Fashion history

My local museum has an exhibition on the history of fashion.

The exhibition is not bad - but it reminded me so much of going through my mother's/grandmother's closets :-)

Some pieces are exceptional, like this "aristocratic dressing gown" from the Countess of Lichtenberg, late 19th century.

And another fancy coat:

Sewing time

MiniMojcek Nr. 2 wants to learn how to sew. However, all the summer courses we found were full - and not quite what he wanted. He had no interest in sewing pillows or simple bags...

He wanted to sew shorts. With a pocket. With a zipper.

So he learned how to sew shorts with a pocket with a zipper in seam.

And the fabrics? His choice, of course.

Tiger kimono

When your close friend celebrates his 50th birthday, he deserves a present. 

And since he's practicing karate for quite a while now, he'll be getting a tiger-kimono. 

 

With a corresponding belt. And yes, he's got a green belt, so a jungle belt it is.

 

And black velvet collar.

I did my best in pattern placing and pattern matching - it's not perfect, but not bad, methinks.

I hope he will like it. 

And use it.

At least once :-)

Pre-Christmas baking

MiniMojcek Nr.2 is taking extra cooking classes at school. The other day he brought home the recipe for a chocolate star. Which we of course made at home:

The next time we made it, we replaced the chocolate filling with cinnamon filling (you know, the cinnamon rolls one) 

... and ... 

added some cardamom and lemon juice. 

Now THAT is truly delicious!

Sea and ceilings

Well, first of all, I was away. 

The coast was beautiful ...

... but the beaches even nicer when immersed in fog!

 

I've seen also a lot of interesting ceilings. For example one in Batalha:

one in Monserrate:

 

 and another one in Sintra:

 

All the best!

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and all the best in 2022!

Stay safe.

And well.

Optics in spring

Now that my hand is getting better (and the weather warmer), I opened the kayaking and cycling season. 

And I can again play with some simple experiments.

Optical activity of sugar (sugar dissolved in water between polarisers)

I mean - how can anybody not love physics?!?

Dear Winter!

Dear Winter,

you know I love you dearly. I truly do. 

But there comes the time to let go and move on.

And now is the time.

So, go.

Preferably before all my trees break and flowers freeze.

And yes, this is 10 cm of snow in the last 3 hours. Still falling ...

Ouch!

I'm going to use the words of someone very smart: "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."

Well, I didn't even try something new, I just made a mistake...

Opera Cake

I've never made one before so it was time to make myself an Opera cake. 

Very rich. 

Very caloric. 

But yummy!

My love for all things French continues :-)

Christmas cards 2020

Now it's the perfect time to reveal this year's Christmas cards!

As I've been working quite a lot with wood this summer (kayak, remember?), I decided to use wood for the cards as well. So everyone got a tiny Christmas tree :-)

Now everyone can have the tree just as they like it: aligned, twisted or random.

When the day is short

When the day is short ... 

and when you're sure you've had enough ... 

it's time to do something!

So we did.

Returning back to the fog wasn't that pretty though...

In times like these...

 ... I could write a long post about all the things I am not doing. Limited to our municipality and leaving the house only if necessary, my life is just an eventless uninspiring continuum.

But the Christmas cards are all finished waiting to be written.

My book is in press.

The terrace fence is painted. 

We do get out occasionally, staying away from everyone. What could be more appropriate than the middle of the river.

A lovely late summer

What a lovely late summer/early autumn it is!

We are paddling:

 

And yes, this is a home-made kayak. 

Our corona-baby :-)

We are hiking:

We are cycling:

No, we are not bored.

And and and and ...Alaphilippe is the world champion! Me happy. Me very happy :-)

And Giro starts tomorrow!

Seaside

At 5:15 pm we just stopped paddling and swimming in a totally calm sea. The wind just about started to blow...

At 5:30 the sea turned into this:

At 5:40 it looked like this:

God, I love insane weather!

 

 

The next day was calm again. So we did an 18 km tour along the coast, while the kids were competing in sprint.

A lovely detail from a lovely beach.

Another lovely day

The achievements in road cycling are usually measured in distance or elevation, that is in kilometres and metres.

What about the achievements in mountain-biking? The hours of cycling? The falls? The injuries? The bruises? Sore muscles? Mosquito bites? Hmmm...

More beauty

Since more or less the only journey I can take is the journey to my garden - this is what I am doing.

PS. Day 70, btw.

What to do Nr. 18

On your marks ... get set ... bake!

We've been eating quite delicious food for the past few weeks as we prepare everything by ourselves. Cooking, baking... at least two to three times a day.

What I always find amusing is how much alcohol I've got at home - for someone who never drinks any alcohol. I only keep it for cooking/baking :-)

 

My collection is larger (and prettier and fancier and more diverse) than MrMojcek's, who does occasionally drink :-)

What to do Nr. 16

You can draw cartoons!

There are many tutorials in the internet, I started with Drawdoo.

And obviously I started with the simple ones :-)

:-)

Happy Easter

This Easter caught me completely unprepared. It's ten days since MrMojček last went shopping and obviously noone thought about Easter then...

We had to improvise.

So I made a poppy-seed potica. And an almond-cocoa one.

The Easter eggs were dyed with red onion skins.

And decorated with mathematical symbols.

Obviously.