summer staples

a wedding to kick off summer

My lovely physio therapist tied the knot early this month. It's not like she is just anybody but my sister in law's best friend and maid of honour, plus the groom was my brother's best man, so they're basically family :) It was a lovely wedding, a gorgeous garden setting and hot hot heat.

only picture I got of the happy couple and you can't even properly see the groom haha

What follows is a bit of sibling nonsense, as we thought it'd be nice to have a new version of this photo... it's been almost a year after all. Our friend Mike took the camera and snapped about 15 photos, I never got the info that we were not doing silly faces! Anyway here goes. Happy days x

early harvest

My friends the Bs have a patch in a community field, where they grow veg and pretty flowers. (Seriously it is too easy to plant things and do a bit for our environment by growing your own!)
After our afternoon hangout two weeks ago, Claudia and I went to water the plants, free it off some weeds, thin out some tomato plants and harvest some goodies.

 zucchini

 pumpkin

 chard

 Claudia's bike with harvest goodies

my beautiful friend! Time spent with her is always precious :)

I ended up making a chard strudel with the things she gave me... it was delicious! 

hanging with the B and S families

Always a pleasure hanging with these lovely people.
We went for a walk to get ice cream and on our way back we stopped at a playground/skate park, the boys played around, Miss K was loving her mini paddling pool and bubbles and Claudia and I enjoyed the sun and taking turns of cooling our feet in the kiddy pool haha Perfection!
On our way home we stopped at Romy & Paul's place to say hi to her and her friend, funniest thing chatting with the two of them in their window set in the orange wall :) You can see the picture she took of us standing down there here.
Loving summer this year :)

photo summer

I've gone a bit photo app crazy, who hasn't right.
In need of a new challenge I'm collecting all things summer staples over the next while and will post them on instagram (@astridirenenatalie) and will do a combined post in a while on here.
Today was all about sun tea. Homegrown mint and lemon sun tea to be honest. So delicious and perfect for hot days like today.

quick hello

 lazy Sunday with three Bs :) (image by the lovely Romy from ringlringl)

I'm house sitting at my parents place right now and enjoying the peace and quiet in this heat. Their apartment is about 10 degrees cooler than ours in the city and it's been nice to sleep for 6 consecutive hours again haha. Lots of crafting and cooking going on and recharging my batteries before I make my way to the wonderful city of Salzburg for the festival season. I even brought back my iBook G4 to write this haha old school but still works!
Hope everyone's summer started amazing, shout outs to all teachers who are in holiday mode now :) Enjoy your week everyone xx

a day of strawberries - the picking part

doesn't look like much from the outside, but dig around and you'd be surprised

My mum and I went strawberry picking last week, after I asked around and nobody wanted to come along. It was ridiculously hot to be fair (hot as in sweating so you'll be left with salt stains on your clothes, absolutely scorching!).
Off we went, a bottle of water and sun hats in hand. After about an hour we had a full crate of the freshest and juiciest berries. It takes quite a bit of self restraint not to eat the entire time you're there haha Turns out we picked 4kg!!!!! Who knew? It never looks that much while you're at it.
More later.

current obsession

Remember this Ed Sheeran song people? Not only is it my favourite song off "+" but it had the best video accompanying it. You can watch it here.
This version is beyond ridiculous... Talk about artistry! Can't stop listening to this version, as a non-musician who is surrounded by a lot of music, I'm not that easily impressed by a lot that's going on, but what this boy does with his guitar, voice and loop pedal is just spectacular. Might be your biggest fan Ed!

frozen yoghurt

... with muesli and fruit or honey. It's become my summer staple, bye ice cream you are way too sweet.

Funny story, bestie Simon came for the weekend and brought two friends - a lot more on that later - but I took Alex and Markus to an ice cream place saying that it's the best ice cream in Vienna. When they ordered I went across the street to get frozen yoghurt, which they kept making fun of for the rest of their time here "I'll take you to Vienna's best ice cream, but I'll have something else" hahahaha 

summer nights

The city is boiling right now! Summer officially starts on Thursday (longest day-shortest night) but it might have made an early entrance this year.
Who can blame us for having drinks on a Tuesday night :) Flatmates are the best, especially when they randomly call you and make sure that we have all the ingredients for a gin tonic.
Here's to a fantastic summer, may it be filled with sun, lovely people and lots of belly laughs. Cheers

road trip 2011

It's been a crazy week on the road. Don't know about you, but travelling equals freedom to me. I get cabin fever if I don't get out and explore the world. Such a gypsy at heart.
Here's a little preview

Europe is so diverse... blows my mind every time!

I will tell the whole story in different parts next week while the holidays continue in Vienna. Hooray!!

ps don't forget: if you're in Vienna this coming Thursday, pop in at Chelsea for some My Glorious & Tyler action! It'll be worth it :)

June 1st

Can you believe it...
For some reason it feels as if we just turned a corner from New Year's, on the other hand that most horrible of horrible winters is ages ago. Somebody care to explain that phenomena? Feel free.
I guess it's true what people here in Salzburg have been telling me: it's gonna be a hot spring and when it's time for summer it will rain. Haha proves to be true for today - although not officially summer yet but June fits the bill. It's been grey and rainy today.
To cheer myself up I started cooking :)
Why is food so darn delicious? It should be celebrated more! Maybe that will be my summer motto - celebrate food.
Happy midweek everyone x

swim wear by MbMJ

(image via MJ newsletter)

This landed in my inbox yesterday...
Striped, high-waisted bikini. Be still my heart. Marc Jacobs, I'm your biggest fan.
For more swim wear click here. In love with the Simone Stripe Romper!!

along the canal

All you want, when it is hot, is some form of water to jump in and cool down.
We jumped on our bikes and after a couple minutes we settled down next to the Almkanal and jumped in.
The Almkanal is one of Europe's oldest water systems(connecting a stream with the main river and bringing water to the city) going back all the way to the 8th century. The water is freezing and has such a strong current that you can't swim against it.
The thing to do is walk up a bit, jump in and swim or drift all the way down to where you want to get out.
We had the best time swimming, swinging across and jumping in the water, playing kubb, reading and relaxing.

I guess this will become a regular summer spot.

Fuschlsee

I have waited years for this moment and today I finally jumped in the Fuschl lake. Maybe I should have been a little fish, I just love swimming, could be in the water all day. Today was perfect - sunny and hot and all you needed was a quick swim to cool you down.

In other news, my lovely friend Kelly got engaged to Brad and I couldn't be happier for the two of them. Congratulations guys, love you x

summer = salad

For a week we have had proper summer. It's been hot and sunny and I'm surprised that English newspapers haven't reported on a heat wave yet!!
I've been living off salad for the last couple days, as everything else is way too much effort and I can enjoy my beautiful window sill lettuce.

Can't tell you how delicious it is. Loving summer, the only thing missing is a lake to swim, but that'll come soon enough :)