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Thought of the Day
There is so much beauty in the simple things – the smell of fresh coffee, the morning sunlight through the window. Simple things bring smiles when we appreciate them.
The gift that keeps on giving
In the last few years I have been trying to remember all the things that are important to me. Is easy to forget them in the rush of everyday’s life. One of the things that are important to me is to do the best I can to keep a good balance between eating healthy and enjoying food. I keep my grandmother’s words with me every day: “Eat everything but within measure”. Not sure if this expression translates very well from Romanian but what it conveys is basically to keep variety and balance in your diet.
Besides balance, I value simplicity. I will always prefer a dish that is simple but mixes quality ingredients that go well together and preserve their natural taste as much as possible. But finding those simple but tasty ingredients is not always easy. Many times the food that the local supermarkets offer is rushed, mass produced and it keeps less time that you would ever think! I know that will have to do most of the times because is minutes away and it’s reasonably priced. But that doesn’t mean I won’t continuously try to find opportunities to at least sprinkle my diet with a bit of taste that I pick myself! Is simple and is straight from the source!
Here is what I found so far:
- Berries picked from both Sweden and Romania over the years. Every time I visit families I pick blueberries, blackcurrant, blackberries and wild strawberries depending on the season. Forrests are full of them. A blackcurrant bush can give sometimes 4-5 litters of berries, amazing! And you are probably wondering how easy is to preserve and transport them. I simply dry them, naturally or for faster results in an electric food drier. They take very little space and keep their taste very well. You can fix the consistency issue by soaking them in yogurt, porridge or kefir! Mix them in your muesli – success! The only exception are lingonberries – they are mostly used to make jam.
- Hazelnuts, walnuts and chestnuts are so easy to find and so good! They keep for months or even a year. You can dry them naturally in skin and you can have them on your Christmas table and cook with them the whole winter!
- Mushrooms! Chanterelles are my absolute favourite, you can boil and freeze them or you can dry them, they are great either way. I have a few boxes of dried summer and autumn chanterelles, and just the other day I threw some in a pasta sauce with blue cheese and it was just amazingly tasty!
- Rose hip is probably one of the most amazing fruits that can be found in abundance in Europe. I used to pick rose hip with my grandmother and you can use them for jam, tea and soup! Get a real boast of Vitamin C straight from your cup of tea!
- Elderflower and lilac make a fantastic ingredient for cordial. I don’t really like the juice that can be found in the shops and every now and then, those cordials offer a great alternative.
- Fresh nettles can be used to make a fantastic soup or simple wilt them with salt, pepper and garlic. Fantastic starter or side and very good for your health.
- Dandelion leaves are amazing in salad if you pick them before the buds are open.
Berry Drier
Those are just a few gifts that the nature is keep on giving. And even if it’s just a breakfast, a tea, a pasta sauce or a soup, now and then, I still take pleasure from the fact that my diet includes some of these wonderful and totally organic ingredients. And the process of picking and preserving them is a good way to get some space from screens that bombard you with information and from the buzz of the cities! Even more health benefits!
Thought of the day
If life gives you blueberries, make blueberry beer.
It’s time for some colour!
I am not very good at painting or drawing but that’s not the point! The point is to find things which you love doing and the only way to find them is to try a lot of them! I was at the beach one day, in Santorini, years ago, and I as I was walking with my bare feet on the pebbles I thought – I love the feel of the pebbles and the colours of the sea and it all feels so calming. I wish I could take all this with me, so that is part of my home! At that time, I didn’t even know that there is such a thing as painting pebbles. But the thought of filling them with colour came instantly into my mind, a sense of novelty for me, no doubt. I did a quick search and found out that a lot of people do it so I tried it out! I found tips and techniques for colouring them and now I have my own snapshot of the sea right in my home! There is nothing more amazing that creating something, it doesn’t matter how basic, it doesn’t matter how small!
The act of playing with the colours is creating an introspection moment for me. It brings the calm that I need and the focus that I am looking for. It’s such a simple way to connect with nature, with life around you, whatever you feel that you want to represent with your work. I am constantly looking for ways to live in the moment and to appreciate more the things around me, colour helps me do just that. I choose to see the life around me in beautiful colours!
