Recipe for a good vacation

small watercolors from this weeks produce.

The making of porridge.

When I was in my morning 'quiet time' today, I realised I really, really wanted a vacation. It's been five years. So I was toying with ideas. What is the perfect vacation for a stressed out mom/artist? I thought a Greek island, a small cottage, summer, heat, cicadas, their singing is like a tranquiliser for my brain, the olive trees, the smell of heat on the dry earth, the sea, the ochres and the lavenders, the smell of jasmine, cooking on a small wooden stove in the backyard. Yes, that would be amazing only Greece is not just a place of vacation for me , its where I was born and raised. I want to branch out and discover new things, but where else can you feel so safe, put your feet up and sleep in the sweet, afternoon breeze, or put your feet down and walk from one small white church to another. Ah!

But no, lets try to imagine something new. It has to involve walking, looking at beautiful art, looking at lovely something or other, just a feast for the eyes, it could be mountains, seas, soft hills( like in Tuscany), .Not a resort for me thank you. It has to be quiet, intimate, maybe a lovely bed and breakfast like the ones in England. There was one , owned by a middle-aged woman,Nigel will remeber her name, I don't, in the premises of her turkey farm. Breakfast in the main house was a little chaotic what with all her grandchildren's toys everywhere, a little not on the very clean side, but I didn't mind because it was all very full of life and activity and colours everywhere and just a fun loving something about it. We stayed in the little cottage near the entrance of the farm, we didn't stay long, and it wasn't even a vacation, it was in the middle of doing some business in England, we had Lucy with us and she was still at an age when she spent most of the time sleeping or eating.

The easy months! But no, it wasn't really a vacation, but it was in a was, because there was something so charming and restful about being in that place, with the soft green , the gentle landscape, the turkeys behaving in an extra silly way most of the time. I even ate black pudding for the first time there, I was so enchanted by this messy kitchen. I think I had enough for a life time. But not enough vacation time. Maybe because for the last five years I have been a stay at home mom and concentated on my art, I have felt I didn't have the right to a proper vacation. That's quite stupid isn't it? Is writing about a vacation a bit of a vacation anyway? A bit. So, yes, there was this time in Austria when I was a little girl, my father drove us there so we had a lovely look at the Austrian countrside and that is when I fell in love with pig farms. And waterfalls, and schnitzel, and sugar cubes, and small bread buns, and an amazing royal chair in a palace in Vienna, I remember that chair perfectly because I was not allowed to sit on it, and its importance was really impressed on me. But my very favorite thing in Austria were the pink, fluffy, extra soft, extra puffed up bed covers. I just couldn't believe their cuddliness. Cuddling, yes, that must be part of any proper vacation. But I am blessed with a very cuddly husband and generally very cuddly children. Well, not all of them, not anymore really, because now they are all grown up and I only really get to cuddle with Lucy. But that's a whole other story.

Maybe the point is to get bits of your favorite ingredients of a vacation on a daily basis, like cuddling, walking, looking at beautiful things, having a messy, colorful kitchen(hey, easy!), having super lovely breakfasts with soft bread buns and homemade jam, do some brain-refreshing reading, and definitely take time off to be quiet. I am not sure how I would incorporate silly turkeys and rosy pigs in my daily routine but I think I am on to something there...

Have a good one!