Looking back on 2014 - January to June

Today, on the last day of the year 2014 and tomorrow, on the first day of the year 2015, I want to write my personal review of the past year, something I have enjoyed doing in my blog for the past years. You can have a look back with me on my year:

January

We started our year with the preparations for a big party: Apra’s birthday party! We had not celebrated her first birthday much, the year before, as it had been quite shortly after my mother had died and so we had planned a big birthday party this time. After shifting its date once – because the weather was horrible – we had a great party with many friends and also Apra’s grandfather from Germany.

The rest of the month was spent with thoughts, plans and more preparations for the biggest project of the year 2014.

February

And in February, when Thomas and Iris and other friends were at the Ashram, we started this big project: the building of our Ayurvedic restaurant! The first holes for the pillars were dug and soon you could see that a big change was about to happen!

Of course we also had our Ashram guests for the Ayurveda Yoga Holiday, volunteering and more.

March

Some of these guests stayed and others left while again others came in March, one of the high times of the season for us. No wonder – it is the month of Holi, the big colour celebration! As usual, it was a big, colourful party at the Ashram! It was a joy to watch Apra play in this year, too, because she was bigger and could enjoy the colours much more!

And while the holes were getting deeper at the front of our Ashram, the plans for the building changed – and extended a bit further.

At the end of the month we had a group of organic hair dressers at the Ashram who took Yoga and Ayurveda classes related to head and hair and this time was the base for several wonderful friendships!

April

While there were fewer visitors at the Ashram with the heat increasing, Yashendu, Ramona, Apra and I prepared for going to Germany. Yashendu was going to go first and did just that according to plan. Around the same time I started wondering whether I would be able to fly in May at all – my knee was hurting, the same one which had been operated 10 years before! A visit to the hospital, a decision and some days later I was in the operation theatre to get my ligament fixed for the second time. Apra had a

blast in the hospital. She just enjoyed the whole experience! The flight had to be changed, some plans in Germany, too, and I focused fully on recovering as quickly as possible!

May

By the time the date of our flight approached, I was ready to go! With one of my crutches and a support for the knee but I made it well up to Germany. In the weeks that followed I quickly gained strength and could leave both aids soon.

In Germany, we were so happy that we had decided for a long journey there: Apra, who had been fluently speaking Hindi, understanding German completely and also speaking but normally only speaking on special prompting by her mother, suddenly started talking lots and lots of German! With her German family, with our friends and all people around she had great possibilities to practice. And oh, how she enjoyed the journeys, new places she saw and meeting old friends!

June

Apra’s joy obviously was uninterrupted when we started towards Gran Canary in June! We had three weeks of workshops and more and of course also enough time to enjoy the beach and the ocean! We even took a trip to Tenerife and a highlight were the dolphin and whale shows in a zoo there as well as the wonderfully clear water there and in the north of Gran Canary!

I extended my Spanish vocabulary from just ‘Hola!’ to ‘Vamos’ – which means ‘let’s go’ – and ‘Venga, venga, vale, vale’, the very often repeated words for ‘fine’.

🙂

I now wish you a wonderful last evening of this year!