Sunday night chit-chat and sealed pot challenge

Here's another photo from the Biogarten.  You didn't think I'd be able to spend a couple of hours in a garden and not take any photos of roses, did you?  There was a fairly strong wind blowing though, so I had to use my hand to try and hold this just barely past rosebud stage rose steady for a photo.  Don't think this slight glimpse of flesh will blow my anonymity though :-)

What are you:
Reading
Can't get into the reading vibe yet again.  I think I just shouldn't bother trying anymore when I've been sick.  Have multiple books on the go still and just can't get interested in them for more than a page at a time.

Listening to
Not much, just an occasional car passing by outside.  And the tram, of course.

Watching
I've been watching Justified and also a teen/family drama called Switched at Birth.  I'm enjoying that because it's about two girls switched at birth who find out at sixteen that it happened and how their two families get to grips with it.  One of the girls is deaf and I really like that in the scenes where there are just deaf people, who are communicating through sign language, they don't try to drown out the silence by ramping up the music.

Cooking/baking
Second attempt at pulled pork today and although it's somehow very different than last time, it's still delicious.

Happy you accomplished this week
I didn't get much done due to being sick but I did change the bedclothes, which always feels fabulous.  And today I went back to the Biogarten to say hello (photo-heavy post of it here) and ease myself in to going back to actually work a couple of hours next week.  That was a huge step forward for me.  After a few days of eating junk, I've also just about gotten myself back on track for eating properly and have prepared enough to see me through the first few days of the week well.  And I wrote a meal plan.

Looking forward to next week
Getting my feet done on Tuesday, choir on Wednesday, book club on Thursday, garden on Saturday and going to a concert on Sunday.  Lots of lovely stuff going on, which will make up for having to have my annual review meeting in work at least.

Thankful for today
My mooncup (is it sad that that seems to appear, oh, about once a month?).  The mansize tissues I bought last time I was in Ireland (I don't use my cloth hankies when I'm sick - better to throw the germs out and also I don't own two hundred hankies, which is about how many I'd need).  Long evenings, nice chat with my brother and delicious food in my kitchen.

Bonus question: what was your least favourite part of last week and your most favourite part of the last week?
Least favourite has to have been the horrible bronchitis, especially missing singing in the concert last Sunday, not to mention missing our first rehearsal for The Creation.  Most favourite I think was having a lovely, just barely lukewarm shower on a very hot Wednesday evening before getting into a clean summer nightie and a bed made up with clean sheets and covers.

And that's nearly it for me.  If you want to join in with Sunday night chit-chat, post away and then head over to Half-Dozen Daily to link up.

But before I go...

Sealed pot challenge
I started this in February, managed to keep up with my commitment to add in the number of euro equivalent to the week for, oh, about five weeks (if that!) and then even forgot that I was supposed to be emptying my purse of change at the end of the month, too.  I have been throwing in bits and pieces of change from time to time - I've started to put my purse away as soon as I hand over money so that I can then just carry the loose change home in my hand, which means it goes straight into the pot when I get in the door.  Don't do it all the time but it works if I've just gone down to the bakery or one of the other shops on my street.  July and August are going to be pretty spendy months, with travelling and holidays going on but I need to really start putting an effort into this by September.  Going to add it to Sunday night chit-chat so that I don't forget about it (the sealed pot challenge updates on the originating blog, SFT, are on Sundays, too, if you fancy joining in with this challenge to save money by December, head on over there to see what nearly 100 other people are doing with their sealed pots).

