Pining for the fjords

Since the day had decided to be overcast, I set off for The Colombo and Nordic Chill. I subscribe to the Moomin newsletter and had thought the merchandise was only available by ordering from overseas until I looked on the Nordic Chill website yesterday. I last visited the shop in 2018 before I went to Scandinavia. At that time I was immersing myself in things Scandinavian and discovered the Moomins – not a weird religion as you might imagine, but the creation of novelist and artist Tove Jansson. In Finland, I learned a little of Finnish psychology in Karoliina Korhonen’s ‘social guides’ to Finland which I brought home. The characterisations seem similar to those in the Moomin books.

The new shop design on the website made me even more nostalgic and keen to see it this morning. It features the classic Scandinavian house which you see dotted through the countryside and along the fjords and coast, often on islands. Usually painted red, these are summer retreats – although that word seems wrong as Scandinavians come out into the sunlight after the long northern winter. I put on my red house earrings from Finland and set out.

I found the shop is in two parts – one featuring a lot of Ikea furniture, and the other woollen clothing and throws, children’s toys, books and homewares. Little mice seem to be the latest thing. Not like the one Felix tormented to death yesterday, but ones that wear clothes, live in houses, go to the beach, and do the vacuuming (with a Nilfisk of course).

But it was Moomins I was most keen to see. And there they were.

There were books, a little Moomin house, placemats, toys, tins, key rings, caps, socks and comic strip magnets. I wonder what Tove Jansson would think of it all. She came to resent that the popularity of the Moomins left little time for what she considered her real art.

I came home with a few things (having made room by decluttering recently…)

– including a backpack which by happy chance matches the very nice jacket passed on to me by a friend in the weekend.

This afternoon I watched a couple of episodes of MoominValley on TVNZ+ (voices of Matt Berry, Taron Egerton, Rosamund Pike, Jennifer Saunders, Richard Ayoade, Kate Winslet, Alison Steadman, Matt Lucas, Bel Powley…and more). Now, on the cusp of afternoon and evening, the sun is shining.