Photography

Charlie's Ballad - Charlie the cat playing lute watercolor painting by Soma Acharya InkTorrents Graphics @ InkTorrents.com

Little Stories – Happy Tunes

Posted on December 11, 2025
by Soma Acharya
Bookmaking, Kitties, Knitting, Paintings, Photography, Quilting, Travel

During the past few weeks, I was very determined to shake off this lackluster feeling I have been having. I took a few day trips to the surrounding areas with my husband. I started working on a quilt and a knitted sweater. I also spent happy hours binding tiny books and working on this painting of our kitty Charlie.

The Golden Gate Recreation area is a huge natural and historical area which is right by the bridge. Although we drive over Golden Gate Bridge to San Fransisco often, we hardly ever stop here. One Sunday afternoon we went to explore that area and stayed until the bridge lights came on. The coastal clouds never left the shore that day.

There is a walkway that crosses under the bridge, connecting to a trail by the ocean. We walked there until it got too dark for us to walk any further without lights.

Northern California has many coastal redwood forests and one of them is about an hour and a half drive. It is on a beautiful road that we have taken to the coast a few times, but never stopped at the Armstrong Redwoods State Reserve. With a packed picnic lunch, a flask of tea and some snacks, we set off on our way there.

There are a few trails that climb up from the parking lot, leaving the redwood forest. I wanted to walk along the redwoods, so we stayed on the main trail. It was beautiful; parts of it reminded us of the Redwood National Park much further up north.

A few months ago, my husband passed his private pilot license exam with flying colors. Aside from road trips, I also went with him on a short jaunt between two airports, which was a lot of fun.

At home, I had been pondering how to finish the Garden Path quilt. After the walk in the forest, I decided on getting a pale green fabric for the back of the quilt. During my winter break, I am going to finish this one.

I also picked knitting back up again. I am a super slow knitter. I am hoping to finish this sweater by next winter, so my husband can wear it then.

I was binding a larger book for watercolor painting. When stitching books, I need to pay attention to the tension of the stitch. That day I was being a bit heavy-handed, which resulted in my tearing the gentle watercolor paper at the needle hole. I cut up those discarded papers to make two little black watercolor books. They joined my other tiny 3.0″ x 1.0″ green book.

This one is 3.50″ x 2.0″. I made a double inset on this one and then affixed pieces of gold on black washi tape in them. I am going to fill this book with happy, cheerful little paintings.

With the size of 1.50″ x 2.0″, this is the smallest book I have made so far. There is a little verse in The Lord of the Rings that I love. I am going to paint tiny little scenes from that verse in this book. I drew the front picture with a fountain pen, and glued it into the little inset. I will be adding color to it as well.

The pages are all counted to fit the verse. I even added teeny tiny bands at the head and tail of the book.

November was mostly spent working on the painting of our kitty Charlie and his lute. I drew this picture of him a couple of years ago.

I was feeling unwell in November and was sapped out of all energy. Working on this painting really brought me back to a more cheerful state. Charlie is a happy boy and it is hard to feel melancholy when I am creating anything with him in mind. I made a few changes to it before setting out to paint it.

Last time I shared this little sketch of him. I familiarized myself with the color of his fur with this one before embarking on the larger painting.

Very few things in my life have made me happier than our kitty Charlie. He has always been just a very happy boy with a penchant for “singing”.

He wrote a song for his beloved big sister who didn’t want to hear him sing just at that moment. So, on that day, he sat under a tree in his best clothes and sang his heart out while playing a lute.

I wrote a new ballaaaaaad

But now I am so saaaaad

She won’t hear my new song

Where did I go wrooooong.

He gave me permission to share his song as long as I added the correct inflections. He is very particular about them!

Even the thought of this makes me smile. I hope it does the same for you too! I had a lot of fun choosing the colors. I love painting with watercolor. I got lost in the painting for hours while working on it.

I will see you again in February after my winter holiday. I am looking forward to exploring the sleepy, quiet winter world outside, clad in my favorite woolens. Long hours of playing video games and watching anime with my husband has become a beloved tradition. I am also looking forward to spending extra time with my ink and paper friends along with warm beverages and kitty cuddles. I wish you all a season full of happiness and laughter as well.

Until then,
-Soma

I am linking up with the linky parties on my Links page. Please pay a visit to some of them. Hosts of linky parties – please grab a photo of you choice for your party. Thank you for hosting!

The Ink Torrents Graphics shop remains open. I will continue to mail orders, as always. You can also purchase quilting patterns, which you can access immediately via Instant Download. I will also be available via email. Thank you for continuing to shop from my store, so I can support my favorite rescue organizations.

Finland – Land Of A Thousand Lakes – Part II

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