Shovelling shit and making mincemeat

That pretty much should sum up my day I think. The shovelling shit part is over. The biogarten got its annual delivery of manure during the week so today we transported it from near the gate, where it is delivered over to the deep bed that it goes into. Of course nothing goes quite that smoothly and when I arrived everyone was more or less just standing around looking into the deep bed, which had a pool of water in the bottom of it. The drain seemed to be stuffed up somehow so we couldn't start until that had been sorted out. It took a while to figure out what the problem was and then someone went home to get a power hose attachment yoke to try and flush out the last few inches. In the meantime we got rid of the remains of the very old bottom layer of that bed, which was just too wet to leave there. That was eight or ten wheelbarrowfulls down to the other end of the garden and distributed along the path which is beside the boundary fence. It was raining slightly today after a week of plenty of rain so it was all very muddy. Then we put a layer of leaf mulch into half the bed and then we uncovered the steaming pile of horse manure and straw and started bringing barrowfulls of that over to the bed. Two people had the delightful job of stamping it all down, three shovelled and two transported back and forth. Everybody swapped what they were doing at some stage although it all just happened very easily with no hassle and no major organisation required. Just as it should be.

Once they finally got the drain sorted properly we did the same with the remaining half of the bed. And then the final layer of topsoil (freshly sieved soil from last week) went on. Apparently every other year there is normally another layer of leaf mulch between the manure and the topsoil but this year there was some discussion about whether that insulates it all too much so they decided to try it without.

I am really tired now and I know I will be aching by Monday but it wasn't difficult work really. I like that they just let me work at my own pace (which tends to be a bit slower than most people). I'm more of a tortoise than a hare really.

Before heading to the garden I had been to the market. I decided that I should try and spend as little as possible on food this month, using up what's in the freezer and so on and more or less only buying fresh milk, bread and cheese as needed. Got to the market and realised that I had ordered suet, which I needed to collect today as well as mince to go with it. So this evening I will be trying to make mincemeat using the recipe from River Cottage Year. I'm going to make an ordinary one without meat as well I think and then in a month or so I will buy a shop jar of it and to a taste comparison. Have to go out and get some mixed peel now, don't think this is the time to start trying to make my own candied peel although that's coming soon too I think.

Other purchases from the market:
Cheese
Cream chees with chives and garlic
Milk
Yoghurt
Leeks
Potatoes
Onions
Lamb's lettuce (way too expensive but I have a craving for salad all of a sudden)
Beans
4 slices of ham for toasted ham and cheese sandwiches this evening

I forgot to ask what type of beans they were - they were dried, purple ones. I have to soak them overnight and then cook them for about an hour. Going to have an Eintopf for dinner tomorrow I think. As well as that I'll use some of the mince to make a bolognese sauce and that should leave me sorted for lunches and dinners for next week.

The rain cleared off after an hour or so in the garden this morning and by about half-twelve it was lovely and sunny. Even some of the Germans took off their jackets. I'd been in a long sleeve t-shirt with a short sleeve t-shirt over it since I arrived and was plenty hot on my back where the sun was shining. All the crocus were open by then as well and there are hundreds of snowdrops. Saw bees busy at work on some of the flowers too. Spring has really arrived this past week and it feels like it's going to move in really quickly now. Happy days!

Let there be light

I finally rang the guy to come and see about installing lights and he came last week and had a look and told me what I need to buy. So I did a quick search on the internet and found the details for this place, which is basically a big warehouse selling end of line lights and seconds and that kind of thing. I had bought one lamp from a big DIY place not long after I moved in as I at least wanted to put one up in the bathroom. Turns out that like so many of those chain DIY places, the staff hadn't a clue/didn't care about what they told me and what I bought isn't suitable for a bathroom at all. So, I'll put that up in the bedroom, which is also where I have the sewing machine set up and it'll be a good worklight and I can continue to just use the bedside lamp for those times when I don't need a bright light. The place I was at today had two guys who really did seem to know what they were on about and they were very helpful. I dithered about the light for the kitchen for ages and finally chickened out of getting the blue one and went for a more standard three-light arrangement. It had nice white glass fittings but one was broken and another broke when he was taking it down off the wall but he had already told me that since they couldn't find any others of that type I could take a different colour glass fitting from a different light if I wanted so I got some nice bright orangey/yellow ones instead. I may go back and get that blue one I was looking at though - I wasn't sure it would provide enough light for the whole kitchen but I might go back with the chair cushions and if the colour matches well enough get it anyway and see if it would work. I'll wait and see how money goes for the rest of the month. As well as those I bought a very simple red lampshade for the sitting room. It is very slightly damaged on one side at the top but you can't really see it, I could just feel where the chip was when I was holding it. And I got a properly enclosed one for the bathroom (plus an explanation from the guy on what to look out for in future which was handy). At a grand total of 85 euro for all three, including bulbs (the three bulbs for the kitchen light are energy saving ones, the other two just ordinary incandescents but sure spares are always handy to have) I think I didn't do too badly. I saw about five other lights which I really liked, some of them more expensive but all for far less than you would pay in a 'normal' shop. I got chatting to another customer while I was there and she said she had also used the services of an electrician they had given her the name for before and he was really good and very competitively priced so I also got his number from them. Always handy to have that kind of a contact. All in all it was an hour very well spent.

