A rather cold King's Day this year.

Goodmorning everybody!

Yes, there was again King's day, and it was happening last Wednesday. It was the birthday of our King Willem-Alexander and the family always celebrates it somewhere in the country. This time it was the town of Zwolle, in the eastern part of The Netherlands.
Everybody was fearing the day because of the weather, but all together it wasn;t as bad as thought. Okay, it was much too cold , but there was still some sun shining and dry.
I have a couple of pictures, first is of the Royal Family and the second is one of them enjoying the performance of a very popular band here, named Taifun.
Specially the princesses had a real good time there, jumping up and down and dancing on the music!!

We didn;t go out on Wednesday, because the weather was not nice at all here. Normally we go out and take a good walk around the free markets(jumble sales and flee markets) and such, but there was no fun to do so this year.

As I predicted, my visit at the doctor didnt last more than about 5 minutes. Well, she suggested that at a time perhaps a test could be done about my liver function. Nothing to worry about, just to have a control. It seems that using my medicins for it can have a side affect on the liver for a bit. But  have no complaints from side effects so she made a note for my house doctor and we'll see if he does anything with it. Hopefully not, I am done this year with test and hopistals and all that. More important now is the MRI scan Jan will have in May.

As I said we had some real nasty and cold weather( in the eastern part they even had some snow and hail!), but it seems that this week temperatures will slowly creep up to more normal of the time of year. Let's hope so and specially let's hope it will go up even more and stay around 21-26 C for a very very long time, LOL!

I have today some wonderful clusters and quickpages for you made by Arlene, with the Simplicity kit. They are marvellous.
In the mean time I am getting some new kits together, yes, slowly but steady.
I am not sure yet what i will do today. Depends a bit on how the weather will be this afternoon, I guess. Oh, well, a day lingering along at home, doing not much sounds also good to me. Let's just see and experience, hahaha.
Have a lovely weekend.
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Managed to make a few photos

Goodmorning everybody!

Friday Jan went to his volunteer-job-dinner and was home at about 21.30 p.m. He could ride home with somebody, who dropped several people in our neughbourhood and dropped Jan right in front of our door. Real nice, hey? It seems he had a nice time at the restaurant, with all kind of stuff to eat, and even of rather good quaility, LOL.
I had a little nap in the afternoon when he was gone and then watched an episode of Gardeners World on the BBC, among some other programs and the time went fast till Jan was home again.

Saturday afternoon I went to town centre, not for something special, just to be out for a moment. On several places it wasn't all to good, because there was a hard wind blowing and then it felt rather cold.
But on other parts you could walk a bit out of the wind and when the sun was shining, it was even not bad at all.
Well, I came home with some quick-soups from the Chinese shop and a few other little things, amongst it one dahlia bulb, that wasn;t expensive at all.
I planted that yesterday and have to wait till around July to blossom(if it will grow, of course).
Temperatures aren;t really high at the moment, but at moments the sun is shining and you can be out of the northern wind, it isnt all too bad to be outside. Still I would like temperatures to go up again, because around 8C it isn;t much and far to cold for the time of year. But hope is there, by the end of the week it should go up again and wind will turn to SW, so that could make a real difference.

Yesterday I was a real busy bee. I did a laundry, changed the bed duvet covers and sheets and such,
prepared dinner in advance, hang out the laundry, did some other little jobs, and even did some garden work.
And although we don;t have yet a lot of flowers at the moment, it still is nice to be in the garden, even if it is just sitting in the sun for a moment.
ut there is always a bit of work to do, specially now some of the seedlings are starting to grow slowly and have to be re-potted.
Oh, I even managed to make a few photos of the garden, and of two I am very pleased, because I had a visitor.

Bit hard to see at the first picture, but if you look well, you see a paraqueet, having lunch LOL!

As I said, there aren;t too much flowers yet in the garden but my rose at the rosebow is getting a lot of buds and some f them will open up real soon.

Adn there was one individual following all my moves, having a sun-bath at the same time:

Today I will have to go to my yearly appointment with the neurologist9for my epilepsia), no big deal, it will take no more than 5 minutes, I guess, probably the waiting time will take much longer!

That's all for now, folks!
Here a new kit, named "Simplicity". Have some fun with it.
and have a wonderful day!

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During weekend and next week spring will be gone.

