Through my new lens

I know that you might be wondering why I’ve been so quiet again. It is summer time and I don’t like spending days behind the screen when days are sunny and hot and so beautiful. No doubt, summer is my favorite time of year. Though, not much has been happening in my life lately.

In next few posts I will show you where I spent some wonderful days of this summer… as seen through the lens of my new camera. And I tell you it was worth every cent I spent (I am thankful to Ž, grandmom and brother who made this possible)!

Summer days

People are complaining about the heat while I keep enjoying in each and every day of this hot summer.

Visiting the nearby hills

Being a guide to the Belgian tourists on the Mura river

Helping my dad at extracting honey

Gathering herbs (these ones are from my garden)

Experimenting in my kitchen

44. As usual these on the picture were my birthday present.

I did some hiking for birthday.

Wonderful days indeed.

65

Time flies, and another year is around. There’s always good food on our table at this time of year because my mum is celebrating her birthday.

I am glad that I had started to make a napkin for her present early because in the end it served as a prototype. I started to make another one about 14 days ago. It was finished yesterday. It is not as perfect as I wanted it to be but at least it doesn’t have any mistakes.



As months go by I am finding out that I, too, started to feel old. I am engaged in all sorts of activities but there’s still something missing. That’s why I am so much more looking forward to see the spring coming into our land, which will, hopefully, wake me up from this winter sleep, so that I will feel alive again.

Celebration

My mom said yesterday: "I am 46 years old today." I thought how old I would be in just a few years, and my mom thought how young she was when she was 46.

Her mom, my grandmom told a story of her birth some months ago, and also a story of my granddad who came into a hospital to visit them but nurses didn't allow any visits. Somehow he sneaked into the room, and when nurses found this out he was allowed to stay with his women for a few more minutes. He rented one of the rare cars in the town to drive his firstborn and wife back home. It was lots of snow that day on the streets. Oh, what a hero he was!

Without any doubt I looked charming yesterday. Mom was thrilled when she saw me with all that makeup on my face and dad quietly said: "You really look good today." My brother kindly commented: "If you were not my sister I would look at you twice." Ž just smiled when I danced for him.

I knitted a hat for mom but I think that she will need another one, I will have to choose another model and thinner wool.

I played a few songs on the guitar for mom, she likes my playing although I repeat the same three songs over and over again. She made donuts and we ate them all. You know, after all today is - Lent!

Lots of paper

Three new things found home at my place. Lila Prap's notebook in which I am "supposed" to write ornithological observations, black Moleskine's planner 2011/2012 and a guitar manual. Well, the later looks pretty complicated for a beginner but maybe through time I will start using it. It seems that there is no progress in my guitar playing, but eventually I will have to move on to more difficult chords. My fingers still hurt; but it is hard not to play guitar for a few minutes every day. I realized that people like its sound. It doesn't really matter if I don't play well known songs, it matters only that I play chords that sound nice. I still wonder why my parents never asked my uncle, a violin player, to teach me and my brother to play a violin. Maybe because he was beating his own children?

The Day

Yesterday was such an ordinary day. I stayed at home. Well, at least near home. I drove for a walk to a gorge nearby but the clouds looked threatening and it got pretty cold, so I went back home. I receive about 5 kg of blueberries every year (they are pretty expensive even if you pick them by yourself), so part of them ended in the blueberry pie that I baked again after many, many years. Mmm, delicious even if it doesn't look so! I also went for a walk later in the afternoon but was chased by so many horseflies that I literally ran to the main road. Ahhhh, sometimes I wish I lived somewhere else where such pests don't exist!There were only two guests at my party in the evening - mom and dad. :) I played them some chords on the guitar and we spend some nice hours together chatting, and of course - eating! 42 is a big number, although I can say that I feel like being only 24. That is, if I don't think about my painful back. :)

My summer

I know, I've been "quiet" for some time. It is not really a happy summer, but in between there are also nice days. Below is my summer so far in pictures. I just wonder who switched off the heat today? :)

4x10

Or 10x4. Whichever formula you take, you get the number of the years that passed from the first landing on the Moon. I was born a few days before the landing. This year I celebrate my birthday on Sunday, so I will not be behind the screen. But I never am. I always take a day off work, having a whole day just for me.

Ž phoned me a few minutes before and told me the plan. We are going to the seaside for few days. This means that I will be working hard today, preparing everything for departure. This includes calling my parents to invite them for a cup of coffee and a piece of cake tomorrow. I like this kind of life in a way. It is full of nice surprises. And I will be able to tell another story of my life.

