Last week was a pretty ordinary working week, with the highlight of the week definitely being the weekend trip to Czech to visit J’s family. Summer is slowly arriving, and the return of this season, including some lovely warm weather, was the greatest source of pleasure this week. Here are some of the moments that stood out this week:

1) While cycling to work I noticed some beautiful, deep red poppies growing wild on the side of the road. I couldn’t stop to take a photo but in Czech we found many more. I’m always happy when it’s poppy season because they are one of my favourite flowers, giving a bright splash of colour to any landscape. I also associate them very strongly with the beginning of summer.

2) And with summer comes cherries! I think these have to be my favourite fruit.

3) We tried a gelateria near Rosenthalerplatz called Giorgio Lombardi. What a revelation! My favourite gelato flavour in Italy was nocciola, and it’s the first time outside of Italy that I’ve had a nocciola gelato that lived up to my memories. I can see we’re going to be regulars here this summer.

4) Although I did not take photos, we also had a delicious meal of dumplings and spring rolls at a restaurant near Rosenthalerplatz, Yumcha Heroes. They are not the cheapest place in the world but the food was really delicious, especially the spring rolls. I like the way they colour code their dumplings, it must be easy to find them in the kitchen!

5) Living in an apartment, I miss having pets, as I grew up in a house full of cats and dogs. You see lots of dogs out and about in Berlin (and many dogitos, as we call the small dogs, since J says they are not real dogs), but few cats in the inner city. So it’s always a pleasure to spot one. Hence my photo of a Berlin apartment cat.

5) There was a very long detour between Berlin and Dresden on the way to Czech. While this cost us a lot of time, we did see a bit more scenery in Brandenburg: fields of crops, hay bales and wind turbines, and a lovely sunset.

6) Lunches with J’s family are always a three course meal: soup, a main dish, and some dessert. Afterwards you want to explode, but it’s so great to have someone cooking for you that you eat it all anyway. One of the highlights this time was strawberries, pulled straight out of their garden, served with whipped cream.

7) On hot summer days inland there is nothing better than swimming in the lakes. This lake near J’s family home is where we ended up for a bit on both days of the weekend. The water was still cold, but once you’re in it’s great and you feel so refreshed afterwards.

8) On Sunday morning J and I prepared bobotie, a South African dish, for his family for lunch. I never expected that one day I would be making a bobotie in the Czech Republic 🙂

9) It’s always great having the pets around when we visit J’s home, and we love to play with the cats and take the dogs for a walk. The dogs love it too and go crazy when we get the leads out. It’s great watching the scenery changing as the different seasons unfold: in January the dogs were walking over iced puddles and the earth was frozen, two months ago the fields had been ploughed, and this time the wheat was high and the carrots were flourishing.

These were some of the things I really enjoyed this week, join Mani’s blog event to read hers and share your own!