My Summer Holiday: Inside

There were two worlds for me during my journey into the Bavarian Forest. The first one, this one, was inside the hotel borders, completely with three pools, four-star-cuisine and a beautiful lush park outside.

The automatic doors in our hotel were beautifully decorated. Come in!

My first sweet treat.

A part of the restaurant. The last table in the row is ours.

Food. And it was always magnificent.

... especially the spiced spaghetti with giant shrimps.

Another restaurant part, close to the lounge. The chandelier was lovely, just as if it had grown out of some fairy's ballroom.

I spent hours here in the lounge, reading.

Switching pools from indoor to outdoor and reverse was awesome.

I really took a liking in this pavillion.

Another pavillion, hidden between the birch trees.

Reception room for the spa part of our hotel.

The lights look like sparkling stars to me...

Whirlpool footbaths. What a great invention.

A fantastic spigot, I wish I had something like this here at home!

Salt crystal wall of one of the several saunas. My favourite was the herbal sauna, as it wasn't just as hot as the others.

My beloved swimming pool. I called it the "Sisi Pool" as the wall painting reminded me of the Austrian empress. The ceiling is designed to look like a summer's sky, too.

Beautiful old-fashioned couches.

My last dessert.

Sadly I didn’t take any pictures of the candle light dinner from our fist evening. I’d love to go there again…

I call it a Princess Day, Others might call it Madness

The madness part would likely come from people who don’t know what to do with huge amounts of fabric in one colour.

Yesterday Jules and I had our obligatory “girls day” downtown as I was visiting my mother and he happened to be in town, too. Our main reason to meet was to go to the remaining stock sale at our favourite fabrics store which is, in fact, only at the first Saturday of every month, and it’s a great coincidence that we found one of those without Jules or me being out-of-town.

When we first entered, we were both a little bit disappointed. None of us actually knew what we had expected, but this wasn’t it. But after half an hour of searching through incredible 80s and 90s stock, cheap satin and not really pretty lacy curtains, we both found the treasures that were hidden beneath the horrible.

Jules with his bright tulle (matching his shirt!), some weird snake-ish embossed caravan print fabric and something very stretchy with silver clouds on it.

And that's me with the fabric I hunted down.

I would have loved to take along some more of the muted coloured cotton bales with me, and surely Jules felt like this about the prettily patterned linings and futuristic metallics, but we went by bus and had to carry things home afterwards, so we left with only three bales on Jules and two on my account. All right, and we took in some zippers and buttons, too. Together, we had over 13 kilo of fabric. I know that because the prices were made by the kilo, and this is why I was able to get such amounts, anyway. Awesome.

That’s one bale of changing dark rose madder and one of twill woven light rose-leaf yellow cotton from Brussels, together with some zippers and old-fashioned buttons.
I’ve got plans for the fabrics, but I will only announce the new dress for Renaissance fairs so far as the rest isn’t planned out yet.

After we had brought our prey to Jules home wich is luckily right at the final bus station downtown we went to get some lunch – both of us hadn’t had real breakfast before we went to the fabric store.
We ended up with sushi – it’s kind of traditional with us.

And afterwards we went shopping. The thing is, I don’t really like shopping unless it’s with Jules. We perfectly know each other’s taste and therefore he finds things that I’d love and vice versa. We share enough similarities to not quarrel all the time and have got enough diversities – that we respect, that’s a very important part there – to not get bored. Add a good sense and portion of humor, and you’ve got the perfect shopping spree.

This is what I ended up with:

Sweets. I don’t know how, but it’s always sweets. This time it was jelly beans and strawberry-flavoured red liquorice at the same shop where Jules found his perfect-for-him new school bag.

A t-shirt. I always feel I’ve got nothing to wear (or at least nothing that’s not utterly boring), but during the holidays this will hopefully change! But at least I’ve got another t-shirt now.

A necklace. With a rocking-horse pendant. It looks so incredibly old-fashioned and cute! I’m tempted to build a whole outfit around it.

And finally: A lacy waistcoat. It’s from a small boutique I spotted when I drove into town on Friday and instantly dragged Jules there when we were back from his home. It was stuffed with things I’d call mori, and I would have bought everything in there if I hadn’t known that I wouldn’t wear it on a daily basis or, worst case, never. But I did find this wonderful lace thing and hardly believed it fitted me. But it did, and so I took it home.

Don’t worry, as soon as the holidays start there will be more interesting postings again, too (Crafting! And sewing! And adventures!). But until then I still have one exam and two presentations. Wish me luck!

Farina and Riversides

As I didn’t tell you yet about the Sunday of Lilibeth’s visit, here it comes: Part II.

It was really hot outside, so after a nice breakfast in my room we decided to go to the river Lahn where I wanted to show Lilibeth some of my favourite places, anyway. There’s a wooden way leading over sandstone fragments near a meadow to enchanted places down at the river, where the tides play with the boulders and stones accompanied by the noise of the nearby weir.

I’m a kind of tomboy, I fear, so it was not avoidable for me to take off my shoes and wade into the river to collect stones and shells and feel the flow while my toes entangled in the hydrophyte grass under my feet.

Lilibeth stayed on save land and kindly took some photos. ^^

Oh, and yes, the hem of my skirt got wet. What a surprise. ;)

On our way back I collected some elder blossoms and got myself covered in farina all over but what’s this small sacrifice for good tea?

Well, soon after that (but not before I’d made a lasagna for lunch) Lilibeth left, not without the promise that I would return the visit next month. I’m really looking forward to it!

Great Expectations

No, not the book. This weekend somebody who is really special to me will come to visit me. It’s my pen friend Lilibeth. This is by the way the beautiful last letter that she wrote to me plus a wonderful gift she sent me:

It will be the first time that we meet each other in person.

We had a nice (and long!) phone conversation some weeks ago and I think she is truly a kindred spirit. ^^ Our correspondence so far has been a very pleasant one since we met at the Natron & Soda bulletin board via the Lolita thread last year.

She’ll arrive here at about 8 PM on Friday and will stay during the weekend at which I’ll show her my favourite places here in Marburg. We will be a little creative, too, but just like her I don’t want to spoil you with information and rather show you the results.

Maybe I’ll finally get the chance to wear my Ugly Duckling dress! Reminds me of the fact that I lack matching accessories…

I am pretty excited and got to admit that I’m a little bit nervous, too. Maybe Lilibeth is the bosom friend I’ve waited for my entire life… Yes, our relationship is pretty affected by Anne of Green Gables (we’re planning to watch the mini series together, as well ^^).

And now I’ll go and bake a cake for the role-playing evening we’ll have today. Be prepared for some more nerdy character stuff tomorrow! :)

Treasure Hunt Outfit – Me

I don’t want to hold my own outfit back from you either. As it was a treasure hunt and I’ve got a little revival of my love for headscarves at the moment AND as my birthday is Talk Like a Pirate Day I decided to go for something aaargh!.

Both of the skirts are made by me, the upper one is my Lolita basic skirt (but not absolutely finished yet).

Bambi and Me, duelling each other at Canne de Combat.

The last one is definitely my favourite when it comes to the pictures of me from this Saturday. I even had it printed and now am searching for a nice place for it to decorate my walls. ^^

(And yes, that’s a compass at my right wrist.)

Treasure Hunt Outfit – Jules

Yes, again a post about the weekend Jules spent here.

But the outfits and the photos we took of them were too great to keep them back from you. I’ll do one for Jules and one for me each for the sake of clarity.

Jules wore a dandy outfit featuring self-made trousers with suspenders, a military-safari-inspired shirt, an old fashioned cravat, a lace jabot and glittery flower-print trainers. Oh, and loads of decor.

Doesn't he look dashing? ^^

The following pictures were taken during the picnic and the following Canne de Combat training (you remember that we took Jules along? He liked it enough to continue after lunch).

... I'm responsible for this haircut... :)

Jules and the Scoundrel... just imagine they're taking a walk in the park of a huge country house.

As if he just jumped out of a Jane Austen novel...

Treasure Hunt at Weekends

Yesterday evening I walked Jules to the station after a really great (but a little bit exhausting as I feel quite ill since Saturday) weekend. He arrived at Friday afternoon and we took him to Early’s, a small-but-nice bistro near the Institute for Physical Exercise. We continued the evening with watching Elisabeth (the musical) while I took the last stitches on his final birthday present.

Saturday began with Canne de Combat free training. First, Jules was not to eager to participate but grew to like it quite much when our trainer made him take part. After the showers we went to an optician as Bambi’s glasses were broken (and I still need a new pair of them – but I think I spotted some really nice frames there). After that Bambi disappeared and I started to give a birthday present to Jules – a small card, burnt edges, writing on one, a small drawing on the other side.

The first card led him to the old graveyard where he found a pair of spools of silk thread.

The second one showed a hint to head a fountain where he found a moon of his own, just like the princess in the fairy tale. ^^

Station 3 was settled at the market place and had a little unicorn as a gift as Jules adores Charlie the Unicorn, for what reason ever.

