Dear friend,
Time is a curious concept.
I cannot quite believe it has been a year since I celebrated the Grand Opening of The Merry Fairy! At the same time, it feels like I just did that - like only yesterday was my birthday, and I pushed a little green button, thus launching this magical portal into my enchanted world.
I don't truly count the time in days, months, or years. I count it in the number of new friends that have entered my life - many, many fairy hugs to you all! -, in the seasons that gently change in Fairyland, offering me countless days of awe and wonder, in the generosity of my garden and Fairyland, or in the endless number of projects that sometimes overwhelm me, while also exciting me to the max!
But it has been a year, and I am turning 45 now, and The Merry Fairy is turning 1. Yay!
I always celebrate my birthday with barefoot cherry picking, cherry cake, and dancing in the forest. Somehow, the cherry trees know precisely when to be just ripe. I also go mushroom picking, and it seems that the forest always keeps a few nice kantareller for my birthday sandwiches. Another thing I do with the Caretaker is to offer tiny sandwiches to the small gnomes that live in the Fairyland caves and who take such good care of our tools and tires. Well, for my birthday, they will get cherry cake!
Inspired by indigenous ways of celebrating a birthday, I also enjoy giving gifts to those new and dear to me. This is why it is with great joy that I announce this new update for The Merry Fairy!
Shiny new things available in build 70
The biggest feature that is coming with this build is this:
You can now click on the Weather House and change the Weather, Season, and Time of Day!
Together with my wonderful friend Sebastian Dorda, also known as Hagish, who has been helping me with coding since the very first day that I told him about the idea 💖, I will continue to tweak this new feature until it feels just right. But the changes feel good enough for now. I recommend that you go outside the cottage during the night if you want to see the fireflies!
There is also a brand new Fairyland Radio Channel called Woodland Vibes, courtesy of the amazing Fabian Zechmeister, whose music always makes me dance! It would make me extremely happy if you chose to listen & follow him on Spotify, YouTube, and Tik Tok! 🎶💃✨
There are also new decorations, and in particular, new decorations from Friends and the public domain that I love! More specifically:
the lovely Ulle, who is making amazing journal spreads and is a friend to many of you, kindly gave me a collection of her very own beautiful decorations, which is now available for all of you to use! The collection is called Ulle's Hyggestunder, and it is available in the last book on the shelf (the smaller one with the greenish cover!)
public domain art that I personally very much enjoy, from the New York Public Library collection, and also Alphonse Mucha's beautiful seasons
public domain images, more specifically a few selected telescope images courtesy of NASA
As you probably already guessed, I will continue to update The Merry Fairy with many decorations, both made by me and handpicked from various other sources that inspire me!
Finally, many books now have bookmarks in an effort to keep the ever-increasing number of decorations well organized (I am really, really trying to be organized! 😊)
Of course, bugs were fixed, and for sure I forgot to mention something, but overall, these are the main things that are new in this latest update, and that make me very happy! I hope you will enjoy them 🧚🏻♀️
A word on reports, feedback, and reviews
I cannot thank you enough for every review, report, and piece of feedback I get from you! I am keeping track of your feedback, and am very happy to witness that so many of your suggestions are very much in line with what I hope to add myself at The Merry Fairy!
I do have two important requests:
all data collected in the game is strictly anonymous, and I have no way to know who sent a report. It is always, always very useful for me if you include your Journal (save file), and I promise you it will be safe with me!
it helps me enormously if you can write a public review for The Merry Fairy! I do not really market the game, and I depend on your kind help to spread the word about my enchanted cottage so that any magical creature who might benefit from a visit can know about it. Thank you so so much!
Meanwhile in Fairyland
Much is happening, especially when the weather is warm and the garden is blooming! But I have done something other than gardening, too. Over the summer, I was admitted to the Department of Philosophy at the University of Stockholm for a brief study of happiness. Over the course of 5 weeks, I studied the thoughts on happiness, starting with Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, then continued with Epicurus (who remains my favorite philosopher), then moved on to the Stoics and the Utilitarians, and I am ending this course with the modern-day science on happiness. It was an amazing experience, and I have a little bit of an idea to start a philosophy school! But until then, with me luck! I have the final exam precisely the day after my birthday!
The course assignments included designing and living one day per the teachings of each philosophy school that we studied. And while trying to make some Stoics proud, I accidentally made a beautiful shelf!
