a change of scenery

a lovely couple of days with friends and family.
in the midst of it, the sad and shocking news from norway.
which i'm still finding quite hard to believe.
it seems so unreal somehow.
incomprehensible.
like everyone else, i'm still processing what i think and feel about it.

but otherwise, i'm feeling relaxed.

it's good to get away.

but it's good to come back home -

to animals

and garden

and one's own bed.

time for reflecting on this project of ours.

this old farmhouse.

this garden, this simpler life.

and feeling at peace with it.

feeling it's right. 

even if it seems overwhelming at times,

how much work it will take before we're really there.

sometimes it takes talking about it.

and sometimes it just takes living it.

but best of all...

i feel a new surge of energy.

new ideas are being discussed

and some old ones are coming to fruition.

sometimes all it takes is a change of scenery.

even just briefly.

let them eat lego

the weather makes a very huge difference...on saturday, it would have been easy to sit around moping about how our visitors couldn't come after all. but somehow, because the sun was shining, we didn't let it get us down. on a whim, we decided to drive over to visit our best friends near the lake where they live over on the so-called devil's island (shh, it's the one where copenhagen is located). we needed to go check our house over there anyway, so we decided to go a day early.

i packed up a jar of rhubarb syrup, a bottle of hendrick's (polly, please bring more when you come in july!), a loaf of freshly-baked bread and a bowl of hummus and we were on our way.

we arrived just in time for dinner and to enjoy the last few glorious hours of sunshine on what was simply a perfect summer day. we had great conversations, good burgers, awesome cocktails and loads of laughs. husband declared that international aid to promote democracy is wasted until everyone has clean water, enough food, shelter and legos. and we laughed. i think even he was surprised that he had added legos to the list, but we had spent most of last week at hotel legoland, so perhaps it wasn't that surprising.

sometimes it's good to give in to spontaneity. life is short. and so is summer.