Goodmorning everybody!

We had some lovely days, with rather nice temperatures and almost no rain for some days.
I even snatched some sun, sitting in the garden for may be 15 minutes or so and feeling the warmth of the sun. Wonderful!!
But with weekend and some days next week temperature will drop drastically and will not reach more than about 8 C! Aweful.
so we better take advantage of the days it still is nice.
Yesterday  Jan and I went to a shop where there was an action for some little trays with springplants, it was a good price for them so we took the trouble to go there. It was a disappointment, because they didn;t had those trays yet(although it was mentioned in there folder it was from Tuesday-on!).
Okay, nothing to do about it.
Later on I went to a supermarket for some shopping and hoorray, there they had those trays already a day early, So I was lucky and took 3 of them with me(that are only 30 tiny little plants, but give them a couple of weeks and they will lok great!).
Jan and I put them in our garden yesterday-afternoon.

Yesterday  also made an appointment with my neurologist (for my epilepsie)for a yearly check talk, which will probablt last no more than 5 minutes, and it appears I was just in time for that appointment.
The lady at the appointdesk told me to make the appointment next year a bit earlier, because sometimes the insurance could do a bit difficult about it when it isnt within a year's time. never heard of it but will take notice of it. The lady was sweet and gave me an appointment already next Monday-afternoon, which is really a miracle. Normally you will have to wait at least one or two month.

This friday jan will have a dinner from his volunteerjob. So nice of the staff that they invited him too.
They arranged that a few of them come with their cars and take the ones that don;t have transport.
The restaurant is in a little village, about 20 km from here.

Today i have clusters from Arlene, made with the Step Forward kit.
Have a wonderful day and rest of the week.

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Some nice days with sunshine

Goodmorning everybody!

Oh yes, we had some nice days, with big parts of it with sunshine, not yet all too high temperatures, but already heading the good direction.
In fact not too much happened this week, apart from doing some household stuff, which felt good to have done, LOL and some shopping for groceries. I had to put a few bills to the bank yesterday(one of my least favourite things to do ROFL), and as the bank is close to our market it made a quick visit there. I didn;t buy much things, just a few vegs and some fruit for the weekend. But it was nice to be outside, with a lot of sun and little wind.
Today looks to be about the same, may be I can sit a moment in the garden in the sun.
Yesterday Jan also took a little walk and came back with a little table for the garden, that he found in a recycle shop, for just a few euros. I should have taken a photo, but I just didnt think of it. I will try to make one this weekend okay?

I also did a bit of work in the garden. I dug out a big clump of grass, which is a beautiful addition to the border, but it became just too big. So I dug it out, took of some fresh parts and planted them again.
Now suddenly there is a whole lot more of free space in the border, hahaha.
Oh, I also cleaned our little pond and when trowing out the dirty water there already came out 4 frogs, that were hiding in it.
It didnt take long after I scrubbed it clean and filled it with fresh water, that the frogs came back and as I looked closer, two of them were having apparantly a very good time together, if you know what  mean!
And yes, already the next day there was a big clump of spawn in it.
So we will have a lot of little froggies jumping around at summertime!

Also wanted to draw your attention to Arlene's Etsy shop. She has added several real nice things there, so perhaps it is worth the trouble of taking a look there and perhaps do a purchase?
The link is 
https://www.etsy.com/shop/BabyBearDigitalScrap
Today I have a smaller kit for you, named Step Forward. Hope you can do some nice layouts with it.
Now it is almost time for me to call my doctor, to ask about the test and see if at least the bacterie i carried along has gone now. Hope so, don't want to do more tests and walks to the doctor. I am a bit done with that, yak.
Wishing you a wonderful day and coming weekend, enjoy it as much as you can.

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Garden is slowly awakening.

Goodmorning everybody!

It was a rather quiet week and I like it. During this week I did some things I actually planned and that feels already rather good.
Tuesday Jan was ready preparing to go out, because he had an "evaluation"talk at his volunteer place.
They do that every year, just to talk through the year and how the institution thinks about you.
But as he was taking his shower, the phone rang and they said that the lady who would do the talk just went home sick. So Jan got up early for nothing actually.
Well, it's not a big deal, of course, he had a long day ahead of him this way LOL.
The talk will be on another time.

