Summer

It's summer.
The grape vine threatens to soon conceal my entrance way (it has reached the door since I took the pictures),
the lilies are showing off,
the driveway peonies smell lovely,
and the dog continues to be an idiot.
And I still love living here. And I still love living.

Happy Birthday, Paul!

As a present, your own favourite thing!

Same valley, different perspective

It seems we can't get enough of this place. There are still so many nooks and crannies to explore, and each rock, village or valley renders itself to a different activity. This time it was rock climbing, which I tried for the first time:

The pics make me look way professional, don't they? It took a significant amount of huffing and puffing, a couple of bruises, two grazed knees, a bump on my head and a good serving of giggles from the people at the bottom until I (sort of) made it to the top. My arms and legs still hurt. But it was so much fun, I'm definitely going to do it again.

Well-worn, dusty and very shaky hands:
Another swing to add to the survey (NZ swings continue to be the best by far). Behind me, sneak preview for Jocke:
I know, I know, those bloody shoes again! But I can't help it; wherever there's height, there will be a shoe pic.
The batteries in my camera ran out rather early in our trip, so I don't get to show you the most beautiful part, namely Saturday night's full moon illuminating the ruins. I won't even attempt to describe what I thought only existed in romantic painting and victorian novels. Some things are better just felt and unshown.

Oh, and one more thing! It's summer! :D

Happy Birthday, Laura!

Congratulations on becoming all mature and grown-up! As a present... your favourite thing :D

Till fjälls igen

Told you the roaming would resume! So sit back and prepare for another picture-intensive post. I had a lovely weekend. What do normal people do after an emotional wedding, followed by a fun party, followed by only 4 hours' sleep? Blob around the house with lots of coffee? Noo, they go mountain climbing!

To the fortress of Coltesti, to be more precise. Which, seen from the village, looks like this:

I can't even begin to tell you what a beautiful place that area is. A wide valley, guarded by Szekelykö (a rock you have seen in this post) on one side, and by palpable history on the other. In the middle, nothing but Transylvanian tidiness.
And what a lovely weather we had. This little dragon thought so too. He even had no problem posing for us in all kinds of angles. This is probably the biggest lizard I've ever seen, it was about 25cm.

Finally, on the peak!... can you tell I like fortresses?
Exploring the newer tower and making assumptions related to the original architecture.
Pretty windows, of course :>
Exploration must be done with the utmost dedication and throughness, inside and out!
Spring wind:
Thorugh a window through a window. (don't know how I managed to get this pose, but this pic is fit for a Swedish knitwear catalogue, hihi)
A nobleman's view:
A flower's view:
A climber's view:
A photographer's view:
Customary foot picture (I might have to get a new pair of hiking boots, u must be getting bored of the same shoes in such pics!)
On the way down. Doesn't spring just warm your heart?

After a quick feed by the stream, it was time to explore the area across the road. Yes, this is "across the road" in the Transylvanian countryside (this looks like it could be our local Machu Picchu :>)
I think if I could take a photo of the contents of my heart, it would look like this:
Or like this:

Flowers indulging in the sunset:
View of my head admiring the view of the valley:
On the way down again (we always have such cool discussion on such ascents and descents. The more breathless you are, the more stimulating the conversation tends to become). Fortress in the background:

Nothing says "home" to me better than these shapes. They might make for an interesting looking quilt, too:

And finally, a view of my mighty nose, with an even mightier cliff in the background:

Newsflash

As soon as it got warm, I got ants in my food cupboard. As it usually happens with ants, they don't get killed or put off by the stuff that should deter them; au contraire, they come back for seconds.

Last Friday, a pipe burst in my bathroom. The bathroom got filled and overflowed into the kitchen, which got filled and overflowed both into the hallway and outside, down the stairs into the courtyard. Wearing my beautiful fluffy slippers in ankle-deep water is not so cosy. But at least I'm hoping all the water might have drowned the ants.

It took me and the landlady a good couple of hours to mop up all the water and get the carpet off the floor (and the furniture off the carpet) for drying. As soon as the kitchen floor was dry, the dog came in and peed on it.

Ah, the little joys of life!

(above is an unrelated but recent pic of me from Easter in the forest with family and friends)

Catching up

I haven't done much lately other than sit inside and sew, so my travel and adventure blog was ignored for a while. However, last weekend spent in Bucuresti was an adventure in itself.

Apart from a trip into the dusty south, it also meant a trip way out of my comfort zone. Maybe I shouldn't present such an image of our great capital, but that city feels like it's in another country! I have never seen a dirtier, scarier, more neglected place. The city that in the 19th century was known as "little Paris" is now a heap of dog-invaded rubble, with beautiful, but badly neglected old buildings only slightly hinting to its former glory.

The purpose of my trip you can see here; I'm supposed to go again in June, but, although I loved the atmosphere of the fair, I'm not sure it's worth all that stress and discomfort.

But spring is here, it's sunny and warm, and the wandering shall soon resume!