It’s a small soft plastic toy, pierced with a hot needle on a thread that was spun by me from embroidery floss and sparkling metallic thread, both in raspberry pink.
I’m sorry that I don’t have a picture of the next present to show but all the photographs turned out to be blurry… Well, it was a mint-and-chocolate scented soap from Italy that matched Jules’ love for After Eight perfectly. I think I can say that his eyes were gleaming when he smelled it… ^^

As a little break and to compensate the really, really sunny, warm weather we had some ice cream, double chocolate and nougat for me and After Eight, strawberry and marzipan for Jules. After that I successfully lured him to the Religious Studies building where on the archway the next gift waited for him: A small bottle of gold.

Then we headed for the castle, for the garden, to be exact where Bambi waited for us with a strawberry tart and Lewis Carroll’s poem of the matter, wearing a silly hat that quite suited him.

After all, we went down to the Botanical Garden again where the Scoundrel waited for us with a picnic and where Jules got his final present, but I think I’d rather tell you about that tomorrow.

Beswitched

No typo but a book title. I found it while inspecting the English children’s books corner of one of the upper town book shops and simply had to buy it. I say, boarding schools, magic, the early 1930s (no WW II yet, thank you very much), cute characters and good critiques from Philip Ardagh – what could a book have more for me to read it?

Flora Fox, being forced to go to a boarding school, somehow switches her place with a girl of the same name – but back in 1935. Without her laptop and popular attitude clothing she seems to be lost in time. But even at St. Winifred’s with all the weird indefinable food, French at breakfasts, severe Latin teachers, bloomers and the desperate wish to go back to her own time she makes wonderful friends and has, well… the time of someone else’s life.

I think of the girls – excluding Flora as the leading lady of the story – I liked Dulcie best. Not only her name (from Latin dulcis, sweet) that matched her “cherub-like” looks but also her amiable personality were too cute.

Well, so if you’re one to love children’s stories without the haughtiness of a grown-up and even one to like the quirkiness of vintage British schools then I can truly say that you could take pleasure in this book. I especially liked the lessons about true friendship between girls so different and even between the ages.

And anyway, time travel rocks.

My Secret Garden

Yesterday I got a carrier pigeon from Simon the Kobold with the question if I were familiar with plants.
I told him, yes, I were.
Now I’ve got a garden.

My own! Small, but precious.

It’s right upon the old city walls. The boys let me care for it as they are not very interested in gardening and didn’t even know what to sow there.

At the moment it’s still pretty overgrown with ivy, but there are two shrubs of black currant, a plum tree, peppermint and maybe even some wild strawberries. I can’t wait for the first blossoms to open!

Today, with a little help from Simon and Bertie who came over for a visit, I got rid of a lot of dead wood and even more ivy that choked the other plants. Well, there’s more than enough material for bonfires with bread-on-a-stick and gazing for the milky way now! We even slung the ivy twines to wreaths and hung them up to dry in the shed. Why waste something that you can burn later? The prettiest of these fairy crowns now rests on a window sill in Simon’s staircase (and I wonder how long…).

I also added a new one to the categories, Sally Gardens, which will be the one for all things concerning plants, flowers, gardening and the harvest moon, named after an Irish traditional that is loaded with memories for me.

Beating Loneliness

Picture from weheartit.com.

There are moments in life when you feel completely left alone and worthless to others. This especially happens when you are sad or angry or, all in all, not in a good mood and doing badly. These are the moments in which you feel mistreated because the only person to comfort you wouldn’t even leave their momentarily doing-what-ever if they heard you crying and sniffing two open doors away. Or when in a discussion with people you normally consider your friends won’t accept your opinion and instead hit you on the back of your head just out of the blue just for having your own mind!

Every time when it seems to you that no one loves you, nobody cares for your feelings and thoughts, remember that you are indeed a precious person. Just be good to yourself. I’d…

• Have a tea. Nothing too exquisite or expensive, a simple herbal or fruit tea will do. Warming from the inside is really helpful in situations that feel like a lump of ice in your stomach.
• Take a bath. It’s the same thing, but from the outside. In such moments I prefer oils and salts instead of bubbles which can be quite cold when you touch them accidentally.
• Read something that makes you feel comfortable. Like Eloise or Brambly Hedge or your favourite Flower Fairy or even a Shakespeare sonnet, something small that makes you smile.
• Watch a feel-good movie. Tinkerbell for instance is about accepting oneself even if others do not so.
• Cuddle up. Take a nice big blanket (I’ve got a patchwork one from IKEA that’s huge) and your favourite teddy bear and just feel that you’re save and warm.
• Talk. I just had a telephone conversation with my mother who is quite objective when I’ve got quarrels but knows me and my quirks very well. Call your parents, your best friend or your sister, someone you know to always love you, and get everything off your chest.

My mother always says “Care for yourself and be your own best friend”.

She’s right.