As it was raining this morning we didn't do any outside work in the garden. I wouldn't have minded but the head gardener decided we would work on seed saving instead. During the year at whatever time the seeds are ready for harvesting the flowers or stems are put into paper bags and then during the winter the seeds are actually removed and sorted. So today I tried to get at the seeds for meadowsweet, which are so tiny it's impossible to completely separate them from their hulls. Then I did something which was a member of the mauve family and finally some hollyhocks, just so I could have something easy to do before I went home.

In two weeks time there won't be any working in the garden but two of the members of the 'workers' cirlce' are going to give a talk on propogating, which should be interesting. On that Saturday I won't have to be there until 11 o'clock so I am going to take the chance to go to a shop I found up the road from me which sells wallpaper and carpets etc. The bathroom here has horrible lino tiles laid on the floor and I'd really like to get proper tiles in there (with proper grouting rather than the lines of dirt which seem to line the lino tiles in there at the moment) but although I could probably get tiles relatively cheaply, getting someone to fit them could be expensive so I thought in the meantime maybe I could try buying an offcut of ordinary lino and just laying that myself. I couldn't do a worse job that what's down there at the moment I don't think and at least with one piece of lino the dirt wouldn't be collecting in the cracks. Besides, a gray floor is just depressing to look at. They also had large offcuts of carpet in that shop (I window shopped for about twenty minutes there last Sunday) and I was thinking I might get one big enough to use as a rug in the sitting room. It would protect the wooden floor somewhat and be a bit cosier in winter I think. I'll have to measure the floor space but they had fairly big pieces for about fifteen euro so it might be possible to do. Rugs to cover that much space, even cheap ones, cost at least sixty or seventy euro and hundreds if I wanted to try and buy one I actually like. I was half thinking it might be possible to use the sewing machine to sew an edging onto a piece of carpet but I'm not sure how feasible that would be. Am getting caught up in a lot of plans at the moment but it's good to keep chipping away at the various things to do around the place so that I can make the place a bit more homey for myself. The lights will make a big difference and as soon as they are installed I am going to invite some people over for dinner.

Weekend

I had a lovely weekend. Up early on Saturday to get to the market before heading to the community garden. Picked the last of the tomatoes there then pulled up and chopped up the remaining plants and removed the stakes and string which had been holding them up. Picked the dried parts of another plant as well. I did ask what it was but since I didn't have anything to write with the name didn't stay with me for long. Some kind of an oriental which had a lovely scent to it, a bit citrusy and really good. The master gardener said that we'll harvest the seeds out of those dried pods on one of the days in winter when it might be too cold to work outside. The parts of the plant which weren't dried were chopped right back then. And finally I dug a big hole so that the buckets of jerusalem artichokes packed in sand could be buried. We put the buckets in, covered them with other slightly bigger buckets placed upside down over them and then packed the earth back in around and over them.

