Pelmeni

Today I did not do the laundry. I did not crochet. I did not choose the Christmas pattern for the pillow-case. What I did was look for a recipe then cook pelmeni for the first time, with the help of Cassian who operated the pasta machine. I am not sure if I will give the recipe another try. Pelmeni tasted fairly good, but if I do them a second time it will be on a day when my grandson is at home with his mother and not violating my kitchen. Such an obsolet pasta machine apparently works well as a popular plaything when in the hand of a toddler, but your kitchen will look like a battlefield afterwards! Bad thing is that Cassian ate exactly one pelmeni then went straight for his apple and the cake he had seen in the fridge. His parents won't hear about this- my house, my rules...
We woke to a temperature of eleven degrees this morning that went up to thirteen until midday. Now that the sun has come out of its hiding place it is considerably warmer- 17 degrees exactly. We have pillaged the ´neighbour's´ bramble bushes, but we are allowed to- neighbour gave us the key to his property and the license to harvest. ´Neighbour´ lives in Vienna and does not feel like coming to his property to harvest brambles. We are allowed to take as much berries as we want. And Cassian needs much of them, probably to compensate for the non-healthy food he gets in our household! This child is so strange at times. It has an irrational fear of toys with teeth, like crocodiles or predators like lions and orcas even- yet he loves dragons and dinosaurs to pieces. But what he fears most are two things: the pink unicorn that is a sock puppet of Elsa (and has sharp white teeth sewn in his mouth, please do not ask me why) and nutcrackers, the ones which look like hussars of old. I'd say a nutcracker is what he fears most. Everyone here has such an odd one at home. The moment it opens the mouth to do what it is supposed to do Cassian is off howling...