I haven't been in a library for four months now. I don't have any desire to read books. It is my life that is important not life of the people described in the books. Books that I have by my bed and on my desk are about frogs, birds, flowers. Learning for life, about life. Each and every day. I have always wished to be younger than I am. They tell me that I don't show my age. I wouldn't mind to be 3x10 again. With all the knowledge I have now. But... let's live this life now, because we have been given only one chance to do this.

Happy weekend everyone!

Birthday surprise

My dad often talks about the time he spent in the army. He played the trumpet there and usually he tells us the stories about trumpeting to his mates.
I had the idea to hire a trumpeter for his 60th birthday and asked my mum to help me with that. She was no help, so two years passed before I coincidentally asked my friend, if she knew anyone who plays the trumpet.
The guy she knows played the reveille for my dad this morning. You should have seen his happy face. I think that this was the best gift he ever received in his lifetime for his birthday.

It feels so good to make people happy, don't you think so?

It's my party...

... and I cry if I want to...

No, it wasn't that bad at all. Thank you so much for your birthday wishes! :)
I spent the day looking for ripe wild raspberries. I will have to come again, in about two weeks, they are still small and green. Though, I ate delicious sour milk with some sponge cake and potica, lots of wild blueberries and had a wonderful view on the beloved mountains. It is amazing how colors of the flowers blooming change through the seasons - now there are lots of violet and yellow flowers in the bloom right now. At least below 1800m above sea level.
On the way up to the hill called Porezen, Mr Ž and I stopped at the lace fair in Železniki, one of the towns not far from Ljubljana. Amazing work! How can you go home empty handed seeing all the beauties made by hardworking hands? Women are paid only 1,50 Euro per hour doing this work! A shame, really. We left lots of donation for them in a basket put next to the exhibited pieces of lace. It was Mr Ž who tried the cherry schnapps and I had (oh, yes!) a cup of Turkish coffee and a lemonade. In the evening we went to a party of little Gaja (I guess in English you would write it Gaia). I sewed a little bag and put three round fish into it for Gaja's older sister Julija. They were a hit, all children at the party put the fish into the cake and then into their mouth. Imagination has no limits! :) It was a pleasant lazy day. Well, I won't describe the steep and dangerous slopes Mr Ž lead me to - it should have been a shortcut but it wasn't... Yes, I almost cried there...

Friday

Tomorrow is a national holiday in Slovenia. It is funny that we celebrate the death of our greatest poet, France Prešeren. I wrote about him in December last year when we celebrated his birth. Though, it is not a national holiday then. We are funny people, Slovenians.

All museums in Slovenia open their door for free tomorrow and I might go and see some exhibition again. If I am not too sick. I caught cold again, hopefully a mild version of it. I am eating tons of fruit and drink liters of herbal tea.

Tomorrow is also a day when somebody celebrates his birthday. I met this English guy in August ‘94 in Lillehammer, Norway. I slept in a cozy hostel called Gjeste Bu. Coincidentally I was writing my diary right at that time when he, two girls from Holland and Michael, an Australian, had a chat next to my bed. I joined them. Somehow guys were making jokes on us, girls. So ‘the boy’, like he called himself, wanted to write a note into my diary. Ok, I let him. I was surprised because he simply wrote a few encouraging words on my pages of my ‘red book’ and beside them his address and an invitation to meet him again. I have never experienced something like that in my life. The next day we met in Oslo and I spent a nice afternoon with him. I experienced the whole new world. When saying goodbye he hugged me for a whole minute and kissed me briefly. You know, this was a shock for me and since then I had been floating on a cloud of happiness. I have never been so happy in my life, not before and never after. All the things seemed to be nice, each and every person friendly. A time of pure JOY.

Later I visited him in Liverpool, where I suppose he still lives today. When I came home the pressure of everyday life was too big and that joy that I had felt went away in about 3 months. A pity. I was struggling but without success. In autumn he visited me in Ljubljana but the magic went away. I went to see him for Christmas and New Year and I was deeply disappointed. Finally I realized that we do not and cannot belong together. I cried a lot. We heard each other after that a few times on the phone but I knew that he loved the world too much to be able to be with me. I am not sorry that it was over. I had the best time of my life that August and this is what matters most. I know I would not be happy with him today. We were too different. A world apart.

Happy birthday Adam G.M.!