My family visited us this summer in Switzerland for the very first time. It was a big deal as we've been living here since 2010. In the past, it wasn't that easy to get to us from my hometown because there was no direct flight, and as my family doesn't speak English and we didn't want to stress them too much we always visited them instead. However, from this spring there is a direct flight to Zurich, so they have no excuses anymore and we could finally welcome them at our home.

Our gardening season is slowly coming to the end, and now we're in the full harvesting phase. There is still enough vegetables to feed an entire army, so we need to change our strategy for next year and plant a bit less. I can preserve a lot of food, but it takes so much time that I can't do anything else. On one hand I do enjoy gardening a lot, but on the other hand some personal time off would be nice too, and I don't like to come to a point when it will become a chore.

In the recent years, many castle ruins in Slovakia are undergoing large reconstructions. This is usually an initiative from the local organisations supported by the funds from the EU. They use traditional methods including bringing all the material up the hill by foot and using medieval tools. It's not an easy job, and it will take years to finish such projects. Furthermore, all the builders are volunteers, so it depends fully on their dedication and passion.

This has been the busiest summer ever, and I must say that we didn't spend a lot of time in our garden. We had visitors for two weeks and then we were travelling for another two. Luckily, our neighbours kept watering our greenhouses during those two weeks, and it looks like we created a good base as we are blessed with a wonderful harvest.

The temperatures finally feel like summer, and our vegetables started to grow much faster than before. We didn't go to the garden for a couple of days as we were travelling and when I came there yesterday in the morning I was nicely surprised. When I go to the garden twice a day I don't notice any changes, but a couple of days away and it's almost like a different place.

Recently, I have attended a retreat in Sicily where I met people from all over Europe. One of them was Carolina who lives in Switzerland as well. She lives in Biel which we haven't visited before, so we agreed to pay her a visit last weekend. It was supposed to be hot, and we planned to go to the forest, but in the end we stayed in the city as we fell in love with it.