It’s been busy lately so I think I last updated this Small Weekly Pleasures post two weeks ago and not one, but better late than never, so here are some of my favourite moments from the last week or two 🙂

A walk in the botanical garden in Berlin. They provide maps for special trails here, taking you past some of the seasonal highlights, which is a great idea. We did the autumn walk, and although it was still right at the beginning of autumn and the trees were not yet in their full colours, we still saw many beautiful plants and even a shy little fox!

Pizza with friends. Some good friends happen to live conveniently close to one of our favourite pizza restaurants in Berlin, Pomodorino, which sells pizza by the slice, so we ordered takeaways for four and they put the slices together to form the biggest pizza I’ve ever seen!

Great autumn weather. I’d forgotten how lovely the weather can be at this time of the year, with very clear and crisp days. Every morning for the past week it’s been sunny with blue skies, and a bit of a chill to the air in the morning and night. The week before, every day also started off beautifully, but ended with rain, which was great as it meant some mushrooms started coming up in the forests around Berlin. There were also some amazing sunsets. And in the meanwhile, everything is still quite green and leafy, so we can still enjoy the view of our little jungle of trees in our apartment block courtyard.

Some new plants. Welcome to the household!

Eating sweet treats left over from the holidays. Terry’s chocolate orange is an old favourite, always a special treat, and I picked one up in London when I was stuck there after I missed my flight to Cape Town because my Berlin-London flight was delayed. At Dubai airport on the way back, I bought some delicious local sweets, mixed malban and nougat. Having a little piece now and then is really nice for after a stressful work day. I would definitely recommend looking out for these if you’re ever at Dubai airport.

Chinese full moon festival at Gärten der Welt. According to a friend, full moon is supposed to be a time for family to be together in China. At this festival, held once a year, they light up the Chinese garden of Gärten der Welt and have dancing, music, stalls and fireworks. It was very beautiful, with many lights shining on the lakes and kids walking around with little lanterns. The highlight was definitely the fireworks display at the end.

Mushroom gathering. In autumn, after it rains, it’s likely some mushrooms will come up. A friend of ours organized a trip to the forest to look for mushrooms, and  the variety of interesting edible and non-edible mushrooms you can see in the forest is amazing. My favourite is the red and white “Fliegenpilz” (Amanita), although these are poisonous. The most common edible ones around are Maronen-Röhrling and Steinpilz.

That’s all for this week, have a lovely week and check out Mani’s Weekly Small Pleasures event to see what other people have been up to or share the highlights of your own week! It’s a great way to take note of the small pleasures in life so that you can look back on them later.

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