Christening

On Saturday we had our little girl christened by the priest who married us in Nico's hometown. We had a lovely day with family and Godparents. 

Thesedays, not as many babies are christened, and that meant we had a little struggle finding Godparents, but it was important to us to give Isabella a good start spiritually.

Many people believe it should be the baby's choice when it gets older but the tradition of confirmation is much more widespread here in Germany and, for me, that's when the baby (or young adult by then) has the chance to decide for themselves.

Something that I also found special, was the sense of tradition.  The gown pictured above was first worn by Nico's brother (who is Isabella's Godfather) and all the names are sewn in. The pink ribbon is from our wedding, which was another nice touch.

Bringing this girl up is such a blessing every day.

The Alchemist

source

This is a book that has been vaguely hanging around on my must-get-round-to reading list for quite a while now and when it happened to come up in conversation with my English group, my Russian student offered to lend me it.  I'm always very wary when I borrow things and don't like to take too long about it but I needn't have worried, I polished this little gem off in one day!

The book tells the story of a Spanish shepherd boy from Andalusia who sets out on a long journey to discover his destiny.  At first I was a little worried about the amount of religion involved.  I've mentioned before that I like to try to follow Buddhist principles.  I have the utmost respect for all religions but I don't like being told what to believe and I don't like to much of a religious focus in books unless it is essential to the story.  However, the more I read, the more I realised it wasn't really about religion but life itself and most religions are encompassed in there in some form.

The story really made me reflect on many things and I may even buy my own copy to flick through again later.  I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it yet, and I'd even recommend a re-read for those who have as it seems to be the kind of book that you can take a lot away from and that could develop over time.