Music, again

Let's finish the year with some music that currently comes up on my playlist more often than everything else:

Zaho de Sagazan - La symphonie des éclairs

Laurent Voulzy - Jeanne

 

Jean Schulteis - Confidence pour confidence

 

Keen'V - Outété

And the guy with the strangest haircut:

Aime Simone - Shining Light

 

Hm, I just realised that all the music is French.

Well, I could add some new Mika, Vianney, or M83, perhaps Brassens, Delpech or Sardou.

Oh, wait ...

Happy 2024!

La bûche de Noël

I wanted to do it for a couple of years now, and this year I finally managed to do it.

Plenty of recipes online, I took the Paul Holywood's one. 

Didn't have very Chrismassy decoration in my local shop. I could chose between pink flamingoes, trucks or these flowers...

It was super delicious and I will definitely make it again. 

The only downside was that after making it, the next day I tested positive for Covid  and lost all the sense of smell and taste :-(

Christmas decoration

This year I also made some Christmas decoration: dried oranges in epoxy resin.

Oranges were grown in this garden:

and dried under the Provençal sun.

Actually it was Côte d'Azurian sun but this is doesn't sound as poetic as Provençal :-)

Anyway, working with the resin was quite messy, especially as i didn't have a rapidly dying one - this one took about 2-3 day so solidify.

And of course multiple layers were needed as the oranges floated...

We also made some glow-in-the-dark glittery letters for a Secret Santa.

The decoration is quite heavy, but pretty :-)

It brings a bit of Côte d'Azurian sun into your life :-)

Advent in Zagreb

This year we finally managed to see the famous advent in Zagreb. The decorations and festivities are indeed wonderful, but I was surprised how damaged the place still is following the earthquake in 2020... Plenty of galleries and museums closed, and the cathedral as well.

I'll start with the most magical place - the etherically decorated tunnel. Just stunning!

 

Is this the most stylish postbox or what?

And the cathedral towers...

Winter time

If the winter won't come to Mojcek, Mojcek must go to winter.

So I did.

 

MiniMojcek Nr.2 took snowboarding lessons and we went for a lovely walk to Lake Jasna.

Christmas cards 2023 edition

This year I was/am short on time, so the cards are quite simple.

 

But shiny :-)

 

I got glittery shimmery shiny watercolours and painted baubles. Not two are the same.

 

But they all have the same hidden message :-)

In Morse code.

But of course.

Colour of the year

Pantone chose the colour of the year 2024:

Peach fuzz.

Probably the worst colour of the year ever. 

It's not even a colour, it's ... what is it?!?

The only thing it reminds me of are old Hansaplasts/Band-aids.

It's even worse than the Rose quartz/millennial pink.

And those were bad.

Next!

PS. Haha, I googled peach fuzz not knowing the meaning of the phrase - and all I get is how to ged rid of it... Well, yes, please, get rid of this horrible non-colour.

Christmas is approaching

The Christmas cards are all made, about half of them already sent.

Most of the Christmas presents are wrapped, some are still on their way.

On top of this, I made a Christmas wreath! I didn't have a solid straw or styrofoam wreath to build on, so it's not as rich as it could have been... But hey, for a start...

Christmas cards teaser

This year I'm really short on time so the Christmas cards will be relatively simple. 

But beautiful nevertheless :-)

Blessed

Not often does one have the privilege of listening to a composer performing his own music. But I finally got to see Ludovico Einaudi live.

And listening to Nuvole Bianche made me cry. 

- Because it was so beautiful and emotional, almost ethereal. 

- Because never in a million years would I be able to play it like he did. 

This is a recording from another concert, but it was just as beautiful.

:-)

The other day I was buying some books in my favourite bookstore.

And the cashier greeted me with:

"I greet thee, druidess."

 :-D

She explained that when she saw me, she just had to say it out loud.

Maybe having long gray(ish) hair had something to do with it ;-)

Brittany!

I've always had a soft spot for Brittany, especially since I visited it with my parents almost 30 years ago.

So reading the news and seeing the images from the most intense storm ever hitting Brittany, well, my heart goes out to you, guys. 

So, with you in mind, I am eating Breton biscuits, reading Commissaire Dupin, listening to Nolwenn and Yann Tiersen, and sorting photos from this summer, when we were there.

If anyone can survive this storm, it's Breton people. Even if is was 207 km/h on Pointe du Raz (141 km/h 10 min average) and a maximum wave of 21m!!! 

I kind of wish I was there...

Pointe du Raz in much much calmer weather

Learning vs Understanding

I finally learned how to solve a Rubik's cube without any cheat sheets.