Then I had an hour to myself at home before heading out to a Darkness Ritual. This was at the same place I went to the Harvest Thanks Ritual at the end of September. This time the idea was all about accepting the darkness of winter into your life and letting go. It was a far more introspective ritual than the harvest one was, much more meditative. I didn't enjoy it as much and found it difficult to focus really but when trying to concentrate on what it was in my life that I needed to let go off I found myself thinking that it wasn't letting go I needed to do but rather holding on. I was thinking about my oldest sister, who hasn't spoken to me (or most of my other siblings) for about three years now. As is the way things always go in our family there hasn't been any big argument or anything so there's nothing to work on to try and figure out what the matter is. It sort of started when she was going through a hard time after her hubby had been sick and she really just wanted to retreat from the world for a while so we gave her her space as requested but she just got less and less interested in keeping in touch with any of us at all. I persevered for longer than the others, even calling in unexpectedly once but you do get tired of the two minute phone calls which end with a sudden "I have to be somewhere else" and always being the person making contact and when she didn't even bother to show any interest in our youngest sister's wedding I had had enough. I've been through so many stages on this whole roundabout that it was impossible to keep track. I'd decide it was her tough luck and if she wanted to be like that then fine, whatever. Then it'd be her birthday and I'd think well, I'll just ring and say happy birthday. Or I heard her hubby was sick again (and bear in mind, this is a guy who married into my family when I was nine, so he has been around for a long part of my life) and would ring to find out how he was. I don't think I actually managed to speak to her for the last three years or so though. Either no-one or her hubby would answer the phone. But last week I had a really strong compulsion to just phone her and ask if we could start talking again. Don't know where it came from although part of it was because I realised that I hadn't turned my calendar onto October and I know it was because I didn't want to have to think about her birthday (it didn't work and her birthday really preyed on my mind this year, more so than usual). So, I decided that the thing I needed to let go off was all the hurt and anger and grief that this whole situation has caused me and then I just needed to make contact with her. So when I came home after the ritual I gave her a ring, her middle son was just heading out so answered the phone and almost immediately said "hang on, here she is now" (I'll never know whether, if her hubby had answered the phone, she might have realised it was me and made signs at him that she wasn't there, which I suspect happened more than once in the past) and put me on to her. I didn't go with the self-pitying, somewhat dramatic "please can we start talking again" in the end but was able to use halloween as my excuse for ringing and start a conversation by asking if she had dressed up or done up the house or anything. It was a bit of a stilted conversation in a way, felt like it was taking a lot of effort, if you know what I mean, but we did talk (well, mostly I talked) for about twenty minutes which is a good start. I've just decided that I'm going to ring her at least once every two months and talk to her whether she wants it or not and that I am not going to give her the opportunity to turn around in 20 years time and tell me that it was all because I was so wrapped up in my own life that I was never interested in what was happening with her. I'm just going to keep on keeping in touch and she can like it or lump it but if she wants to lump it, she's going to have to say that directly.

There you have it. Despite the fact that I didn't like the ritual as much as the last one, I am glad I went and have signed up for the solstice one in December. Something good (hopefully) came of the whole thing at least. And I do really like the idea of marking the seasons in some way.

Yesterday then I had my fabulous session of trying on clothes I thought would still be too small but weren't. While doing that I cleared a proper space in my wardrobe to store the dried goods I've been trying to stock up on a bit. I also started a spreadsheet to make sure I keep track of exactly what I have and when it's good until. It was good to see it all in one place. I realised that I have plenty of pasta but really should get some more rice and some other pulses as well. I'm going to ask at the fair trade shop if they can buy in a big sack of rice and depending on how much that is, might just buy one big sack and make it into little ones myself.

After doing that I headed out for a walk. Did the same round as before so about two hours of walking. I'll probably do it again another two or three times (maybe with a slightly heavier bag) before looking at a different route.

