Louvre museum

ah – this place is overwhelming! Sooooo huge, so interesting… at least for the adults

I would spent a day in this building. On my own.

imagining, pretending, admiring

Tuileries

another tourist destination – Sacre Coeur

and the famous view

we took the train, we went to Paris.

On our way

we did see the ashes that keep the metal ‘birds’ grounded…

impressed our kids with the Notre Dame

found the Pompidou Centre closed

got surprised with the amount of people everywhere, restaurant prices, impressed with the selection at the big supermarket, the weather (!) and our kids. Day 1 – done. Two more to go.

Picnic in the park, long walk and a long sleep afterwards.

Days like this one are nearly perfect. No rush, no care. With sun and lots of smiles. All with little effort. All in a big city.

London can be so nice.

“our” wood, “our” pond and our friends. Our spring!

because I have it all…

It’s Dunstable Downs and Ivinghoe Beacon. We love it  there.

Holidays, sun, lots of walking and running. Kids are busy, parents knackered. All very happy.

“Practically perfect in every way“… x

Baking. Spicy honey cookies are the essential dessert for our Christmas, but this year I’ve made these already twice in the last 6 days and personally am feeling like I would rather skip sweet stuff at the moment and it’s not even Christmas yet! Maybe that’s for the better…

The recipe is very simple and the result very yummy:

500 g self raising flour
100 g butter
200 g honey
100 g sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 teaspoons of ready mixed spices (cinnamon, coriander seed, caraway, nutmeg, ginger, cloves)
grated rind of 1 orange

100 g almonds finely chopped

Preheat oven to 200C°. Grease 2 baking sheets.

Melt the honey, sugar and butter together. Take off the heat and let it cool down. Stir the flour, baking powder, spices and nuts in a separate bowl. Once the honey mixture has cooled down, mix in the eggs. Add the flour, orange rind and mix until blended. Gather mixture into a ball, wrap in greaseproof paper and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Roll out the mixture about 8-10mm thick. Stamp out some shapes and place them on the sheets. Brush the cookies with the egg yolk. Bake until golden brown, 8-10 minutes.

Nothing too special, but these ended up as a symbolic ‘Thank you’ for our oldest son’s teachers.

And some ended up in my tummy… or quite a few… a lot of them actually. Eh. They are good!

We have now officially switched in to a relax mode.

All is ready, no more rushing. Time to appreciate, time to enjoy. I’ve been very happy.

Have a lovely Christmas.