Fruitful times

I spent a very pleasant hour or so at the weekend, wandering in the woods near our summer cottage. There are so many mushrooms around at the moment and I managed to find a few chanterelles, some trumpet chanterelles (great for soup) and also some veriseitikki(bloodied webcap) - for wool dyeing.
Here are the webcaps brewing away on the decking out back.

There are down sides to wandering in the woods at the moment - I wasn't sure if I should be more worried about becoming a snack for a bear(one was spotted near the cabin not long ago) or being mistaken for an elk(elk hunting started on Saturday!) I am happy to say my little walk was most uneventful and I even managed to escape the invasion of the Elk flies(think of spiders with wings)
My husband wasn't so lucky and came back from mushroom hunt literally covered in them - he even found one the next morning, crawling in his hair. Persistent little so and so's!!
A more pleasant photo - Autumn, summed up beautifully!

Irony?

My dear husband (of 8 years on Tuesday!) is, as I type, running the Espoo marathon. It has taken me back to 1992 when I ran the London marathon - as much out of curiosity, one of those things you have to do, sheer madness(?), as well as an opportunity to do my bit for charity. I have just been reminiscing that day, looking at the photos and press cuttings and then it struck me. The charity I was running for was the Juvenile Diabetes foundation. How ironic that now 17 years later, we have a son with Type 1 (also known as Juvenile) Diabetes. How weird/spooky/bizarre that I was raising money for something that would become so important in our lives. Coincidence? Fate? Destiny? - who knows and who knows what may happen in the world of research in the next 5,10,15 years........ here's hoping lots(but no more marathon running!!!!)

Thank you Moo!

I am a huge fan of Moo.com and in particular their mini cards - which I use as fantastic business cards. I can use pictures of my work on the cards which makes them very eyecatching. However I have found a new function for Moo minicards - as a child damage limitation device!
At the craft fair I attended in Helsinki at the weekend, people were greatly cheered by my table full of aliens and viruses amongst other things.
However, as much as I don't mined people picking them up, some little people were hell bent on 'mangling' them. Enter the Moo mincard and they had their own little Alien to take hope - all happy - me, stressed parents and little one!
Thank you Moo :)