very Auo-like thing: staring into space and making sense of the patterns there. I photograph it instead. I notice that, unusually for me, the fact that I cannot buy it makes me want it even more.

We will chat and drink wine with Antonio Arosa before driving back to Helsinki, stopping at small shops as we pass them. We will eat cake and coffee at a small bakery, and buy postcards at a small crafts shop.

When we get into Helsinki we will find ourselves driving through a thick winter snowstorm. This will continue for most of the evening. Any ideas we had of celebrating the holiday weekend in the garden will disappear in favour of sparkling wine in the wintry dark, with the fire on.

We will venture out briefly to take photos of ourselves in the garden, me shirtless, and then race in to post them on Facebook. We will get 200 likes from people who have also got stuck indoors.