by Marja-Leena 
As I mentioned in the previous post, after a long day of driving we spent a very pleasant evening relaxing on the dock of the B&B place. Most enjoyable for me was to have the time to look very closely at the wonderful details in the pieces of driftwood lying about. Here are just a few of my favourite shots.
Added later: Here are the other posts in the slow road series should you like to visit them:
part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6 and the finale.
by Marja-Leena 
With the weather dry and sunny at last, garden chores have been beckoning me outdoors. Hence it’s up and down the weathered back stairs many times a day. This just caught my eye as I was coming up with my camera in hand after taking a few photos of some of the flowers in the garden. As you can see, I like this image better than the flower ones. I love the surprise of suddenly seeing it and wondering how I could have missed it before.
by Marja-Leena 
As I am packing away my late mother-in-law’s lovely piano shawl to pass on to our eldest daughter, I feel an urge to play with it. Very gently I arrange it on the scanner, this way and that. Yes, these are for me to keep. Danke schön, Omi.
by Marja-Leena 
a crocheted silk lace piano scarf
made by my late mother-in-law many decades ago
bringing forth memories of it gracing her piano
Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.
– William Blake – Auguries of Innocence
by Marja-Leena 
found in studio ‘junk’
wound up and tied
remembering a frayed basket edge
unwound and free
captured and filed
for future use
then a revisit of jute, more jute and twine(d)
Added 19th March:
My dear friend Susan, in the comments below, has challenged me to do a re-scan with my hand holding the twine. Behold:
by Marja-Leena 
On this rainy Boxing Day afternoon, I am enjoying some quiet time in the middle of the holiday fun. The younger generations are enjoying playing board games while I wander off to play with some of the discarded wrapping papers and chocolate box liners.
These ‘scrunches’ seem to be turning into a series – here’s the first, and the second.
Hope you are enjoying some quiet post-holiday time too. Like me, are you avoiding all the crazy Boxing Day sales? If we’d been more energetic, we should have gone up the mountain for some play in the snow. I’m sure we’ll do it on another day!
Added January 1st, 2013: For Marly (see her comment below). Happy New Year!
by Marja-Leena 
More explorations with torn and scrunched papers, this time from magazines. Quite different from the scrunched print I did recently. Wonder where these are going?
by Marja-Leena 
I’ve been off on a tangent today starting with reading blogs, as often happens. I’d been visiting my friend Mouse where curiousity sent me exploring the site of a commenter. Her photos of ancient doors in Provence are so beautiful and compelling that I began to wonder whether I had taken anything similar in my relatively limited travels.
I pulled out our Italy 1993 photo album (pre-digital days!) and got lost in there for a while. I found numerous images of arches, which I love, and ornate doors in grand cathedrals such as in Florence. But really none are of very old doors in homes, except for a glimpse of the ones in a beautiful old stone house in the Appennines. Below is my favourite one, a bricked-in door in a wall (not a home) by the Etruscan castle in San Severa. It was used it in my Meta-morphosis VI prints.
I often wonder why I have this love for the very old and weathered, yet I would not tolerate our home looking like that. I know it is partly about the setting for we live in a very young part of North America. If we let our house get this rundown, our neighbours would have it condemned! But there are a few historic sites even here, such as the old Britannia shipyards in Steveston, where I found some locked doors.
Doors are so everyday, yet they can have a mystery, even hold hidden fears in dreams and tales. When they are weathered and ancient, their history calls out. Who lived here? What stories happened behind these doors?
by Marja-Leena 
