Holidays in Bad Pumpernickel

New Year's Eve was strange this year. Usually, I love to spend that day with my friends, but as I grow older this is increasingly difficult. Most of my friends have children now, so they like to celebrate the new year with them. I, however, am not that fond of this type of event. Therefore, my partner and I decided to go away for the holiday, somewhere quiet and peaceful where we can stuff ourselves with great food and maybe use a Spa.
Thus we went to Bad Pumpernickel (as I like to call it in reference to W.M. Thackerey's fictional German Spa town in Vanity Fair) aka Bad Brückenau.
We had great food and went for lots of walks in the snow and most of the time just marvelled at the beautiful yet somewhat fairytale-like area. The spa resort of Bad Brückenau is about three kilometres away from the town, so it's like an island where only tourists and hotel staff live. It was built by Ludwig I in the first half of the 19th century and it would be the ideal setting for a Castle Falkenstein - LARP. (In a perfect world, where you get LARP-locations for free...) Sadly, we both have a rather annoying cold, so we didn't frequent the spa often, but we had lots of fun exploring the parks around the hotel.

 This is the main building of the hotel.

 Our room was at the "Fürstenhof", a seperate building about 200 metres away from the main hotel.

 This is the "Kurhaus", where the ball took place. The statue in fron of it is Lola Montez Ludwig I.

 The protestant church, a wonderful building with beautiful Jugendstil ornaments.

This oak tree is thought to be about a 1000 years old.

My partner and me are not the usual clientele of this place, but the staff was really friendly and helpful and we never felt out of place. We attended the ball at New Year's Eve only to devour the delicacies from the buffet and left soon after the dancing started and spent the rest of the evening walking through the beautiful park and watching the spectacular fireworks.
All in all, it was much fun and I would love to return there, but preferably not on New Year's Eve.

Hello Again!

This blog is like a badly made zombie - most of the time it just lies there rotting, but sometimes it is risen and staggers around for a bit just to fall down again. Maybe I'll be able to write some more in the future, at least I can try.

Well, let's be optimistic.

The last year has been very mixed for me. On the one hand, I managed to acchieve most of the goals I set for me: I have established a more frequent contact to my friends and met them more regularly than before. Moreover, I have travelled quite a lot. I visited my grandmother in the Harz, I stayed several times with a friend who moved to the middle of nowhere, my partner and me spent two weeks in Cornwall, I went on a class trip to Oxford and I was in Stuttgart for a weekend.

On the other hand, there are some things that need to change next year. So these are my new goals:

1) I have to take better care of myself. While I was not seriously ill, I didn't feel great most of the time and I haven't been able to really relax for some years now. I can't go on like this, so there has to be healthy eating as well as regular exercise outside.
2) I want to have a regular Pen and Paper group again. Roleplaying has been my favourite hobby for 18 years now, but during the last few years I haven't been able to maintain a steady group.Of course, it's more difficult to find other players now, because most of my friends have children and or rather demanding jobs but maybe there are others who feel the same need.
3) Although I hate the word "work-life-balance" this is exactly what I need. I like my job, but I don't want it to consume my entire personality. So let's try to draw clearer boundaries between job and life. That means more work in school and less work at home.

And I would also like to update this blog more regularly, so maybe I will use it as a way to keep track of my goals.

If anyone reads this, I hope you had a most wonderful year yourself and I wish you all the best for 2015!

Things I loved in October

Here we go:
1) Our 1982 LARP
It went well, everybody had fun, it was totally worth the effort. What more could I ask for?
2) Everything made from apples
I love cooked apples in every form as baked apples, apple pie, apple sauce, in pancakes and everywhere else. But they are even better when eaten in the appropriate season...
3) Hot desserts
There is nothing better than finishing a good meal with a cooked desert served warm. In October, I actually took some time to make some of my favourite desserts: Upside down Gingerbread (more like a siruppy cake baked with canned pears), White Chocolate and Orange Bread and Butter Pudding, and Apple Crumble with Ice Cream.
4) Watching "American Horror Story"
Yes, it's silly and campy and has some gaping holes in its narrative logic - but it's just so much fun!
5) The Kryptonite Radio Theater
We saw them perform "The Call of Cthulhu" and it was the funniest evening I've had in a long time.
6) Knitting with 6-ply yarn
It's so unbelievably fast.
7) Watching Blackfish
Although I am by no means an animal rights activist, I am always interested in how people perceive and treat animals because it tells you so much about how people see themselves. And this documentary is so insightful in the ways people interact with orcas. Also, it's really suspenseful and almost like a psychological thriller. And i's a good opportunity to eat "Goldfischli"...

Fox Pillow

After all the work with the yarn patchwork, I wanted to do something easy and fast. Luckily I found this tutorial for cute and simple fox pillows. It took me only two hours to make this and it was real fun. (Ok, I guess if you don't know that it is supposed to be a fox it might not be your first interpretation, but I like it anyway.)
 I'm already planning some more foxes, for example a polar fox mode from wool fabric left from a LARP cloak.

Next weekend I am hosting my first LARP since about seven years, so from Friday I will be off to the 1980s... I hope it will be good...

Spectular/Unspectacular Pillowcase

A few weeks ago I wrote that I was busy with a project that was much more work that I had expected.
I fact, it was an attempt to use up all the little scraps of the different Zauberball yarns I had lying around. I got the brilliant idea to make little squares from them, each about 10x10 cm and to sew them together to create a patchwork-like effect.
What I forgot was that this means that I had to knit at least 25 squares for the front of an ordinary cushion alone and so I decided to make only one side of the pillowcase from yarn and to use some corduroy for the back. Otherwise I would have had to buy some extra yarn and moreover I discovered that I really hate to sew knitted fabric together.
Anyway, I like the result a lot and I think the colours look gorgeous on my sofa.

Some of the squares lost there shape during sewing because I had some problems with the right tension, but I think the pillow actually looks better that way. Otherwise it would have been too geometrical.

Fairy Lights

I haven't written for quite some time but not because there wasn't anything worth posting. I have made a number of things and taody I am fianlly motivated enough to start showing some of them.

A few weeks ago I made these fairy lights, based on a LED lights chain. I wrapped the wire in some yarn in different shades of green and brown and I made a little paper hat for every light. I really like the result, especially because it looks not only great in the dark but is also decorative during daytime.

Things I learnt this summer

I haven't posted the "Things I loved in..." list for a few months but I plan to start again soon. However, I believe I have learnt quite a lot of useful things during the summer months so I am just posting a list of them:
1) How to operate a power drill
2) How to make "Maultaschen" (small dumplings, a bit like Italian ravioli)
3) How to make lemon squares (the best cake ever)
4) 3 chords on the ukulele (I hope more will follow soon)
5) That I still like reading
6) That more expensive nail polish is sometimes really better
7) That I can still do a somersault
8) That it is fun to go to a festival in the rain
9) That I am not an awful babysitter (only a not very good one)
10) What it is like to use the Nerobergbahn
11) How to sew leggins
and hopefully some other things which I cannot remember at the moment because they have already becomeso natural to me.