You'll have to take my word for it that this door is quintessentially spring green. Twotone roheline  in fact – dark green details on light green. And quintessentially kevadine (vernal), since this wonderful tõe/hetk(moment of truth), full of helid ja lõhnad(sounds and smells) that everyone had forgotten existed, occurred on the corner of Kevade tänav (Spring Street) in central Tallinn, in what was soul-shaking 18 degree Celsius heat on esmaspäeval, 9. aprillil. 

It was a day of extremes: Tartu reached a high of 23,1 degrees C, setting a new record, while huge piles of rüsi/jää  (piled drift ice) were being admired on the shores of Peipsi järv , pushed up into high mounds at Nina village. The next morning, many places on the north coast woke up to yet another dusting of lumi  (snow). Such fluctuations in temperature may be relatively common in Põhja-Ameerika , but not in Eesti. 

Walls as canvases. Walls of every color – krohvitud  (plastered) and puidust välis/voodriga (with timber cladding) currently become wonderfully embellished with triibud  (stripes) at certain sunny hours. Lots of valgus  (light), but no lehestik  (leafage) as of yet, creating sebra/majad  – zebra houses. The most poetic varju/heitjad  (shadow-casters) in my humble opinon are clusters of stately, old, curvy-trunked sirelid  (lilacs), such as these, leaving their elusive mark on a sunny, yellow ochre coloured house on Saue tänav in the Pelgulinn neighborhood of Tallinn. Beautiful even when bare.

Photos and text:

Riina Kindlam, 

Tallinn