This little time I sometimes spend painting reminds me of been a child and finding any opportunity to build things. I grew up with a carpentry workshop in our home so I could find endless supplies for my small projects. When I was around 10 I built my own book shelf that could fit about 20 books. It was wobbly. But it stood proud in my grandmother’s room for ages cause she thought it was great! Well…it was great that she said that to me! After that massive success I built various boxes, a slingshot and a bow with an arrow. That is what I remember on the top of my head! The entire creation process is beautiful regardless of the results which sometimes are poor! Creativity is something that gets stimulated with practice. The more you create, the easier it gets to find new ideas!
And not only that you’ll get new ideas by always doing new things, but you will also discover that you can do much more than you thought!
I will leave you with one of my simple paintings that I have done last year in the summer when I had some space to think and look around for inspiration. Is a lighthouse on a wood plank. I always loved wood and water themed elements, there is a simplicity and calm about them, a rustic feeling!
Sunny Surrey Hills
This is the first week back in London after a winter holiday in Sweden. London is intense wherever you come from! Crowds all around you, noise, loads of people walking straight into you with their phones in their hands. Is a true joy sometimes! I really needed a quick escape at the end of the week, to get myself back into a state of relaxation so when my friend invited me I jumped into the Kingston bus and headed to Dorking! Surrey Hills to the rescue! It is indeed as they say, a place of fantastic beauty!
And wait until you get to the top of Box Hill and behold that view, breathing the crispy, just below zero air, of a sunny day in January! You will put whatever mental weight has been pushing down on your shoulders to one side and you’ll spend a few minutes trying to get the whole landscape in, with all the colours and nuances.
Is sometimes easy to forget, caught in our routine as we are, that these overwhelmingly beautiful places are less than an hour away from the busy life, work, commute.
I grew up in the country side, in the middle of nowhere. Actually, to be more correct, in the middle of Romania. Right in Transylvania, in a village where nature knocks at your door trying to get in! I still remember this November morning when we woke up to find a blanket of 60cm fluffy snow on the doormat. The wind pushed a rather heavy pile on the yard gate so we couldn’t actually get to school. What school? We couldn’t get out of the yard! That was one of the hardest winters, especially for the parents who had to maintain the house and get on the roof to push down the snow so that it doesn’t collapse all in the attic with the tiles! So yes, I grew up face to face with the calming green and the blue skies and the big snowflakes. Nature makes me feel at home! Whenever I am in the middle of the fields I hit the reset button, I relax, I stop caring about the small and rather non-important every day things!
If you want to get your daily exercise in you get to pick from a variety of walking trails, from a few miles to over 12 miles. We hiked for a few hours and stuck to no trail and somehow when we though we will be getting close to Box Hill & Westhumble train station we realised we are in Dorking!
But hey! Everything was so beautiful around us, it was a pleasure to get lost! Who can pay attention to the signs when there is so much else to look at?
We finished the day out with a long walk on the beautiful streets of the local residential area, very quiet everywhere, preparing ourselves to get back on trains and buses towards the buzz of the city.
What a beautiful way to end the week! Every day with blue skies has a special place in my heart but this one was even better, because I shared it with friends and I stopped the rush, I stopped the buzz!
Easter in Sweden
I decided that this year I am going to spend the Easter break in Sweden. I wasn’t expecting good weather on the east coast but Sweden is beautiful even in bad weather so I started my travels with warm clothes and full of hope! I am constantly looking forward to get away from London because lately I always seem to be in search for more space and more natural beauty!
Where best to find these than in Sweden? It was the right decision – this break turned out to be pretty much perfect! Actually, I am still in Sweden now – a few days after Easter, working from here, and weather has been superb! Who says that you should go to Southern Europe to get a tan in the spring? I wish only I packed my sun cream instead of extra underlay clothes!
I like traditions and I do appreciate a family celebration! And this year I got to be part of a Swedish family Easter celebration! In case you get an invitation yourself, here is what you need to know!