But I am not quite happy.

Because I learned how to solve it and do not understand why the moves solve it.

So frustrating.

So guess who is now studying permutation groups :-D

I'm not sure if understanding the Rubik's group will help me understand the moves, but hey, one step at a time. 

And one cube type at a time ;-)

Weather 2

I remember writing about the upsides of the absolutely insane weather we're having this year. But I never got around to writing the downsides. 

In August, we've had the worst floods (probably) ever. Our family wasn't hit but a lot of other people were not so lucky and it's impossible to imagine what they went through.

I also can't remember if I ever had to wear jeans in August before! And drink a cocoa to get warm! Yes, this is the same August that gave us super heat three weeks later. 

It's the end of October by now and the weather is still bonkers.

This, for example, is a 24-hour lightnings map on October 28th (from Lightningmaps.org). 

Half of the sky was clear with full moon and Jupiter shining bright - the other half of the sky was one lightning after another.

I loved it :-D

Update

Aaand the moment you take the door lock out and go to buy a new one - you find the lost keys.

Of course. 

But we were lucky as we found the keys 10 min before buying a new lock and not, as usually, 10 min after :-)

Lost keys

The bad thing about losing things, well, is that you lose them.

The good thing, however, is that looking for the one lost item, you find a lot of other missing items. 

Just not the one you were looking for.

Oh well.

:-)

I might be the biggest fan of the french show N'oubliez pas les paroles in Slovenia. 

So I've seen some wonderful and funny - but also a lot of rather interesting and strange lyrics. 

But this one probably wins :-)

 Oh, and if you can't recognise the song from the lyrics, it's Ah, si j’étais riche :-D

Legorghini

A life-sized Lego Lamborghini was exhibited in a shopping centre nearby.

Just imagine, somebody is being paid for assembling this.

Why is this one not me?

Weather 1

This summer is defined by the extreme weather. Extreme heat, extreme humidity, extreme rain...

So let's first talk about the positives. One can cook outdoors, for example this paella (by Mr. Mojček and a friend).

One can have wonderful garden parties and eat delicious food, for example these cakes (by my cousins).

And I managed to do seven rounds of laundry in one day, as they were drying super quickly in the hot weather.

National Gallery II

Oh, there was one more thing I saw in the National Gallery and it made me feel... almost cheated and betrayed.

I'm talking about one of the most famous Slovenian paintings, The Summer by Ivana Kobilca (1890). 

Well, it turns out that she did not masterfully catch a moment of summer, but it was a photograph that did it and she painted from the photo...

 

Don't quite know how to feel about it. It surely still is a masterpiece, I will just look at it differently.

National Gallery

MiniMojcek Nr. 1 did really well on a science competition, so he got plenty of tickets for museums and galleries. 

No matter how often I visit the National Gallery, there is always something different that attracts my attention. 

Like this altar from 1530, or - as MiniMojcek Nr. 2 called it - a Hagrid choir :-)

 

Then there is the wonderful painting of Ljubljana in snow by Pavel Künl, 1847, which is one of my favourite paintings there. 

And this lake by Marko Pernhart (1852), which is in fact the same lake as where Mika's concert took place ;-)

France

We spent the main family holidays in France.

I still have (literally!) thousands of photos to sort, but just to give you some idea:

I might have missed some details (yes, I just noticed I missed another peninsula in Brittany), but you can tell that we've seen a lot.

And we've driven 5500 km.

And yes, I will post more photos - once I sort them.

Italy

And we went to see Mika playing at NoBordersMusicFestival in Italy.

Unfortunately, after ending up in an ambulance, we had to spend the rest of the concert in the shade, so the recordings are not that good...

But the scenery is fantastic!

 

Spain

Anyway, the updates.

First I went to Southern Spain.

And this church has the most unusual ceiling...

Updates ...

Wow, I knew I was behind with the blog - but two months behind? That is a lot.

Mostly because I was away. 

But let's talk about the weather first. 

So many stormy nights and orange/red alerts and heavy rain and hail and flooding and strong winds and even tornadoes in our vicinity ... plus an earthquake.

Even statistics shows what a crazy month July has been: practically the same amount of sunshine but 2-3 times the amount of rainfall compared to an average July.

Should we get used to it?

Overcoming obstacles

Just as Roglič was riding and fighting for the first place in Giro, 

we had our own problems, not far away from him.

But he won and so did we. 

Well done, Roglič, well done!

Meanwhile ... outside

While we're busy within the house, the garden is doing just fine. 

More action!

Which one suits me better?

 

And yes, we're busy.