Another sunny weekend

...sunny being the key word here. Anyone who thinks global warming is a scam, just look at the following pictures.

We went to Scarita-Belioara, a beautiful natural reserve we had been planning to visit for a long time. (that site is in German but it has some good pics). It was hang-head-out-the-car-window-squealing-in-delight beautiful! :D
Now, about global warming. November is generally the beginning of winter here. It's nothing unusual to have the first snow and the first frost in November. The colourful leaves are all gone (with small exceptions) ...
... and the scenery is preparing to start looking rather dull and quiet. That's why it 's highly unusual to spend a weekend in November wearing a singlet!

Not that I'm complaining, I love the sun and the heat, and the sky was the most amazing shade of blue! Only in NZ have I seen such a blue sky before.

And, however barren mountains may be in November, the sun still makes them beautiful:
The muckla seemed to think so too!

Happy Day

Yesterday was easily in the top 5 of happiest days this year. I had been dreaming of owning some of Sven Nordqvist's books for a year, and now I do! I ordered them last month, and they went a long and curly way, from Sweden to Holland to Bucuresti to my trembling, expectant hands.

They exerted such a fascination on me when I first saw them in Sweden, that I just had to have them in my house sooner or later. I based stuffed creatures on the mucklor in the book, I drove my friends crazy with excited accounts of the silly drawings inside, I wished I had a cat like Findus... Is it very weird for a grown-up to be so excited over children's books?

But they are not just children's books, they are Swedish reading practice material! Så ska jag lära mig svenska och leka på samma gång :>

The appearance of the books in my house caused quite a stir among the population of Transylvanian mucklor, locally known as "mişumaci". Here is what happened: