this and that - June
a collection of (good) things I enjoyed this month
I write to you with a headache and an impatient dog waiting for its final walk of the day. June has been incredibly short for me. I got lost in my day to day life, didn’t write any blogposts and didn’t even really leave the city for the most part.
To catch up with you over my predictions in May: I didn’t really spend any more money on Aperol Spritz (only once), we had maybe one small heatwave, I did next to no side questing, no crush.
This sounds sad. I promose, I’ll better myself. But there were good things.
Folks. Two words. Guinness cake. Oh my God. Anna Fronek is a vegan baker and creative spirit and her recipes are delicious. I want to try every single one - but since her Guinness cake is beyond every chocolate cake I’ve tried so far and I end up making it every time I’m craving cake, I didn’t have the capacity to try out a second of her recipes yet.
Knitting cawls. A cawl is a scarf-like neckwarmer-object and I can knit them now. I start with casting on 29x4 or 42x3 stitches, do 5 rows of 1k/1p ribbing, then I do about 42 rows of stockinette in the round and finish with another 5 rows of ribbing and an italian bind-off. I want to experiment with colourwork in the future and the 29x4 or 42x3 stitches help me with designs that get repeated either 3 or 4 times. I know we just entered summer and no one needs a cawl right now but I can’t help my obsessions. Ah, I use Drops Nepal and a 5.5mm circular needle.
Dear reader, I think we’ve established that sometimes crazy random shit makes it on these lists. So, I give you: Dinosaur meals. It’s the simplest way for me to actually eat my vegetables and it’s very straightforward. Go to your fridge, select stuff you could just eat without much prep work, put it all on a big plate and eat it. The goal is simple: Get that food inside your mouth. No hassle, just maybe some cutting, and since I usually have some sort of greens, tomatoes and smoked tofu at home, it’s actually quite healthy. I pair it with hummus (once tub serves two dinos) and a whole baguette with garlic butter. I can imagine this to be a relatively easy meal for people with depression or the neurospicy folk.
The ARD podcast “Lost in Nahost”. It’s a German podcast about the Middle East. In a recent conversation with an Irish friend (hey Cormac! Do you even read my blogposts? If yes - I hope you’re well ;) )I discovered that I pretty much don’t know anything about the topic. Since then I devoured the podcast - or whatever you call up to 5 hours of listening time a day. I like that the reporters are open and honest about limitations, they have different guests from different countries and really take their time explaining the context, history and geography while also talking about recent events. I knitted almost a whole jumper while listening. Please recommend similar podcasts to me, thank you very much.
My new earrings by Alice Uniques. They are made from recycled pearls and I love them. Alice is such creative, cool and nice person. I barely have any earrings and these are the perfect pearls for me. You can buy them locally in Bremen at Hello Goodbye, Wanted Vintage, the contemporary craft studio or through Alice herself. The pricing is perfectly reasonable and I always love buying handmade and upcycled. Alice also upcycles clothing and fabric, creating bags and outfits. Check her out!
Noticing your surroundings and trying to get a better look. I spotted nice light hitting the house outside my window last week and so I took a bottle of cider and the dog, went to the park and spend a good nice moments there, enjoying the sun. I also keep noticing a lot more feathers (magpies?) than usual and the lake seems to look especially inviting these days. We’ll see what that might be about.
So, loves, we’ll see each other very soon. I’ve been thinking about publishing some poetry but I am undecided as I usually don’t enjoy reading poems. But maybe you do, who knows. My online dating series might continue soon and I have another blogpost in the pipeline. But, tbh, I’m also writing my thesis at the moment so we’ll see, okay? Okay.