I'm so late in posting this. We actually went there some weeks ago, but I just haven't gotten around to show you the lovely pictures.

Margaretenhöhe is a district in Essen, built around 1910-1920 and very very beautiful! There's a lovely park, where we went for a walk. These are photos from there. There was so many different kinds of leaves on the ground! I can't wait to see this park in the summer.

A few weeks back Nick planned a surprise for me and booked us places for the tour around the RWE tower, the highest buliding in the region. Take a look at the views from these panorama pics Nick made (tip: click on the title).

I had an interesting discussion with a collague today, he was telling me about a vegetarian couple he knows, and that their 5-year-old is also being raised vegetarian.

Then he went on to say that people (even this kid) should be able to decide what they eat. Apparently the parents deny this kid meat also during visits to granma's etc. My collague's main argument was that kids should't be denied this kind of thing, but let them decide themselves.

It's been so hot I haven't been knitting much. I am doing other stuff, however - worrying about the new job a bit (the employer's expectations are quite much higher than in Ireland), and visiting the local sights on weekends. Last weekend (sorry for not posting earlier - the job...) we went to Zeche Zollverein, the "most beautiful coal mine in the world" and an Unesco world heritage sight is just 20 minutes tram ride from Essen city centre. What a lovely, interesting, historical place it is!

I was very lucky to have some holidays before I move into my new job (next week!) and after I sorted out all settling-in matters in Germany I was free to go to Finland, my home country, for a week.

It was as usual very beautiful, and I enjoyed meeting my friends and family again.

It's happened, I left Ireland and have pretty much settled into Essen , a beautiful city in Nordrhein-Westfalen (often shortened as NRW), Germany.

As you may have noticed, I haven't been blogging or knitting too much lately because of the move. Well tomorrow morning it will happen - and I will have officially left Ireland.

This is just to say it might take another week or two before I get back on my usual blogging schedule. So please do check back, I have ordered some new gorgeous yarns and have some socks on the go - I'll show them to you as soon as I can. 

What a lovely day it was! I first started off with the wrong foot by knitting for 30 minutes in front of the wrong gazebo. Only when I took a stroll around the park I found the actual gathering. We were first at the band stand, but then the band came and we moved to the lawn to enjoy the music (which was very good!) At one point some drops of rain came down, but they soon gave up as we refused to budge.

Today was lovely. It was sunny and really windy, so me and Nick decided to go to Phoenix Park to fly his kite. This is the first time we fly it since arriving in Ireland over 2 years ago!

It was really lovely to see the kite fly! It's amazing how loud it is, when the kite moves through the air.

It was my birthday last Thursday, and I was lucky enough to be pampered with good cooking and a massage by Nick. I also got some presents!

First, from Nick a beautiful rose, and a CD from Tamara Dearing, an indie singer-songwriter from Kentucky.