The summer holiday isn't over yet...IN MY HEAD!!!

Hola!!
Hallo!!
Hello!!

The summer!  Oh the summer!  My summer holiday is over!  Monday I started work again and today was my first day back at college.  And so it goes on, let the 5 day week commence!  So this is a summer post.  The end of summer post.  A catching up summer post.  Just generally all things summer!  I'll have a bit of everything in here, a bit of home and plants and a bit of holiday and sun.  Might be feeling slightly nostalgic for all the wonderful moments, but now is definitely the time to share all of the happenings before they disappear into my short term memory brain.

- Let's begin with a "before the summer holiday" full moon, back in July.  (Berlin)

- Now skip forward a couple of weeks...a bit of log throwing at the lake.  (Berlin)

- The softest grass that I lay on this summer, in the Britzer Garten in Neukölln.  (Berlin)

- A beautiful assortment of colours, in the Britzer Garten.  (Berlin)

- Garden shed at my grandmother's ready for a gathering.  (Neumarkt i.d. Opf)

- Marie Curie (female scientist and first woman to win a Nobel Prize) rose in my grandmother's garden.  Oh, and there's a bee too!  (Neumarkt i.d. Opf)

- The next stop in my summer holiday was Barcelona, Spain.  These next photos are all taken there.  I'll start with a picture of the pigeon tree.  There were a hell of a lot of pigeons in that tree.

- Here are some more, I guess you can't really see them against the background but let me tell you, there were a lot of pigeons!

- Some delicious looking lung, liver and leg specimens at La Boqueria market.  How does one even cook lung...actually...maybe I don't want to know.

- Evening walk on the promenade.  Palm trees and cool tower things.

- FRIED OCTOPUS from La Boqueria market!  I saw someone eating them two days before so we went back on a mission to find them, and that we did.

- The obligatory beach photo!  I didn't wash my hair for 5 days straight after being in the sea every day...what happened to my hair was a mixture between sculpture and rock carving!  Swimming in the sea is definitely one of the best swimming experiences out there and must be enjoyed as fully as is possible.  Is that someone doing a belly flop?  Oh I think it is!

- Here's a photo of a photo of Picasso at the Picasso Museum.  Fun fact: Picasso's dog's name was Lump!

- I actually LOLLED when I saw this postcard in the shop.  Oh and check out that great sea horizon behind it!

- Park Güell, the park that was designed by Gaudi.  Mosaic heaven!

- Washerwoman.  It looks like her dress was made of loads of tiny skulls.  But they were just rocks bro!

- Another shot taken in Park Güell.  Gotta get that sun/blue sky/palm trees combo as often as you can when you're around it aye?  Oh and don't forget the amazing rock-itecture (see what I did there?!)

- After Park Güell we kept walking up the hill and went to Túro de la Rovira/Bunkers del Carmel.  An old bunker on top of a hill from which you can see all of Barcelona and beyond.

 And with that photo I end the photo "montage" of our trip to Barcelona.  The wonderful city which is the heart of Catalonia, Spain.  I hope you have all had an enjoyable summer wherever and whatever you have been doing.
Thank you for reading and see ya next time.
..love..

First summer impressions.

Just last week, I took a trip to Munich and fields surrounding.  Mainly, I went to see my knee surgeon for a 5 month checkup.  But I definitely did more than just see my doctor.  There was lots and lots of lounging in the sun.  Continuous water dipping.  Walking.  Eating.  Swimming.  Although it was a short visit, it definitely felt like a mini-holiday that was filled with glorious summer colours and vibes.  Oh those summer vibes!

- Sunset over the fields outside Munich.

- Summer swimming.

- Wading in the stream with a bucket of rotten apples.

- Walking in water.

- A visit to the bees in the forest.

- Finally finding a sunflower field!!

- Look at them, they are just pure joy.

- Going for a walk with Anna-Amalia and Hannibal.

- The usual looking down, leg, foot and cat selfie.

- View from where we swam in the Isar, Munich.

- Taking photos out the bus window on my way back to Berlin.

- Bus window photo of endless ginormous north German fields and windmills.

Here I am hoping that the rest of my summer and of course YOUR summer will be just as colourful, warm and filled with joy.  Enjoy whatever summer brings to ya.  Thanks for reading this with your wonderful eyeballs.

See ya spoon.

..love..

Just because.

