Finally, the outdoor & garden season is open. Temperatures are up. The sun is showing her most beautiful face. A couple of clouds making the sky picturesque. Time for hanging out in the garden. Gardening is wonderful. And so relaxing. And so much fun (and definitely a less risky hobby. Lol).

Captivating smells from the lilac in the garden. Soon the lavender and the roses will be blooming, too. Oh, I can’t wait for it.

Our garden. Not only an oasis for the bees.

Enjoying first lettuce & radishes from the garden.

And the hops are growing.

After gardening it’s chill out time – the best time.

PS: hubby on board. Once he walked 2 floors down he needs a long siesta.

Pampering hubby. Learning how to cook some of his favorite Irish dishes (he usually cooks for me): Soda bread.

Up until the early 1950s, many less affluent households wouldn’t have had an oven, so breads would have been cooked on a flat-iron griddle over an open fire.

Today’s soda bread (recipe dates back hundreds of years) has been made in a heavy frying pan on a stove top.

Hubby’s comment: best soda bread ever (maybe just to encourage me to make banana pancakes a few days later). My foodie is back home 🙂 (and most importantly, he got his appetite back. That’s a great sign).

Soooo good!

Good food helps speeding up the recovery (trying to follow grandads advice: don’t feed him too much, he will notice every single additional gram when he needs to learn walking again).

It’s the season. Wild & beautiful. Red. Poppy field paradises. Bees love them, too. Bright scarlet color. Poppy – the flower of sleep (opium). The national flower of the Albanians in Albania, Kosovo and elsewhere. The state flower of California.

Today is the day. A perfect day. My birthday. And the greatest birthday gift ever: hubby was brought back home from hospital.

We had other plans (a nice weekend in the alps…). Well, plans are made for changing. And this one had very good reasons to be changed.

My dinner date tonight:

Cappuccino, Espresso & dinner… all of it is just so much better with you!

“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!”

Celebrating everything today: life & being alive. A birthday. Love. A very first kiss. Having each other again. Today, tomorrow & every day! Cheers!

I’m so glad to have him back!

And now chilling and enjoying life!

My feeling for time stopped last Sunday 2:29pm. And nothing else mattered anymore. Except love.

Difficult hours, nights and days passed by. A rollercoaster of emotions & feelings. Love being the winner: love emails, messages, phone calls, prayers, best get well wishes, meaningful words. Candles were lit around the globe. Spontaneous visitors & neighbors bringing dinner. And flowers. Thanks for everyone stopping by for a big hug. It felt great! Thanks for helping me to organize the motorcycle return. All of it means the world to both of us.

Thank you!

In between many happy moments and lots of laughter (despite the serious situation). I love the Irish family chat: so much humor. So much laughter.

The patient is doing ok. Surgeries all done. Overall pain but he is gradually feeling better (not sure if I believe him…). Ready for the healing process. It will take some time. We can do this. I still haven’t seen him (tried my best by using his German (medicine) language gaps to get access to him when the doc answered sweetly that his English was pretty good… well, I tried).

Love. The most important ingredient.

We are astonished. So much love. Big thanks to all family & friends around the globe! So glad to know all of you!

Give all your loved ones extra big hugs every day and let them know how much they mean to you! xxx

Sunshine & strawberry cake. Blue sky & summer temperatures. Sunburn & happy faces. Inviting my mum for lunch and this is how restaurant visits look like in 2021:

It was a wonderful weekend with lots of laughter. And all of a sudden: you get an alarming call from a strange number. It’s the mate who joined the ride telling you that your spouse was involved in a motorcycle accident just a few moments ago. Suddenly, everything rushes to your mind at once. Will he be ok? How bad was the accident? Was someone else injured? What does this mean for the future? You want to rush to be by his side but you are a 5 hour drive away. And later you find out that due to Covid hospital visits are not allowed. You are worried (worried sick). You try to be patient (but you cannot). Finally the hospital receptionist connects you with the Emergency room. He’s alive. He’s in shock. He’s in pain. He talks weird stuff. He can’t talk more than a couple of minutes. Very precious minutes. Nobody exactly knows at this point what’s wrong with him. But he is alive! It’s amazing what Adrenaline does to your body. You just function.

Loads of love memories (almost 12 years together) rushing through my mind while driving back home (the longest drive ever). Stopping every other kilometer to make or take phone calls. I was shocked. I was scared. I was sad. I was hopeful. In love. All of it at the same time. And repeat of those mixed feelings. Uncontrolled.