When I got home I did the few bits of washing up from the day before, put some pasta leftovers covered with cheese into the oven to heat for dinner and chopped up some apples for the dehydrator. Once I had eaten, I set about chopping stuff up to make tomato ketchup and while that was cooking I chopped veg to make soup, using up the curly kale that I had brought home from the garden. I also chopped up veg and tomatoes to make a sauce for lunches during this week. Once the ketchup was made and bottled (only two 120 ml jars, I swear I get less and less out of that recipe every time I make it) I put the onions, courgettes, garlic and tomatoes on to cook with a load of herbs and when that had softened up well I added in some chopped chicken breast. I left it cooking but it never really seemed to start smelling good so I finally dumped a slug of balsamic vinegar and a few crushed dried little chillies into it. It remained uninspiring but I got four good sized portions out of it. What a difference a night makes though. I had the first one for lunch today, just bought a roll to eat it with and it was delicious. I think I'm finally starting to be able to use chillies in cooking properly.

I left some porridge steeping in milk overnight and had the first porridge of the winter for breakfast this morning. Hmmm, I love porridge. Off to put more steeping now for tomorrow and will add a handful of the dried berries from earlier this year. They were a delicious addition this morning.

More chutney.

I've spent the whole day at home, didn't get out for my normal Sunday morning walk as I slept for nearly 12 hours last night and so wasn't awake until after 10 this morning. I bought loads of tomatoes yesterday - they're nearly finished for this year I think and I wanted to make a couple of more batches of chutney and some more ketchup. Before deciding whether to go out for a walk or not, I actually counted up all the time I would need considering a batch of chutney needs to cook for three or four hours and I knew if I went out I would probably not get both done so I just stayed in. I had to do the washing up that I had let pile up for the last couple of days first though. I hate it when I do that and yet every once in a while it still happens. Since I was doing that I also decided to scrub the sink with bicarb and lemon and since I was doing that I thought I might as well use the rest of the bicarb to give the cooker a good scrub. And then since I was doing that I gave the butcher's block type thing that the cooker is on top of a good scrub too.

And that is how the day has gone really. I've done a load of things I've meant to do for ages but not because I actually intended to do them but rather because something else I was doing made it make sense to then do the next thing.

Once I'd chopped the first lot of stuff for chutney making (this time round I used tomatoes, pumpkin, quince and apple) I set it to cooking and then sat and read my book for about twenty minutes. I have to read Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace before Tuesday. It's almost 1000 pages long (and that's only if you leave out the foreword and all the footnotes) but we chose such a long book because we didn't have any meeting in September and so had plenty of time to read it. I've actually had the book since the beginning of September but just cannot get into it. It took me about two weeks to finish the first chapter and today I've only managed to read about thirty pages.

Of course, the silver lining of this situation is that I now have a lovely clean apartment. I took down the tomato plant finally (and used what few tomatoes I had gotten, mostly still green, in the chutney), and moved the telephone table and frame that had been supporting it out into the hall. I was going to move it into the kitchen and put my herbs onto it but I realised that it will fit exactly into the space beside the door which currently has nothing but a stool which seems to accumulate piles of rubbish on it so I'm going to clear off that stuff tomorrow and put the telephone table in place there. I also put up a couple of nails to hang a picture and more securely hang up the notice board. And since I had the hammer out I put up a nail to hang the shoe horn on and another one in the kitchen to hang the dustpan and brush from. These are two things that I constantly feel like I'm tripping over and it feels good to finally have a place for them to go. Since the plant was moved from the window in the sitting room I swapped the small couch and armchair around again so the room feels more spacious again as well.

The first batch of chutney turned out really well I think. The second one has pumpkin, tomatoes and pears and apples. It was a bit runny when I put it into the jars and could probably have done with cooking for another while but I was just ready for the days cooking to be over. I still haven't made ketchup but might try to get that done tomorrow after work.

