joyful gratitude

The icing on the cake

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JOYFUL GRATITUDE #15

This may be controversial, but I believe regularly eating delicious cake is part of a healthy diet.  According to me, cake is perfect for any occasion and at any time, whether it’s for fueling a creative afternoon in a cosy café, celebrating a birthday or simply for dipping in my morning coffee for breakfast, and it tastes even better when it is shared with family, colleagues or friends.

Cake is also an important way of transmitting family traditions.  My grand-dad’s speciality was making Biscuit de Savoie for us (which is a cake despite its confusing name). I miss watching him in his kitchen, patiently folding the beaten egg whites into the batter with a wooden spoon, turning always in the same direction to keep the cake fluffy (and obviously licking the bowl which was the best part!). We still use his recipe to make this amazing cake for every family reunion:)

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 The pretty cakes in these pictures were made in Ahhh Toots, a stand in the Glass Arcade in Bristol. My friend Eva and I attempted to sample as many of them as we could when we were visiting in 2015.  They truly know how to make icing in the UK:)

Morning coffee

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JOYFUL GRATITUDE #14

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I am grateful for the quiet moment at the beginning of the day when I prepare coffee. It takes only a few minutes, but I relish the deliberate action of cleaning the moka, filling it with just the right amount of cold water, delicately placing the ground coffee into the filter, closing the moka tight and putting it to cook on the stove. The split second when the first coffee topples over though the column is a magical one!

Sparkling sunlight

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JOYFUL GRATITUDE #13

Last weekend the sky was crisp blue and the sun was out, so on Sunday Paolo and I wrapped up in many layers of warm clothes to go for a brisk walk. There are a few nice places to wander close to our flat, and this time we ended up in De Oeverlanden park, a place we’d never explored together.

It felt great to be outdoors, and enjoy chatting while we walked along the water. It was so good to feel the sun on my face, and the reflection of the sunlight sparkling on the lake through the reeds was simply beautiful.

 

Taking time to relax

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img_6446JOYFUL GRATITUDE #12

Blue monday has now passed and this week the ice freezing on the trees was so beautiful.  So why the sun flower? I guess I just feel like seeing some warm colours – and because with my painfully freezing fingers I unfortunately didn’t manage to make a decent picture to post here of those amazing pointy icicles on the branches 😉 .

This week I’m very grateful for a fun yoga session organised by a colleague in a meeting room after work. We spent a wonderful hour stretching, keeping our muscles warm, going through the movements and practicing our balance.  It was great to just take some time for myself after a busy work day in order to breathe, stretch and get out of my head.

Lunch time walks

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JOYFUL GRATITUDE #11

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At the moment the days are so short that it’s dark when I arrive at work early in the morning, and night has already fallen by the time I get on my bike to cycle home from the office. So the only way to stock up on precious vitamine D is to go for a quick walk after eating lunch.

I’m lucky that my office is just next to the beautiful Westerdok which is very sunny in the early afternoon, so I regularly go there during my lunch break, usually with one or a few colleagues to chat with on the way.

I love looking at all the colourful houseboats and imagining what it’s like to live in them. When it’s sunny, it’s wonderful, obviously. But I try and head out even if it’s rainy because it always feels great to stretch my legs and be away from the computer, and after getting some fresh air I can focus so much better in the afternooon.

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Curious horses

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JOYFUL GRATITUDE #10

On January 2nd, Paolo and I went for a lovely hike in the outskirts of Rome, towards Guadagnolo. It was a great way to start the new year by spending some time outdoors, and despite being a grey day it was a beautiful walk.

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We didn’t meet one single person during our hike, but we did come across quite a few wild horses. Some of them stood boldly on the path, and others were half hidden and peeking out at us from behind the bushes, waiting to see what we would do. before they retreated up the slope of the hill.
img_4764This other family of horses came down the mountainside directly towards us. They initially ‘pretended’ to follow the road in the opposite direction to where we were walking, only to start following us as soon as we had our back turned.

The baby horse couldn’t contain his curiosity and came right up to where I stood. For a few seconds he looked at me and sniffed me a few times before continuing on his way.  A very magical moment:)

Colourful recycled envelopes

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JOYFUL GRATITUDE # 9

In the last few years, I’ve been encouraging my family to prefer ‘experience’ gifts over material gifts for Christmas and birthdays. The idea is catching on, and this year almost every gift I gave my family was for an experience of some kind, usually in the form of a card and a voucher. I wanted some original envelopes to present them in, so I gathered some cool pictures from old magazines and with simple washi tape made these colourful recycled envelopes.

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Festive blooms

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JOYFUL GRATITUDE #8

Christmas cactus season is upon us again! Every year in December my Christmas cactuses start growing pink buds on the end of their leaves that grow slightly bigger each day…  Then, usually just before Christmas, the flower blooms wildly, spreading its petals in all directions for a few days of extravagant beauty. It’s a nice touch of colour in these short winter days:)

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Fun dinner

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JOYFUL GRATITUDE #7

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Seeing this pile of freshly washed dishes and glasses on the kitchen counter makes me happy. Not because it means I’m done with cleaning the dishes, but because they were made dirty in the occasion of a fun dinner with friends to celebrate Paolo’s birthday.

It was a pleasure to share this meal surrounded by easy-going and interesting people from all over the world … and to laugh a lot! 🙂

Cycling in the mornings

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JOYFUL GRATITUDE #6

These days cycling to work every morning involves leaving home in the dark and feeling that despite wearing thick gloves the cold may cause my finger tips to fall off. The first 5 minutes are usually the worst because I haven’t warmed up yet from the cycling and I find myself wondering if I just should have taken the tram instead.

Lately however I’ve been trying to turn my thoughts around and appreciate the luxury of being able to ride to work by bike which is one of the perks of life in Amsterdam. I really enjoy being outdoors and moving my body for a half-hour before spending most of the day behind the computer. Also, I’m very lucky that to get to the office I ride through the beautiful center of Amsterdam. And when the sun decides to comes up, the peaceful canal views are really spectacular!

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