Blogs which describe moments in my life, or the lives of my family.
New Year’s Eve conjures pictures of countdowns with clocks striking midnight, fireworks and corks popping out of champagne bottles. I have spent many a New Year’s Eve with those pictures and sounds, surrounded by family and friends, or one or the other. Lately the night has been quieter. There is
Christmas traditions can be made, remade, forgotten, remembered and reinvented. One of the traditions I used to love was reading from Tasha Tudor’s book Take Joy! as we gathered around the Christmas tree, just before we opened our presents. I inherited my mother’s copy of the book and I still
When I was a child, we always had real Christmas trees. My father, my mother and I would drive to a Christmas tree farm to choose the perfect tree. My father would carry it into our apartment and place it carefully in the stand which my mother had set up
On Friday night I had the pleasure of my eldest grandson’s company. It was the first time he had stayed overnight with me on his own, without at least one of his parents. It was a big thing for a nearly three-year-old. We had big plans for the next day
My paternal grandfather, Peter Julius Otto von Fircks, was born at Nurmhusen on 23 February 1876. At that time Nurmhusen, the Fircks family estate, was in Kurland, now Latvia. His name, date of birth and death, are recorded in the family tree composed by my cousin. My cousin was the
“We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea… whether it is to sail or to watch – we are going back from whence we came.” John F Kennedy The ocean has played a part in the lives of both sides of my family. In