Sunny days

The full moon is two days from now, on the 26th of June. For the past two nights, I've fallen asleep to moonlight streaming into our bedroom and woken up to blue skies and sun. Thank goodness because it's about time the sun decided to come out.

For the past two weeks, it's been raining steadily with only some slivers of sunshine. Some days I was even wearing my down jacket and sweaters, in the middle of June! I stayed out of the rain and worked on my French conjugations, did some driving lessons, and baked. David Lebovitz's supernatural brownies came over so well that I can hardly keep them from being eaten. Yesterday I drove on a real road within a business zone so there weren't that many cars around, but I had to navigate rotaries, stop and restart, and then reverse. I'm used to the clutch and the gear box, so it's getting easier and I hardly stall the car anymore. Yay for that!

R and I finished working on the former bedroom...it's now a reading room with some outdoor/indoor deck furniture. It's next to the guest bedroom which is next on our DIY list.

Real summer is here now to stay until September or so and my vegetable garden and I are happy for that. Because the days are longer here, I'm hoping the cherry, quince, and plum trees will be ready for picking in a few weeks. In the vegetable garden, the 9 tomato plants are doing well, and are slowly climbing up their spiral stakes. The 12 lettuces and single zucchini plant are growing fast as well. When I checked yesterday, two large yellow zucchini flowers had bloomed, and under them were two three-inch zucchinis. About five other zucchini flowers were just starting to bud. As for the three eggplants, they're surviving, but no flowers yet. The seeds I planted for melons, beets, and leeks may have sprouted but they're difficult to pick out because there's also a lot of weeds in the mix. But good news on the herb front: the coriander, basil, ciboulette, and mint are all doing well. When they're full grown, I won't have to buy any of these until late fall. If I have too much, I'll dry or freeze some in ice cube trays so I can use them way past the harvest season.

Today, R and I walked down to the farmer's market—tomorrow is R's birthday and I still need some fresh berries and nectarines to top the fruit tart I'm making. We didn't find berries but we got some fresh baguette and smoked salmon—and had that for lunch in the park by the river.

Tonight, we're going to Geneva again for a World Cup party—the Netherlands vs Cameroon. R's Dutch friend is hosting again so we were encouraged to wear Orange, the Dutch color for the Royal house of Orange. R is not only wearing orange, but he's decided to bring his giant Dutch flag to the party.

What's your favorite thing to do in the summer time? For those of you with green thumbs...how does your garden grow? Are you watching the World Cup and who are you cheering for?