Holidays or something like that

Can you believe this, it's almost end of summer months and there's still no holiday in sight for yours truly. Sure, I had a few days off just sitting at home and I'm just back from a quick weekend retreat from higher grounds (with my parents, at my age!), but still, no real holiday and what with 3 weeks from wedding of the year I'm not any closer to taking a vacation anytime soon. Me feels miserable. Then summer will past and so will my will to go anywhere. Shame shame shame.

It's day 175 (!!!), that's about 6 months into my (almost) quest now. I gained back all the weight that I lost during this weekend because my mom and aunt kept stuffing me like a turkey. "I'm not hungry" and "No, thanks" are simply chinese to them and you HAVE to eat something. So today I'm super tired and fat and I just wanna go home and sleep some more and just not, you know, eat.

A few words on my weekend getaway. My parents go to a mountain village every year where they just hike the woods and pick up whatever they can manage to find - blueberries, mushroom, cranberries,...

I went for the blueberries. There is no such a blueberry as those we pick up in those woods. And with my blueberry smoothie addiction and I just needed to stash my freezer.

So off I went on Saturday morning and almost immediately got stucked in a 4 km traffic jam. The traffic was insane all the way, and although the place is not that far away, it took me 1,5 hours to arrive.

Upon arrival I was immediately fed barley minestrone with savoy cabbage that I absolutely hate, but since I was rather hungry I ate it all with no complaint. Didn't enjoy it, though. After the initial lunch the menu got more and more bizzare what with my aunt being chef of the kitchen, not my mom, who is used to my dietary needs and preferences. At some point, though, even my mom tried to sneak on my plate a mixture with summer veggies in tomato sauce with the addition of a secret ingredient she hoped I would not notice - ground beef.

I told her off, spit the food out and went make me some egg & tofu ham with nondairy cheese omlette, served with boiled potatoes. Everyone wished to try it, but - given the treatment they gave me - I did not share. Yeah, I can be a bitch, but from then on I was preparing my own food.

Then, we went into the woods. Pictured above is a carpet of blueberry bushes, which are usualy really plentiful, but this year they were ripe early in season so we did not manage to gather a lot of them, but will do for moderate usage.

That's actually my mom in the blueberry bushes, picking them up by hand. There were too few to use a blueberry comb.

Yes, my fingers are still stained and will need some more cleaning to get rid of it all. I learnt washing cloths by hand helps, so that's what I'm doing today after work.

Wild blueberries. Tiny little things that get squeezed and juiced on your fingers if you're not careful. Anyway, I did manage to get me quite a stash of it, but not more that legally allowed. Yes, we have a law that states how much wild produce you're allowed to take from the woods! And if you take more and you're caught you can actually pay quite a fine.

Everyone is crazy about the mushroom pictured above (had to google it and is called penny bun or porcino), but I'm not since I'm not a mushroom person and I took none of those back home. Ha! Not that I can actually spot them in the woods, my father is an expert in that.

I did once try one cream porcino soup that was actually delicious, but since it contained plenty of cream and, well, mushrooms, I didn't experiment further.

So now I'm back from my little blueberry advanture, with a huge craving for a super smoothie right now, but being in the office I'll just have to wait a few hours more, sadly.

What about you, have you been on holidays yet, or just waiting to go?