The current work-in-progress.
Archive for August, 2009
A weekend in France
Last weekend we had the privilege of staying with our American friends in their beautiful French country house. We had the most perfect summer weekend, and I came home desperately trying to convince Dave that we needed a French country house too, preferably with lots of land, a creek, a chateau.. you know – the usual. He quickly reminded me that money is required to purchase such things, along with the fact that they speak French in France.. and we don’t know French. Hm. Oh well.. I think it’s definitely worth working towards!
So anyway, while we were there we took a trip out to a beautiful town called Vézelay, where we managed to stumble upon an antique shop that had boxes and boxes of old timber letterpress letters just lying around on the floor. I agree that this might not be so exciting for most people, but I have been dreaming of this day for a long time… and wouldn’t you know it, now that the time had come, I had no idea what I should spell with my new found letters! We ended up just getting our names, but I might think about it a bit harder for next time we’re out that way!
A visit from some old friends
Wow, ok… I’m running a bit behind with the blog! Sorry! We’ve had a pretty crazy couple of weeks here.. between 2 lots of friends visiting, work, German lessons, driving lessons and taking a trip to France, we haven’t had much spare time at home. But no excuses! I’m going to make up for all that lost time now..
So, two weekends ago we were lucky enough to have two of my friends from primary school come and visit. I was a little bit nervous going into this weekend, because, while I’ve kept in contact with one of the friends (now living in Paris), I hadn’t seen the other friend for about 14 years. As it turned out, I had no need to be nervous because we all still got along like we did in primary school, and we had a great weekend! We couldn’t help but find it funny that we’d never kept in contact while we were living in the same country, but now that we’d all moved overseas it came more naturally!
Here are some photos of our weekend/mini reunion.. (yes.. more raspberry picking! This time at a proper berry farm though)
Pie/Gravy Update
We’ve nearly had the bunnies for a month now (although it feels like longer!) and they’re finally starting to get comfortable in our company. They’re still not very comfortable with each other though.. after what we thought were the beginnings of friendship, they had another huge fight and now we’re back to square one. It’s a little bit frustrating for us because we want to be able to leave them alone with each other and not come back to find chunks of fur missing, and Gravy cowering in a corner!
We’ve also had a couple of rabbit-related casualties over these past few weeks, involving: one half-chewed-through speaker cable (which caused one speaker to stop working properly and had Dave completely perplexed for about an hour), 3 completely severed tomato plant stems (now fighting for life in a vase of water), and one completely-chewed-through speaker cable (yes, the same one – we’ve learned now!). Since then, we’ve also learned that it is very difficult to reprimand a rabbit.. especially ones that look at you the way ours do! Far too adorable.
City Beach
For us here in Germany, Summer seems to have only just arrived. We’re finally getting some nice warm weather and sunshine, which is lucky because we’ve just found the perfect way to spend these warm evenings!
City Beach (not to be confused with the surf store in Australia) is someone’s brilliant idea to bring the beach to those of us who live no where near one, but wish we did! I guess it would be classified as a bar, but the emphasis isn’t so much on drinking as just relaxing and enjoying the sun while it lasts. Strangely enough, they have installed it on top of a parking garage in Basel.. and have not only included a bar, but also piles of sand, a pool, volley ball courts, and loads of day-beds/cushions to really get into the spirit. Even on Wednesday night it was busy, and we had to be super sneaky in order nab ourselves a Fatboy hammock the second it was vacant :)
ginkgo pinks
A new shape I’ve been working with…
Wild Raspberries
This week we had the pleasure of having a friend from London come and stay with us for a couple of days. On Tuesday we took her for a drive into the Black Forest, ending up at a tiny lake (Nonnenmattweiher) where we could pick wild raspberries growing around the shore. We weren’t really sure what to expect, having never really picked wild berries before, but they were small and really sweet – great on pancakes the next day!!
Swiss National Holiday
This weekend Switzerland celebrates their National Holiday, and last night it kicked off in Basel with a bunch of festivities (much drinking, boat races, more drinking), and finished with a fireworks display over the Rhine. Dave and I, as well as our two lovely American friends Alex and Ally, decided to brave the crowds in Basel for a beer or two overlooking the Rhine as the sun went down. It really was a beautiful night for it, and considering it’s one of only two nights that the Swiss are legally able to set off their own fireworks (I think – second only to New Years), it was a pretty fun atmosphere.
We decided not to stay in for the fireworks, but instead drove back into Germany and found ourselves a patch of grass on a hill in Lörrach that overlooks Basel. What a great night!