1. Be prepared to eat great food!
Everyone brings something and everything is just delicious. I don’t know if it’s the fresh ingredients, the simplicity of the combinations or the look of the beautifully arranged platters, but the Swedish food agrees with me! We had traditional food like sill (pickled herring), korv (sausage) and Jansson’s frestelse (creamy potato and anchovy casserole) but also various salads and cheeses.
I like the smörgåsboard style of serving food.s practical and makes it easy for the host to enjoy as well. I always dread catering for more than 10 people in the same time, I end up spending most of the time in the kitchen or running up and down with plates!
2. Be prepared to decorate!
In Sweden is not only about getting together with food and drinks to share stories. There is something about the spirit of the celebrations. And each detail can help create the atmosphere. A funny hen figurine, some painted eggs, some beautiful wild flowers. The main Swedish Easter decoration is birch twigs with beautifully coloured feathers! And it can be seen everywhere, and in all sizes. Some houses go as far as decorating entire trees!
3. Be prepared for games!
My favourite part of the Swedish celebrations is playing games in the outdoors. It’s not only an Easter tradition, the games are part of the Midsommar get together as well. They are called “Femkamp” which would translate to pentathlon but for Easter is a fun and modern take on it.
For me this competition is a real celebration of the outdoors, good weather and free time! What better way to connect with people than fun games? Especially when everyone is involved. We had participants from 4 to 90 years old and everyone got engaged in rolling eggs on tilted boards or throwing cheese balls on someone wearing a shower cap topped with whip cream! Smiles and laughter all around! In fact, what better way to celebrate anything than to connect with your friends and family!
4. Be prepared to see a moose in the wild!
This one is not really Easter specific. And apparently is quite rare to see a moose in the wild because they are shy and spend most of their time deep in the forests. I wanted to see one in their natural habitat for years now and until a few days ago it never happened.
One evening, when coming back from Öregrund, I saw a huge moose just metres away from the road. Just pay extra attention between dusk and dawn – that’s when it’s most likely to spot a moose on the loose!
Life in the Big City
Years ago, when I was sitting and reading in my grandmother’s room back home, in a small village in Transilvania, I dreamt about living in the big city.
I wanted the buzz, I wanted to meet new people and go to movies whenever I wanted, I didn’t want to use only the books and my imagination to travel. I didn’t know at the time where exactly the big city was but here I am, years later, living in London. It has been almost 9 years since I moved.
Time flies in London! Actually, rather than flying, time is running along trains and buses, it elapses impatiently at red lights and when you are stuck at Vauxhall station in the rush hour. You are playing catch up with your time, checking on it constantly! Everything, the whole day, gets divided in 30 minutes, 20 minutes, chunks of time here and there. Life in London is built by segments of time, is not continuous or fluid, is pretty much calculated carefully and relentlessly. And it all adds up very fast to years. Before you even know it! So maybe life in the big city is a bit more work than I thought it was! But the lack of fluidity and the constant need to calculate is compensated by the buzz and the abundance of opportunities. Opportunity to work, to have fun and to discover all the things you wanted to discover even from back when you were a child and you had time to stop and think about what you really want to see. Now I stopped seeing everything through the TV screen and I started reaching, feeling and listening to all the things that make life more beautiful.
Art and culture cannot be read and seen though screens. Watching the Nutcracker live before Christmas means that the world outside of that space is simply drowned and far away. You can be a worry free child or a part of a story or whoever you want to be in that moment. You can be your happier self. And this is London. It forces you to find things about yourself that you never thought you would discover. One of the important things I realised a few years after I moved here is that life in London is not only about the city itself. Is about the doors it opens outside and into the rest of the world. If you take the right opportunities you can hop in a plane and go and see the amazing places that you always wanted to see. You can talk to people all over the world and you can discover so much about the culture of the rest of the world if you only embrace the diversity. There is a fine balance between getting excited and getting tired by the diversity and London is not exactly a quiet city!
