Summer in the Kitchen

Summer time is berry and fruit time. I love that time and I love making stuff with berry and fruit.

One of my absolute favorite thing is making (and drinking) syrups.

I usually start in early May with rhubarb, then in June elderberry flowers. Next, in July, is strawberries and red currant, and the last one I've made just today is blackberry.

I still have a carefully horded bottle of each (from left to right it's elderberry flower, strawberry/red currant, rhubarb and, the last one, is blackberry)
I usually just put a bit of the stuff in a glass and then add a lot of water. And sometimes ice. The perfect summer drink.
Love the stuff. Totally love it.
Yesterday I picked up some raspberry and started a batch of liqueur (on the right, basically raspberries, candis sugar and vodka), and and batch of raspberry vinegar (raspberries and white wine vinegar). The vinegar is great with a salat, and the liqueur. Hmmm.

Both of those have to sit a while before I can actually use it, but in the meantime ...
Peach chutney. Don't know yet how it came out (I used a recipe from 'Essen & Trinken' a German cooking magazine), though I have the feeling there was a bit too much vinegar. I'll know tomorrow.

As I had some of the canning sugar left and also some of the peaches, I decided to do a very small batch of mango/peach jam. 

Yummy!!!

Goldfish

It's been a while since I updated anything I've made quilt wise. Reason for this is that I haven't done anything in the last five weeks.
But at least I can show the current status of my last project.

The first 29 (out of a potential 240) blocks for a goldfish pond quilt.
The pattern is by Bernadette Mayr and can be found in her book 'Wasser-Patchwork)
The blocks are done in a free cutting technique, which is a lot of fun to do, but also creates a lot of waste (which I'm not fond of)

Greenland 2016

Greenland was, if you pardon the pun, pretty cool.
Finally, we had icebergs. Lots and lots of icebergs.
We had them looking out of the window of our hotel room in Ilulissat

Or on tours we took on a small boat toward the Epi glacier. 

 We had them during the day in bright sunshine

 And under the midnight sun.

 Very, very cool.

Iceland 2016

This was my second time to visit Iceland. First time was in 2009, when we drove the Road No. 1 once around. We did, like most tourists to Iceland, skip the West Fjords, so this time we knew we'd be going there.
The West Fjords are mostly about nature. There's loads of bird, some waterfalls and ... well, fjords.
Some pictures below.
At he cliffs of Ladrabjarg about a million birds breed every year.

Black Guillemots

Northern fulmars

And Puffins!

We also saw Terns

 And not to forget, waterfalls (this one is the Dynjandi)

500 - 10 - 50

This post is my 500th post.

I've been doing this for almost exactly 10 years (my first post was on July 14th, 2006).

And, since about a week I'm 50 years old.

Surprisingly little has changed in the last ten years. 

I'm ten years older, but I'm still single, and still work as an engineer in the semi-conductor industry (in fact, for the same employer). 

I still live at the same address in the same town. 

I still travel a lot (I just came back from my vacation in Iceland and Greenland).

I've started the blog as a mean to keep my family and friends updated on my activities and also to keep a record for myself of what I've been working on at any given time. Sort of like a semi-public diary. I'm happy I managed to keep up for all that time, and sometimes it's a great reference.

Being 50 is no different than being 49. At least I haven't noticed anything different. I'm not getting younger, that's for sure, but I don't exactly feel like being 'old'.

As a friend told me: “Age is just a number. It's totally irrelevant unless, of course, you happen to be a bottle of wine.” (a Joan Collins quote)

I'm still sifting through the 3.300 pictures I've took on my vacation. If you want a teaser, just go back 7 years in my blog. There are some Iceland pictures when I was there the first time in July 2009.

And a short teaser for Greenland: