A sneak peek

It's almost December and it's time to start thinking about Christmas cards!

You can't really guess what the cards will look like but I surely like these ... formations.

Hessian Tiger Vest

What do you do if a friend of yours is celebrating his birthday? Or at least you think he is...

You collect all the tiger scraps you can find in your house and make him a Hessian/burlap tiger vest.

What else, right?

Right?

Well, it turned out it wasn't his birthday at all. His birthday was in May. But he still loved the ... thought? The present.

Recently also MiniMojcek Nr.2 was celebrating his birthday and he wanted a "fruit cake with fruits and cake and cream and raspberries and mandarins and peaches and fruit and cake." So this is what he got!

And he got the truffles as well, although he didn't ask for them!

Update - C

C as cute, I guess :-)

As I already mentioned, we spent endless hours working on the terrace, making it watertight. And pretty. So we were extremely careful when applying the top layer to make the surface even, uniform and smooth. Which it was!

Until the next morning :-)

Update - B2

B as books.

Remember a few months ago I wrote about a book my mother-in-law was writing? Where I was the editor, photographer, page designer, pretty much everything but the author?

If you've ever published a book, you know how much work is behind it. If you haven't - you have no idea how much work there is behind a book. No idea.

So I'm happy to say that after all the work, the book is now here, in my hands :-)

I just love the smell of a new book fresh from the press!

Update - B

B is for baking!

I'm happy to say that the whole family is very inspired by The Great British Bake Off. Even the kids! So we've been baking a lot in the last few weeks. Some things were simple, some more complex and I must say that although Paul and Mary would have a lot to say, we enjoyed everything. Baking and eating.

Some of the things weren't caught on camera as they vanished within minutes :-) Some are here:

Chocolate fondants with raspberry sauce

Mary Berry's lemon meringue pie

Blueberry and lemon meringue roulade

And lots of different pastries, scones and breads.

My favourite is Paul's soda bread. Although we've made it (and its variations) numerous times, I still haven't got a photo. Who has time to take pictures!

Update - A

A as away

I haven't been posting much recently mainly because we were so occupied with the renovation works still going on in our house. We've got a new roof, we've spent endless hours waterproofing the terrace and ... we actually managed to squeeze in some vacation!

We've had our share of bad weather - just like everyone else being in Europe this summer. But we also had a bit of sun:

Farewell

A friend of mine passed away and today was her funeral...
About fourty years too soon...

On days like this one starts thinking about life, the universe and everything. About what is and what is not. About what matters and what doesn't. And you realise that pretty much nothing matters but a very few very precious "things": your family and your friends. The rest you can easily live without. Without them, you can't. And probably don't even want.

A very popular saying goes that you should live each day as if it were your last. Sorry, Marcus Aurelius, you got it all wrong. Last days usually suck. You should live each day as if it were your first!

Everyone should discover, observe, learn and love as you would on the first day! Well, maybe not on the very first day of your life but you know what I mean. Enjoy it while it lasts - one day it will all be over.

This one is for you, Renata, wherever you are!