I’m a motor biker myself, knowing exactly how it feels to be in a never ending right curve: scary. Hubby always telling me in previous common rides what not to do (and then he did it): breaking in a curve. A decision you take within milliseconds. And then he crashed into a car on the other side (luckily the couple inside wasn’t injured!).

He sounded positive in the messages, but a lot more bones and other things broken than initially thought. He couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t sleep. This whole day has felt endless.

He can’t return to work for awhile and will need a lot of extra help. He had a ton of guardian angels along his ride. I cannot describe in words how relieved I am and family, friends & colleagues are. We all are. It feels like marrying the same guy the second time. Just better. And all of a sudden all worries turn into pure love for this one guy. My guy.

He’s a passionate biker. He’s hard in taking. He will be back on a bike again. Me, too. Not now. Not soon. But at some point.

Big thanks to his mate and his first aid & everything he organized (and yes, we are interested in a curve training!). Thanks to all the police, firefighters, doctors, nurses & various other helpers! Thanks to family, friends & colleagues for everything you did & you do: calling, texting, praying, thinking & caring of us & wishing Scott well. A million thanks! We are very grateful.

Cheers to all mothers (and especially hubbies mum)! Cheers to everyone else and our precious life where love matters!

Hands on! Instead of watching hubby, I brewed my very first own beer. A dark beer. My favorite one. 6.5% alcohol (wohoooo). Caramel & chocolate flavor (heavenly). „Anny‘s Porter“! Hmmmmm!

Mashing the malt and following hubby’s advice: „You can’t brew without having some inspiration“. Enjoying a craft beer while stirring the mashed malt. Since this is a rather long process (3x20minutes) you get a beer treat in between each. (That makes 3 and I wonder if that’s the motivation of very regular brew sessions. Lol).

Searching for the sugar (or in a brewers language: measuring how much sugar has been dissolved in the water).

Getting the hops ready (soon from our garden).

Cooling the beer & later adding the Bittering hops.

Filling the beer in its fermenter & adding yeast.

Now it’s time for the most important ingredient: time. About 14 days until ready.

Last step for the first session: Cleaning up (hubby’s job – thank you 🙂 ).

2 weeks later: fermenting process successfully finished (despite the rather cold temperature due to lacking heating oil).

Ready to go in bottles.

Adding sugar and waiting for the bubbles. Ladies produced beer getting pink lids.

A week later: excitement & first tasting. Cheers!

It’s like a dessert in a bottle. This is a rich, creamy beer. I am loving it! I would call this a huge success!

So much fun: Brewing the beer. Cooking & fermenting. Aging & bottling. The most fun part: drinking!

By the way, Porters originated in the UK and are identified by their dark color, a light roastiness, and a hint of molasses-like sweetness.

8 liters / 16 bottles. next job: taking care that hubby doesn’t drink it all. Lol. Cheers!

Kopfkino – a very popular travel destination these days.

Today I was in little Amsterdam. Watching the tulips dancing in the wind at sunset.

As far as the eye can see: beautiful colorful tulips.

May arrived. One of my favorite months and not only because my birthday is coming up soon. It’s strawberry time & asparagus time. Summer is close. Great times ahead. Yeah!

„Der Mai ist gekommen, die Bäume schlagen aus, da bleibe, wer Lust hat, mit Sorgen zuhaus; wie die Wolken dort wandern am himmlischen Zelt, so steht auch mir der Sinn in die weite, weite Welt.“ Emanuel Geibel, 1841

Celebrating May 1 weekend and (early) Father’s Day.

Rain or shine – we had fantastic plans: „Spanferkel to go” in our camper van in the Black Forest.

Hubby & daddy brewing beer. In about 4 weeks it will be ready.

Cooking & eating together. Daddy making simply the best fried potatoes (the secret: cumin & onions).

Spending time with each other. The best gift ever. Happy Father’s Day!

Wednesday afternoon. Sunshine. Blue sky. 21C degrees. And an after-work date on motorcycles.

220 happy kilometers later: Yeah!

The Black Forest: curvy & challenging. Today was the 3rd trip since I have passed my motorcycle license last year in October. I definitely left my comfort zone today and proud that I made it.

Thanks guys, it was fun! Ready for the next ride.