We went to Strasbourg yesterday and took a stroll from Place Gutenberg to Petite France. The weather was sunny but not too warm. We had Flammekueche in a little restaurant on the canal. Surprisingly, Una ate some too - she gladly tucked into my Munster (a pungent alsacian cheese) -covered tarte flambée although she won't touch pizza (I suppose that means she has given us her answer to the oldest dilemma of hedonists worldwide: "Italy or France?").

In the evening we payed a little visit to the local branch of the Leclerc Supermarché - the goldmine of French délicatesses we discovered on our holiday in Provence. In it, I found some things I've been searching for in vain for years at the Super U and Carrefour. Most importantly the La Tisanière Poire Caramélisée tea which I used to drink when I was pregnant. I had a cup for breakfast today and the soft fruity aroma brought me right back to those happy days!

At the small Paul bakery next to the supermarket I rediscovered my beloved moelleux au chocolat, also known as the best chocolate cake in the world. I was first introduced to it at Covent Garden in May 2006 - back then we enjoyed the lovely atmosphere of the restaurant behind the bakery (while hordes of yuppies queued for hours to get a table for lunch - who would have thought their lunch break was that long?) and my moelleux was served à la mode. This time I brought it home and had it on the sofa, without the ice-cream, after we had put Una to bed, but it was still supremely delicious. It's comforting to know that even good things can remain good. For years.

Our point-and-shoot is Una's new favourite toy. She's a natural. Feel the concept!

Our darling daughter is a huge lover of cutlery. Bring on the forks and spoons, even if it's popcorn we're eating! Her self-feeding technique has made a noticeable progress in the past few weeks - now she actually manages to keep most of the stuff she wants transferred to her mouth on the spoon. She allows help with loading the spoon, but only if you put your hand over hers while doing it - taking the spoon from her is out of the question and all attempts severely punished with decibels galore.

She's a pretty good eater. The only thing we're having problems with is fruit. She'll eat bananas and occasionaly, strawberries. And that's it. She used to eat apples (we have video proof!) but she won't touch them anymore. If she sees another kid eating fruit, she'll take a bite too but eventually she'll spit it out. I remember my mother used to mix grated apple with sugar for me when I was a kid to make the stuff more appealing. I'm wondering whether I should do the same and if she likes it, I'll cleverly (muahaha) reduce the amout of sugar until she ends up eating pure apple. The chances are she'll see through me. She usually does. But I'll give it a go anyway.

She stills go to sleep with a bottle of milk but during the day she drinks from a plastic glass and holds the glass herself. Sometimes the contents of the glass accidentally end up on her chest and sometimes - not so accidentally - on the floor, and sometimes smaller toys, pieces of bread and biscuit go for a swim there. We have discovered that a larger glass can also be used to wash hands in. As ever, Una is resourceful.

Elvy, my Flickr friend and fellow Karlsruherin asked me to photograph her wedding last weekend. After some anxiety about possible rain, we woke up to a slightly overcast day that was perfect for shooting portraits outdoors. I made poor Elvy and her new husband Philip roll in the grass in their wedding attires and walk barefoot on a meadow. I'm an autocrat wedding photographer. See how you like some of the results...

I've got just a few pages left of Tobias Wolff's short story collection Our Story Begins. As I said in my previous reading post, the book had been recommended to me and my expectations high. When I first started reading, I thought of it as a mild let-down for no particular reason, it just wasn't my cup of tea. Very American way of writing, very American genre, quite a few stories about military life and "male bonding", however critical and twisted the approach - not something that I can easily relate to. But there are some true gems in this collection, in particular Two Boys and a Girl, The Liar, but most of all Down to Bone, an absolutely matsterful piece of life rather than ficition that brought tears to my eyes.

At the same time I read Patrick McGrath's Doctor Haggard's Disease. As remarkable and strange as this book may be, I would certainly not call it enjoyable; McGrath's vivisection of a man's madness is so relentless and excessive it's almost squalid. His writing style is lavish, ornate and romantic like a heavy perfume. It takes an acquired taste.

Quite the opposite is Gilbert Adair's The Act of Roger Murgatroyd. It's light and effervescent, funny and hugely entertaining. It's a whodunnit observed from an ironic distance, but a classic nevertheless, and an obvious hommage to Agatha Christie. Adair is obviously a huge fan of the genre, although he's more than aware of its frequent slips into preposterousness which he doesn't fail to make fun of. But with love, and that's why the novel is so zingy. Have already bought the second Evadne Mount mystery A Mysterious Affair of Style and will start reading it next. The title alone is more than promising.

In August I also hope to read Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader and Edward St. Aubyn's Some Hope Trilogy (or at least start with the latter because it's quite a dickes Schinken, as the Germans would say).