Some images from the morning …

And just to mention, earlier in the week I did an interview with a lovely friend, Talitha Ishi-Smith on Cross and Light. The programme is being repeated today at 12pm on Revelation TV. Talitha has an incredible testimony of overcoming some extremely difficult things in her life through the grace of God, and shares some beautiful and inspiring insights she has learnt about God, and about faith, and His incredible love for us.

If you would like to watch the programme, you can see it here at midday today (UK time) or on Revelation TV (SKY 581).

Have a lovely weekend, B xo

Belgian Chocolate – Brussels, Belgium

Photos by Birgit Whelan © 2011

It was a beautiful autumn day in London yesterday, and I spent the morning at the Borough Market. I love weekend markets, especially this one! Here are some photos of the food and displays I came across – barrels of olives, stacks of cheese, and baskets of bread; mushrooms, sun-blushed tomatoes and artichokes; berries, brownies and Turkish delight!

I love the shapes of the mushrooms, and the different colours of the tomatoes at the beginning – even yellow and orange – I’ve never seen that before. My favourite though were the displays of cheeses, the pyramids of soft cheeses and blue Stichelton. The photos are quite close-up here, so I might have to post one or two later to show how high the pyramids of cheese went, the displays were great!

If you love different kinds of food like me, I hope you enjoy these, and I’d love to know if you have any favourites :) Have a lovely weekend!

I had fun this morning putting together some photos I took at the Borough Market in London. I love these markets, just wandering through and seeing all of the amazing variety of foods. Here are a few that I really like, I love the different colours and textures – the dark red of the chillies, the purple artichokes and green barley grass. I’ve posted the picture of the chocolate brownies here sometime before. There was a whole tower of these thick wedges of brownie, and they tasted amazing! Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pictures J.

OK so after all the white chocolate pancakes and blue berry banana pancakes, not to mention the dark chocolate brownies, I just thought I should post a photo to show that we really do actually eat healthily, ha, ha … So this is a Greek salad I made. I love the feta and the fat slices of tomato and the balsamic vinegar … It was really nice :)

When I was a girl, Sunday evenings in December meant cinnamon stars and candles.

This is one of my favourite memories of the Christmas season growing up, the celebration of advent.

Advent means “coming” and refers to the coming of Jesus as a baby in a manger as predicted by the Old Testament prophets, as well as His future coming on the clouds in glory, as it says in Revelation (1:7).

The four Sundays leading up to Christmas mark the advent season, each time, another candle is lit within a beautiful wreath showing the progression towards Christmas. For Christians it’s a time of joy and of looking forward, and of making a place for Jesus in our hearts. It’s often celebrated in traditional churches, which I grew up in, and it’s also celebrated widely in Germany. My Dad’s German, and Mum kept up this family tradition for us growing up in New Zealand.

So on each of these Sundays, with the evening sky still full of sun in New Zealand, we would sit around a beautiful wreath that Mum had decorated, with lit candles and music, with family and friends, and Mum would bring out plates of the most gorgeous German Christmas baking. I loved the cinnamon stars the most, and there was also Stollen, a rich, fruity kind of bread filled with marzipan, lebkuchen, a soft, spicy kind of gingerbread and pfeffernusse, small spicy biscuits rolled in sugar just to mention a few.

The Sunday that has just been was the first Sunday of advent, and so it’s brought back these lovely memories of this tradition. I’ve included a photo above of an advent wreath, and spicy mulled wine being poured, from the last time we spent Christmas with my aunt and cousins in Germany.

I’d love to hear about some of your Christmas traditions. What most stands out for you growing up? Which traditions are you building with your family this Christmas season?

These were divine! They were also really rich, so you couldn’t eat much of them, but so nice.

It started with a craving for something sweet today, and there being nothing like that in the cupboard. I didn’t even have anything imaginative to bake with, but I could make pancakes! It got better when I remembered we had some white chocolate tucked away, so I melted the chocolate and then drizzled it all over them! Really yum!

What’s your favourite thing to eat when you have a craving – sweet or savoury?

Blueberries. Raspberries.

One of my favourite parts of summer :)

What have been your favourite parts of summer this year?

Photo by Birgit Whelan.