I could only work for two hours in the biogarten yesterday as I had to go to a friend's house in the afternoon and needed to catch a train. I started off picking up nasturtium seeds from the ground around where the plants are/were. Had to fill one bowl with the brown ones (already fully dried) and one with the green ones (not dried yet). Then I packed some weird root vegetable which had been harvested in sand. I've forgotten the name of it now, some South American plant I think. After that I packed a few buckets of jerusalem artichokes in sand as well. And then I pulled out the stakes and supporting cords from the tomato plants which had already been removed. Since I was leaving early I didn't expect to get to take anything home but H.M. the master gardener told me to make sure I got something. I took some jerusalem artichokes (called topinambur here), a small bunch of parsley and some chard. H.M. told me his favourite way to cook chard is in a pasta bake with sheeps cheese and some tomatoes so I decided to do that today. I cooked some pasta first and put it into an overproof dish. Then I sauteed the chopped up stems of the chard for a few minutes. I added an onion and a couple of cloves of garlic and then the chopped up leaves as well and left the whole lot for a few minutes while I chopped up some tomatoes. I mixed the chard and onion into the pasta and added some feta on top of that. Then I left the tomatoes to cook down for about fifteen minutes after which I poured them on top of the pasta as well. Then the whole lot went into the oven while I did the dishes and tidied up for about the fifth time today. I had hoovered very thoroughly earlier but decided not to wash the floors until tomorrow but then everything else was so nice and clean I couldn't stand it and since the pasta wouldn't come to any harm if it was left it a bit longer I decided to wash all the floor as well and then had a shower myself as well so that when I sat down to dinner, although it was later than planned, I felt really good. It was delicious too.

So it was all in all a very nice weekend, even though I didn't get a walk in or manage to read my book. I don't even want to bother but I have to try and get a couple of hundred pages read before Tuesday if I possibly can. I love book club and it has meant that over the last year I've read lots of book I never would have otherwise but goodness gracious it is difficult sometimes to keep at it.

P.S. The Germans don't have a separate word for slugs, they're just called naked snails. How could you not love such a logical language?

Seed and plant swap

Today was my first proper day volunteering at the Bio-Garten but as it was the annual autumn seed and plant swap, it wasn't really a proper day at all. So it was a longer day than usual as it only started at 1 and went on till 4 so I was there from 10.30 setting up and then until nearly 5 putting everything away again. But it was fun and nice to meet some of the other volunteers. There seem to be quite a lot who only volunteer on Tuesday afternoons and since I work on Tuesdays I won't often get a chance to see any of them.

I did feel a bit in the way from time to time waiting for someone to tell me what to do but once we started putting tents and things up (we've had the worst weather today that we've had so far this autumn and it rained a LOT) it was okay. Being tall does make one useful on occasion. There was also loads of lovely food to eat which various people had brought along. I hadn't brought anything as I thought the usual gathering for tea and a bite to eat wouldn't happen because of the event but they had a table set up inside for all the workers to come in and take a break from time to time. I spent most of the time the event was actually taking sitting in there, chatting to some of the older members and washing up whatever cups and plates and things were used. I'm going to make an apple tart to bring along next week though as I felt bad to have turned up with nothing.

The seed exchange was amazing to look at. It was raining so hard I didn't bother to bring my camera but there were one or two short sunny spells in between which would have been good for taking pictures. Oh well. There were hundreds and hundreds of different types of seeds which had been collected from the garden. You could bring your own seeds in and exchange them for ones from the garden or just get some seeds in exchange for a small donation (about 1 euro for each type which is a very good bargain in my view).

The garden is in the middle of a huge park in Dusseldorf so all the big stands with the plants and so on were just outside the entrance in the main part of the park. As I don't have a garden I didn't look too much (it was very, very difficult to stay away from the seeds as it was, never mind plants too). But I did buy two surprise bags of tulip bulbs, which will make nice presents I think.

By the end of the day I was getting a bit bored but at that stage it was time to start taking everything down again so I got stuck into that. I got home just after six (having made a quick stop in town to buy a new small backpack to use for every day - needed a new one so I can start carrying rain gear with me every day again. One day I'll have enough to buy a really good one that will last for years but for now it was another 5 euro jobbie) and changed into my pyjamas straight away and put all the muddy clothes I'd been wearing straight in to the washing machine. I had to ring my brother and lay down while I was doing so as my legs and feet were killing me after having been standing for such a long part of the day. Once I'd spoken to him I actually ended up falling asleep until nine o'clock. Bad idea normally but actually now that I've been up for a couple of hours and had a lovely toasted ham and cheese sandwich along with a few cups of tea (decaf - since I can't drink caffeine I do always have some decaf tea on standby although I norally just stick to herbal and fruit teas). I even made a pot of tea instead of just one cup and dragged out a milk jug too. Great end to a great day really.