Woah there.  Another post so soon!  Look who's got more spare time right now!  Took some pictures of my surroundings again for the first time in aaaaages.  Today was the first warmer day of sunshine.  After the last two really cold weeks I (and a whole bunch of others in Berlin) are hoping that the summer comes and stays for good now.  Don't get me wrong, I do love a summer storm with some rain...but not when it's only 15 degrees outside.  For heaven's sake it is meant to be SUMMER!

So, here are a few snaps from my day.

I discovered my first zucchini!!!  I couldn't remember which zucchinis I planted in which pot so I had to let myself be surprised.  I am super excited to say that this is going to be a yellow ball zucchini!!!  YAY!!!  (It almost feels like I'm announcing the gender of a baby...here it is ladies and gentlemen, MY EDIBLE BABY!)

Here's a view of my zucchini plant from afar.  Look at how blue that sky is.  Pwooaaahrr!

Here's a view of my other window.  My room looks super dark in these pictures, but it is in fact super sunny.  Probably turns out so dark because I am photographing towards the sun.  Anyways, these are some of my chili and tomato plants chilling out this morning.  They're kind of lost in a backdrop of the tree outside my window!  This is kind of like a "Where's Wally" situation.  Do "where's wally" situations actually exist?  I think I made that up.  Erm, let's swiftly move it along.

I went on a lovely bike ride with a friend.  Through Neukölln and into Kreuzberg.  Deary me, there's nothing better than cycling around sunny Berlin with a friend.  Oh, and I bought myself a beautiful sunflower from the flower stall at the fleamarket!

Some dappled sunshine on cobblestones.  I am just way toooooo arty.  Oh how ponderous.

In my neighbourhood, innit.  Rixdorf was buzzing this weekend due to 48 Stunden Neukölln, an arts festival in and around Neukölln.  Look at all those wheels.

A whole load of green at the blacksmith's on Richardplatz.

Here's me sitting writing this blog post.  There you can see the sunflower I bought today and some of my other plants which are growing steadily.  I don't have so many growing so densely this year.  We'll see how the rest of the growing season goes, I'm hoping that they will all fill the space a little bit more than they are now.  That would be really nice if they did.

And with this I bid you all good night.  Thanks for reading and I hope you've all had a lovely Sunday, wherever you are.

..love..

Look what I made!

Hey!!  I totally forgot about this place for a while!  In case it interests anyone, I have been healing well since my operation.  I am without leg brace, etc.  I've been doing my rehab sports therapy workouts to strengthen my knee again and I'm feeling real positive about it!  I've been busy busy working and colleging with no time for blogging.  Boo!  But here I am now, feeling good!

So for today I thought I'd put up some pictures of some of the cards that I've made in the past 2 years.  I forgot to take pictures of a whole bunch of them.  Some of them are plant related, but some of them aren't.  Most are birthday cards but some of them aren't!  I might throw in some non card pictures.  Who knows.  Let's let ourselves be surprised.

I will start with the oldest.

 made in the spring of 2014

made in the summer of 2014

made in the summer of 2014

made in the summer of 2014

made in the summer of 2014

made in the autumn of 2014

made in the spring of 2015

made in the spring of 2015

made in the spring of 2015

made in the spring of 2015

made in the spring of 2015

made in the spring of 2015

made in the spring of 2015

made in the spring of 2015

made in the spring of 2015

made in the summer of 2015

made in the summer of 2015

made in the summer of 2015

made in the summer of 2015

So...this was a bit of a show off my cards kinda post.  Why not, eh?  Let me throw in a picture of my courgette plant in front of the blue sky (until the blue sky disappeared behind rain clouds) for good measure!  That's all folks.

..love..

Not about plants this time.

Heylo there.

It's been a while since the winter post.  A lot has happened and I have lots of new pictures that haven't got much to do with plants, so hey-ho...LET'S GO!

So my last post was about winter, snow and whatnot.  There's a picture on there of my brother speeding down the hill on a sled.  Just after that photo was taken, I was speeding down the hill on a different sled with my brother standing on the back.  I don't know if it's obvious but what seemed like a great idea at the time really wasn't.  By the time we had finished rolling to the bottom I had ruptured a ligament in my right knee.  The last couple of months have been in preparation of my big knee surgery.  

