A slow weekend in the countryside

Last Wednesday we picked up a rental car and drove all the way to the summer house. Despite the fact that the AC wasn’t working and that it was about 30 degrees outdoors (can you imagine the heat inside that car?) it was quite a nice drive. We arrived around 6.30 pm and the lake was like a mirror. The feeling when you open the car door and feel the fresh air, the grass under your feet and the silent atmosphere – it’s hard to describe that feeling in words. All stress is long gone and you feel so calm, yet full of energy and all you want to do is dance around and laugh. Do you know what I mean? Do you have a place like this too? A place where all your troubles are far away and you’re just free?

Quickly, we grabbed our bags and entered the house. Summer houses always smell in a certain way, don’t you think? I guess it comes from the house being empty for months. Anyway, when we arrived we were starving. We had decided to make enchiladas with mushrooms and my plan was to photograph it so that I could share the recipe here on my blog. But things didn’t really work out.

We were so hungry we almost ate the walls so there was no way I could have squeezed in a styling + photography session. Also, the recipe kind of failed. To save some time (I knew we would be hungry when we arrived) I had bought some glutenfree wraps beforehand. It takes time to make your own so I thought I was super clever when I bought the wraps. Turned out they tasted like a mix of old shoe soles and washcloth so the dinner kind of failed (heh). Luckily, I had also bought the best glutenfree beer ever so we enjoyed a couple of those while watching the sunset. It didn’t matter that the dinner failed, we were so happy to be there and no dinner in the world could take that feeling away.

We went to bed and fell asleep in less than 2 minutes. The next day I woke up at 5.30 am. I sneaked out with a cup of coffee and listened to the birds. I watched the sun rise, sat down on the porch and really enjoyed the moment. I then grabbed my camera, took a walk in the garden and the forest. No Instagram, no news reports, nothing. I just wanted to be there, see everything, smell everything and just enjoy life.

Kalle was still sleeping when I came back from my walk so I decided to start preparing breakfast. We enjoyed some oatmeal, more coffee and fresh berries. We had a lot of work to do in the garden – mowing the lawn, removing weeds from the paving stones and get the garden ready for summer. After breakfast we started working, of course we took regular breaks to play beach tennis, talk and just enjoy the summer weather.

We made pancakes for lunch and for dinner we had zucchini and corn patties, served with oven roasted potatoes and chili dip. Let’s just say that this dinner was way better than the previous one. That evening we played more tennis, we enjoyed some wine and played some board games. It was perfect!

The next day we worked in the garden, took a long walk and I photographed like crazy. Recipes, flowers, the garden and I don’t know what else. I have a lot of recipes styled, photographed and ready for you guys. Caramel cookies, different porridges and seed crackers are coming to the blog soon, how does that sound?

The last day went by in pretty much the same way as the previous days. We were outdoors almost all the time and when we weren’t working in our garden, we enjoyed great food, had long and deep conversations, played tennis or just sat silent and watched the lake. It was such an amazing weekend and it was almost painful to leave. I can’t wait until next time we visit this place <3