It was quite a kind of interesting week talking political issues here. Now I am not really political engaged, but sometimes things happen caused by governmet or a minister and such, that are rather important and have some impact. So this week too, one about our minister of Justice and Security, who had some real big mistakes to explain(but he got away with again and is still having his job) and then there was all the talk about a referendum about an agreement with Ukrain, mostly a trade agreement with the European Union. Nobody really knows what's it about, but our country still had to sign it, so we could give our opinion. Hmmmm, the outcome was NO to it, so our government has to do something with it, to stay a bit credible and reliable. Still, all the other countries of the European Union already signed it, therefore I don't see and believe our country can hold it back or change it a lot. 
All week before and even more, there were a lot of discussions on tv about it, of the pro's and contra's, sometimes it was interesting to follow. But in the end, hmmmm, nothing really will change.

Our weather is a bit on a rollercoaster I guess. Some days we have some sunshine, at times a bit of rain, temps arent too exciting yet, but again in the weekend they will rise to about 17 or 18C(they say, but have to see first LOL). If so, it will be good for the gardens.
But although it isn;t too warm yet, i is possible to do some work in the garden if you wear a warm sweater of so. And Jan and I did so ysterday for a while. He had to replant some seedlings again and I went for the dahlia's. May be just a whee bit early to plant them, but okay, we'll take the risk. If we will have no sudden frost at night anymore, they will survive and hopefully bloom as well as last year.
We also planted the new ones I bought last year, so I am really curious to see they will bloom well and how they will look. If they bloom well, of course I will take some photos.

Oh, Heidi and  even managed this week to have a longer phonecall, ROFL. May be we will managed next week or so to actually see eachother again. It's no so much my "fault", more hers, but completly understandable. She has busy life, with her husband and daughter(who is now in her teens, and yeah, that's a difficult time for parents), and all that happens and as we older people say: time flies, well, Heidi has the same feeling and she is much younger.
But one of these days we will have a visit and that's okay.

Not much more to tell, so  better give you a freebie and wish you a great and wonderful weekend.
This time it are clusters from Arlene, made with the Toujours kit.
I am busy with new kits, they are progressing slowly but steadily!
Bye bye.

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New month and Spring is arriving

Goodmorning everybody.

Last Monday it surely didn;t look like spring was arriving at all. We had really stormy winds, rainshowers and it wasn;t nice at all. So we stayed in and kind of hibernated, LOL.
Then the other days of this week were already better and are getting better evey day.
I was busy with some grocerie shopping and a bit of cleaning and also had to make some phonecalls to settle some things. Glad that is done, one worry less.
Yesterday Jan went to his appointment with his doctor for the result of the MRI. Well, they cannot really see and decide what it is they see, so he needs to get another MR in two months. Then probably she can see more. It could be a tumor of some kind, but also a little clump of blood. Not the best news although I shouldn;t worry too much yet, even if it is a tumor it could be one that isn;t a real bad one, but it is the insecurity that knocks you down.  In two months she might see if the spot has become bigger, if so, it might be a tumor and then she will send the photos and such to another hospital and what happens then we don;t know yet, of course. Well, we'll just have to wait.
Best is not to think too much about it I guess, but it's hard.

On a brighter note the weather is changing to be real nice this weekend, with sunshine and rather high temperatures if they are right. It might get to around 17 C, and that is lovely!
It might give us some gardening time, although we cannot yet plant too much, certainly not the dahlia-bulbs. Because next week temperature is going down again and it is just too early for these bulbs.

What about the nieghbours in the appartmenet above us? They are still busy renovating, yes! and we both are getting a bit itchy now, because they are busy there for about 3 months and worst is that if they need to saw or hammer or sand down things they do it in early morning around 8 or 9 and we are not amused by it. It has become a bit less, okay, but still at times we wake up because of that and I am not happy about it. Don;t want to make fuss about it, but i think it has been long enough and they should think a bit about neighbours.  I cross fingers that it soon will be done with.

So as you see, parts of life are rather good, other things could go better, but we shouldn;t complain yet too much. Around us in the world and even not far away, people have tough times.
Did I do much designing lately No, not really, but I try every now and then to continue on two new kits in contruction, LOL.
For today I have a kit I named "Toujours"(= always), and I hope you will like this.
Wishing you all a happy weekend and some lovely days.

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