I've never had to have surgery.  I haven't even ever had to have stitches or broken anything so it was a little bit scary and in a weird way kind of exciting to be having to go to the hospital.  The excitement turned to dread when I got there and was waiting in my hospital room for the nurses to pick me up to wheel me into the operation room.  I was ready to bolt, but the nurses strapped me onto the operating table, and wheeled me into the anesthetic room.  There I was, strapped onto the operating table totally in the nude under a warm blanket.  They were preparing my right leg for the surgery.  The nurse was super nice.  But I felt like if this was normal life I would kind of be annoying because I just kept asking her the same questions over and over.  She gave me the "calm down" juice straight in the veins and then everything started moving a little bit.  Like when I drink one and a half glasses of wine... oh yeah I'm a real lightweight.  The anesthetic doctor came in and started talking to me about Berlin (I had my surgery in Munich so that my family could look after me) and I remember saying something about 4 flights of stairs.  For some reason, even though I could only see these people's eyes, I felt a deep and meaningful connection with each and every one of them.  Not only a connection but I kind of fell in love with them all.  There was a younger assistant doctor that came in to check on my blood pressure and stuff and I just remember thinking, oh he's got wonderful eyes.  I felt like these guys were gonna be my new friends.  My knee was in their hands.  They were going to fix it...hopefully...and then we could be best friends.

They knocked me out with two big canisters of full anesthetic with the nurse saying "think of something nice".  I panicked because I couldn't think of anything nice and just as I was going to tell her that I couldn't think of anything nice I was out like a light, in another world until I woke up...naked under a blanket...in a dark room full of hospital beds.  Everything felt weird and a little hazy.  I asked one of the nurses why I was naked but everyone else was already wearing their hospital gowns?  She told me that she wasn't able to dress me because I was rioting when she tried to.  I threw my arms up in the air and kept saying "I don't want another operation!!  No more operations!"  So she left me to calm down and for the anesthetic to wear off so that she wouldn't get a black eye!  I told her that I was very hungry at which point she said that the nurses had kept my food for me and were going to bring it to me later.

When I was picked up by the nurses to be brought back to my room we ran into my surgeon in the hallway.  I was still VERY loopy.   He said that everything went well and that I should go and rest now.  I just said "thank you" a thousand times and then took his hand (I can't remember if he went to shake my hand of if I just took his hand into mine) and just kept saying thank you.  I felt utterly star struck to be around him, he seemed like god to me at that point. 

 Anyway, everything a bit blurry after that.  My room had lots of people in it.  The girl that had already had her operation was there with a visitor.  Then I had a visitor.  Then the old lady with the new hip got wheeled in.  It was super busy, and throughout I kept getting phone calls from my family.  My brother said that he called and halfway through I just stopped talking because someone came in the room but I didn't hang up on him so he was just left listening to people speaking in the background.  He said he could hear in my voice that I was still away with the fairies.  Yes I was...and I hadn't eaten in nearly 24 hours.  

Everything that comes after that is the usual hospital recovery story.  I was in the hospital for 3 days.  I had tubes coming out of my leg for blood drainage.  So when I went to the toilet I had to take my blood bottles with me.  They got taken out on day two.  Weirdest feeling ever.  But loads of pressure was released and I felt a lot better.  Every part of my body hurt.  Not just my right leg.  I was uncomfortable because I was compensating for having a gammy leg.  I was sleeping so much.  Even a trip to the toilet would make me feel exhausted.  Then I thought to myself.  I am so freaking lucky.  I'm so glad that this was the first time I've ever had to go to the hospital in all of my 26 years of living.  I have an injury and the doctors have done their best to fix it so that I can continue living an active life.  I am recovering and healthy in every other way.  Thank god.  And thank you to the doctors who have fixed my injury.  Hopefully soon I will be able to do all the sport EVER!

Wow.  What a long winded essay up there.  I've been wanting to write it down for a while.  Now comes the less dry wordy part of the post, some photos taken during my recovery time here in Bavaria.  I've been lucky to have such a wonderful recovery station.

2nd of March, just before I was discharged from the hospital.

2nd of March, looking at my knee after my first shower at home.  (WARNING: not for a weak stomach)

8th of March, blue sky, green fields!!!

10th of March, helping out in my mom's bee house is one thing I could do with a bad leg.

10th of March, cleaning out old frames.

19th of March, went to celebrate my dad's birthday in Passau in the sunshine!

19th of March, walking through the English Garden with a friend in Munich we saw the surfers on the Isar.

20th of March, my little sister working on her stamp for our Papergirl Bristol http://papergirl-bristol.blogspot.de/ submissions.

20th of March, sun drying our submissions on eclipse day!

I have finally come to an end to this post.  Thanks to anyone that had the patience to read all the way through my very long winded and quite sappy essay!  I hope you are all healthy and bursting into spring with refreshed open minds and hearts.

..love..