A moment of rest

Craziness, sheer and utter craziness -- the last two weeks have been bonkers. At one point we had six people here sharing one and a half bath. Then in the middle of it we travelled nine hours (due to terrible traffic) to Monchengladbach for a wedding. Well, the house is quiet again for the moment and I'm just now catching up on my blogroll. There's one terrific blog that I just started following -- Tea Rose Home. At the moment she has a Mother's Day giveaway going on. Please stop by! Although I'm newish to sewing, she has a number of terrific sewing tutorials that I think I can even follow. In flickr news, Graphics Fairy now has a flickr group. I've added pics of some of my work.

Gotta run for now -- I'm hosting a tea party tomorrow and I haven't even started preparing! The all-home-made menu (as of this moment): scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam, porter cake, banana bread, cucumber sandwiches, smoked salmon sandwiches, egg salad sandwiches (all with crusts cut off of course), tea, coffee, and lemonade. Pictures to come!

Unexpected Pleasures

Black Forest Torte, originally uploaded by Tea Potty.

We had a relative fly over to see us this past weekend and now we're not sure when he's going to leave! As soon as he landed, European airlines started to cancel flights because of the Icelandic volcano. Looks like he'll be here for at least another week (if the air clears by then)! I really should say that it is nice to have him visit and we're glad to have him stay so long. It is just a bit disruptive to our plans though.

I do like having out of town company. Once I get past the stress of cleaning and cooking, I enjoy playing tour guide. Visitors give us a good excuse to forget daily, mundane responsibilities and to do all the fun things I haven't done in a while -- window shopping, playing tourist, and eating really indulgent cakes at lovely cafes while watching the world pass by. Strangely, I'm really good at doing those things.

The weather has cooperated nicely for our visitor, so we spent part of the weekend on the windsurf/kite surf beach at Pelzerhaken. As my other half is a windsurfer, this is our home away from home. Luckily there is a good cafe and a playground here to keep the rest of the family entertained.

Despite having company with us we're off to a wedding this weekend. I've never been to a German wedding, so it will be a bit confusing to follow the ceremony. This one should be doubly interesting as the wedding is in German and Turkish! I'm also looking forward to seeing some of our friends there that we haven't seen for a while. Have a good week!