pictures

We’re right in the middle of Easter break here, and March has gone by without me really noticing. So I thought I’d at least tell you that I’m still alive and well, and show you some of today’s pictures. I do have a new camera. I really love it, I have wanted a digital SLR for ages but we’re still getting acquainted. So, Easter pictures:

This is an Easter basket my son put together. A friend of his and her family made the eggs and the bunny (not a fox, a bunny) from salt dough, and he helped painting them.

The traditional hefezopf that I make every year. And like every year ever since we got the new oven it was just a little too dark. But this year I’ll put a note in the cook book so that I’ll remember next time I make it.

View into our backyard. Interestingly there was no snow at Christmas. Egg hunt this year was indoors again.

Closeup of the big maple in our yard.

I have to say I really hope the weather will be more spring-like soon. We have already run out of wood for the wood stove, and it’s about time.

Regardless of the weather I am really looking forward to another week of no work. I plan to go to Augsburg one day to see the textile museum, and I also plan to write and write and write, and tell you all about that soon.

This is what I saw out of my kitchen window at breakfast:

 

I’ll tell you all about how NaNoWriMo went (I won), and NaKniSweMo (the sweater is done) soon but for now I wish us all a rather quiet and happy advent.

It’s been two weeks already, and I’m still waiting for this feeling of summer break. You know, those days that just go by without appointments, or things to do, or places to be. But so far there has been a string of things, and people, and tasks.

It all started with my husband’s last house concert in mid-July. We were still teaching until the end of the month but this year things got a little extra busy. My husband invited a pianist friend who came all the way from Bamberg to play:

Meanwhile I was spinning yarn like mad. This is what I spun during the ‘Tour de Fleece’ (which takes place during the Tour de France):

The weekend after that we played at another friend’s birthday party. I don’t have a single picture of that but it was sort of fun, and sort of way too much. Especially since we learned two new songs, and rearranged everything else, and only had the week before to rehearse everything.

The weekend after that (still teaching) we went to the pianist friend’s summer fest where my husband played bass. They did a few sixties rock numbers including a fair bit of Santana songs:

Then there were a few more days of teaching, and finally – summer break. I have to say we were too busy even to celebrate my birthday properly. Imagine that. But there was cake.

First my husband had a colonoscopy which certainly was fun. Not. Then we rode our bikes to the nearby beergarden:

 

In between I had stopped spinning yarn like crazy, and started knitting a cardigan from it. This is the progress after four days:

Then a theme emerged. It was beergarden every day. First we rode our bikes all the way to the Andechs monastery. That’s 2 1/2 hours of bike riding one way. And of course we rode all the way back as well. In the rain.

Here’s my family taking a break from biking:

The day after that we met my husband’s aunt and uncle – beergarden again, and the day after that a friend of mine and her family whom I hadn’t seen in a year or more.

And then I knit, and knit, and knit, and knit, until I was totally sick of the thing, and until it was so big that I could only knit on it in the easy chair in the TV room, and yesterday evening I finally finished the knitting:

Now I hope that I’ll manage to both relax, and get tons of stuff done. And we all know how that will end.

And on Thursday my son and I will ride a train all the way to Northern Germany, and meet about two dozen relatives of my father. I’m really looking forward to it but to be frank we’ll spend almost as much time on the train as at the meeting. But I get to see a part of Germany where I’ve never been, and get to meet relatives I’ve never met before, and my father’s sister whom I really like but don’t really know.

I really hope to keep you all posted. I’d wish you all a nice summer break as well but I know that for most of you it’s time to go back to school already. I hope you have a great time anyhow.