Slow Food and Bio-Garten

On Thursday evening I went to my first Slow Food event. I've been meaning to join for years, with a renewed decision to do so when I moved here as a means to meet people but when I still hadn't gotten around to it by May this year I decided to wait until January. The annual membership fee is based on the calendar year so even if I joined now I would have to pay for the full year and then again in January and although it's not a huge amount of money it seemed silly not to wait. Then I found out that non-members can still attend some events and signed up to the harvest thanks one "the secret of shining bread" - an evening with wine, bread, cheese and olive oil. The baker who was the main speaker runs a bakery which is not too far from me called Hercules. It's not close enough to be an everyday bakery for me but from looking at the map it's only about half-an-hour's walk away, which is a nice distance to walk for some really great bread. Not so long it feels like a chore but long enough there and back to feel like I've earned an extra slice. So something to do next weekend perhaps.

One thing I found fantastic was that not only did they not try to sell us anything (it was held in a big wine depot, Lust4Wine and I really did expect to feel obliged to buy at least a couple of bottles of wine or something) they pulled out a load of paper bags when people started to leave and tried to get everyone to take as much bread away as they could carry. I found that very refreshing. I ate lots of bread and cheese, including a fabulous chilli cheese. When I asked where the cheese came from though the baker's wife said she had just bought it in from the organic wholesaler so I may need to do a bit more digging to find out where exactly it came from. I also had two slices of Zwiebelkuchen or onion cake, which is a fab seasonal favourite and in fact was the thing which persuaded me that onions might not be all that bad to eat (way back in 1994, the year I was here for a semester in college and still mostly only ate potatoes and meat and bread). It was the best one I've tasted for a long time.

When I first arrived it seemed like a lot of groups of people had arrived together and I felt like I'd end up sitting on my own, eating a bit and leaving again but once people sat down to eat the conversation flowed, not easily exactly but sufficiently well to be enjoyable. So I chatted a bit to those around me and of course, being foreign always make the first conversation a bit easier because it's answering all the 'where are you from, why did you come here' questions. And it was really nice to talk to people who are interested in Slow Food as well.

Then, yesterday morning I went to the organic community garden run by the local community college. I went during the summer to volunteer and found out they try now to just take volunteers on twice a year and do a proper introduction to the others who are members of the 'Arbeitskreis' or work circle and to the garden. In a way it's also to make sure that the people who show up really are interested before they start spending time explaining everything about what they do etc. So I had to wait for a few months but finally the day arrived. I'll be working there every Saturday from 10 until 13 and most weeks people bring something to eat, perhaps a cake or something, and after work is finished everyone gathers in the small house/big shed and has a cup of coffee and a bit to eat while discussing what's been happening in the garden, what needs to be done etc. I hope to learn a lot and think I am really going to enjoy working outside again for a few hours a week. They seem like a nice bunch of people. Next week is the annual plant exchange so there won't be much work in the garden itself but I'll go along to help set it up at least and have a wander. I'll try to remember to bring my camera and get some photos as well.

After that I met a friend to go for a walk in the woods which was great as well. Altogether I think I walked for about two and a half hours because I also got a tram that doesn't stop too close to home but instead of switching trams to one that does, I just walked the rest of the way as well. There were bunches of people out collecting chestnuts as well, whole families. It was great. Although somewhat dangerous sounding in the woods in general as you never seemed to know if the next wind was going to bring an acorn or something similar crashing down on your head. I'm loving the autumn here. Today it's a beautiful sunny day so although I've had a slow start and spent the morning watching Iron Man I'm going to hop in the shower now and then head out for the rest of the day.