Is comparable with a noisy market most of the time! But there is some sort of order in the chaos, we make it work, we rush a lot but we still make time to open doors and smile and help someone in need. The overwhelming feeling of London can be surprisingly beautiful sometimes. You think that no one pays attention to you and you feel lost in the sea of people but if you happen to need help the sea of people will make room for you to sit in a crowded train and they will offer you water and they will make sure you are ok.
If you ever find yourself in London and you get to walk around, you’ll find that after every corner there is something new and sometimes bizarre. Street players that try new music on the spot, new forms of entertainment, people in costumes walking towards some carnival, shops that sell things you never even knew existed – from old fashion nautical shops to accessories for fluorescent themed parties! All these things can either make you happier if you are in a good mood or overwhelm you completely if you are tired and want to get somewhere, following a map on your phone, checking the time constantly. That is how it feels to leave in London! Life kind of takes you over and makes you run with it. It’s up to you if you follow it or fight it! And is nothing – absolutely nothing – like you thought it would be!
Det är roligt att lära mig svenska!
I oktober 2016 började jag att lära mig svenska och de första månaderna var väldigt tuffa! Jag hade en gruppkurs varje vecka och klassen var rolig för att 6 vuxna satt där och gjorde konstiga ljud. Vi kämpade oss igenom varje ord!
Att lära sig ett språk är svårare än jag kommer ihåg! Jag lärde mig franska i skolan för tjugo år sen och det var så enkelt. Nu måste jag fokusera mycket mer för att lära mig ett nytt språk. Och jag vet om jag inte gör det roligt kan jag inte behålla motivationen. Så jag spenderade mycket tid att tänka på hur jag kan motivera mig själv.
Man måste hitta vad som är bra for sig och också acceptera att man inte kan lära sig ett nytt språk utan ansträngning.
Jag har några tips som hjälpte mig mycket:
1. Fira varje steg! När du kan räkna till ett hundra – fira! När du vet flera enkla frågor – fira! Kan du stava all ord? Vad roligt! Varje lektion är framsteg och man behöver inte tänka så mycket på hur många saker man inte vet. Fokusera på vad du vet!
2. Gör inte allt på en gång. I början försökte jag att använda fler ord, prata rätt och tänka på grammatik också. Allt på samma gång! Jag blev rädd att prata för att jag såg alla mina misstag. Försök bara att prata i början. Misstagen är inte viktiga.
3. Processa vart du lärt dig. Ibland kan man lära sig många nya ord och göra många grammatikövningar. Det är bra men om en vecka kan man inte komma ihåg hälften av det! Du måste spendera tid att processa. Lär dig färre ord och använd dem. Man måste skriva orden flera gånger och också använda dem i dialog. Att skynda sig är inte roligt. Njut av dem små framstegen. Det är bättre när man kommer ihåg 5 ord än att man lär sig 50 och glömmer bort nästan alla. Så mycket tid och energi för ingenting.
4. Hitta en lärare som kan hjälpa dig med dialog och träna mycket. När du börjar blir det ganska svårt att prata med svenska personer men en bra lärare vet din nivå och hjälper dig att bli mer självsäker. Efter flera månader kunde jag prata lite svenska i Sverige. Men utan lärare pratar man lite konstigt- ”textbook” svenska. Du måste lära dig uttryck som används i vardaglig konversation.
5. Försöka att lyssna på roliga tv barnprogram och läsa barnböcker. Orden är enklare och bilderna hjälper mycket.
6. Lyssna och läs på klartext och 8sidor nyheter. Dem är enklare och är bättre för en nybörjare. Du vänjer dig vid en svensk person sätt att prata. Och det blev mycket roligt när du började att förstå mer. Du ska känna att svenska är användbart för dig.
7. Besök Sverige ofta! När du är i Sverige kan du även lära dig av att åka till närbutiken och läsa alla etiketter. Försök konversera och tänk inte på hur många misstag du gjorde. Fråga på svenska om du inte förstår och visa människor att du vill lära dig mer. Dem flesta svenska pratar perfekt engelska och jag är säker att många personer kommer prata på engelska med dig men du fortsätter bara på svenska. Svenskar är vänliga och har tålamod. Det är den enda vägen framåt!
Moose Love Forest Blog 