Sunday, August 26, 2018

Hopefully summer isn;t over yet!

Goodafternoon everybody!

We had all kinds of weather this week. We started off with still good temps and sunshine, then midweek it started to change and we had lower temperatures and rain, and even thinder and lightning at some point. Today it is calmer again, we started the day with sunshine, but probably to the end of the day clouds will cover the sun and we might have new rainb again.
It is a bit hard to get used suddenly to the new temperatures at the moment. Not much more than 17-18C, a bit too cool to my liking.
May be ina couple of days the temperatures will rise somewhat to around 22C, but then end of the week it might coll down again.
But who knows, may be September has still some fine days for us in store. We always can hope.

I finally saw my friend Heidi this week. We didn;t meet for quite some time and it was great to talk face to face. She only didn;t have such good news. (She always waits telling me not too good news, because she doesn;t want me too worry, silly girl) She should have an operation on and bloodvain around her heart(seems she has an extra one that isnt functioning good anymore). As she has that pneumonial disease she cannot have totally narcotics, only partial, so already that isn;t too great. Could be it will only take a day in hospital, because they want to do the trick via a bloodvain high in her leg and then travel to the one around her heart. It isn;t yet completely sure she will have that surgery, but she better might let it do now. It will be necessary anyhow, because the vain we are talking about is causing trouble with her heartrate, she can have suddenly a heartbeat of over 200 a minute and that isn;t a good thing, as you can understand.
Poor thing, she first had that trouble with the new dispenser for her medicin, which is now working again good and now she has to undergo this again. She has an appointment with the specialist beginning october and then we will know more.
But apart from that we had a nice chat about all kinds of "girl"stuff.

Our garden is happy with the rain that had fallen and still will come,
but sometimes it seems that it is all or nothing here. The last few of the rainshowers last week were real heavy ones, not a nice light rainshower of an hour or two. No, a complete curtain of rain, and so much that in parts of the country they had floods, because the sewer pipes couldn;t handle the amount of water!
However, it still isn;t enough water to compensate the dry months we had.

What else has happened this week? Not much really, I believe. I did some designing on a new kit(still have to do a lot on it, hopefully I will have it ready next Sunday), did some knitting on the pillows, I think I will finish this week the cover for the second couch(putting the large rows together, pfffff).
We are having our last of our own grown tomatoes about this week I think. Pity but there comes an end to it. Still I was happy with the harvest this year.

Of course, how can I forget! Last Friday Jan and I had a tiny little party between ourselves(LOL) because we were married already for 11 years. Oh my God, time really flies at time! We didn;t do something very special but i bought us some yummie cake (caled eclair) to ahave with our coffee in the evening.
Imagine 11 years married and already 26 years together! Is that some kind of achievement or not? hahahaha.

Good, this is all I can think of to tell you, so I will post now some wonderful clusters Arlene made with the Dance through Time kit and wish you all a lovely weekend and week to come.

Download   HERE

Sunday, August 19, 2018

No "turbulence"again this week LOL!

Goodafternoon everybody!

Weather report: this week started still with rather warm temperatures and sunshine, then we had a bit of rain, some drop of temperature, and leaving us with second part of the week with mostly some clouds and some sunshine, temps around 22C.
Not bad still, I could do with a little higher temps and some more sunshine, but we still cannoot complain.

We had another "batch"of tomatoes and there is still a harvest to come, may be two. But next year we will keep perhaps 3 or 4 tomatoe plants, not so much as this year. I would like to try also some other veggies.
I watch frequently (well, about every week) on BBC the program Gardener's World and it gives lots of good info, And I saw they had some potatoes growing in a simple container and I would love to try it next year. And perhaps some beans, although they take rather some space. We'll see about that.

I was busy the last few months with knitting a cover/blanket for our couches and one is finished now, it is in grey and white( it makes the room a bit brighter), one is already over one couch, now I have to put together the next one for couch two. I do that when I feel like it(and that isn;t too often I must admit), But it is a kind of boring job in fact and still have to pay attention to do it nice, so I only do it during daytime. In the evening I started now knitting some covers for the pillows. I make them on a light ocher color, it brightens up the covers.

I make them in the same stitch as I used for the covers, very easy stitch but it gives a nice effect, specially if you don;t use too thick yarn.
I use needles of 3 or 3,5 European( in English  10 or 11?, American 2,5 or 4).
I can give you the pattern of it, had to translate it myself from Dutch to English, could find it in english. So here we go:

Multiple of 2
Row 1: knit all
Row 2: * knit 1, slip 1 stitch purlwise with yarn back*, repeat between * till end till last 2 stitches, knit those
Row 3: knit all
Row 4: knit 2,  * slip 1 stitch purlwise with yarn back, knit 1, * and repeat between * till end.
( I do make an edge stitch on each side, so count with that when you cast on the stitches)
That's all.

Good, I really don;t have much more for now, I am happy to say I just finished yesterday a little new kit for you, so I come not comppletely empty-handed, hahahaha.
Wishing you a great week!
Download   HERE

Sunday, August 12, 2018

Slowly harvesting tomatoes.

Goodafternoon everybody!

I was a bit late this morning, but after waking up rather early, I went back for another snooze, because I didn;t sleep very well this night.
I suddenly had some stomach trouble coming up yesterday afternoon and it lasted during the evening and the night. It happens every now and then, not too often, but when it does, it isn;t a pleasant feeling at all.
Well, it is already much better today, so hoping it calms down further and will be gone this evening completely.

We had all kinds of different weather this week. beginning of the week two days of very hot weather, than another day with some drop of temperature, but also rainshowers and even hard wind(lucky not as stormy as they said it would be!), then next day even more rain (plants were dancing in the rain, you know LOL)and then it got dry again and partly sunny, partly cloudy with lower temperatures but still nice of around 22C average.
It will stay that kind of weather all week. a bit clouds, a bit sunshine, perhaps here or there a little rainshower. It can stay that way still for months if you ask me.

Nothing happened here, life is just happening, and I can dig that!!
We did watch a lot of the European chamionships and we witnessed some great achivements and even did win a few medals again, even some golden!
Pity that today is the last day, still some great finals to see later and then we will have to do with the "normal"programming on tv again.
It is sometimes hard to find something nice and interesting the whole evening, it still is summer-season in tv land, and that measn a lot of poor programmiing. Oh,well, there are always a few things that catch our interest and we do register a few things so we can watch that when there isn;t anything great at a certain time.

My tomatoes are baring fruit now, and we can harvest some every 2 or 3 days. Here I have a photo of one little harvest.
As you can see we have all kind of different sorts. And they do taste fantastic!

We will have a tomatoe sald this evening (again) at dinner. And we will have fried trout and fried potatoes with them. The trout I bought yesterday at the market, so it is all fresh.
I lovve this fish, and i prepare it real simple.  Just some salt and pepperand a bit of garlic and just fry it in some oil.
Oh, and we have some strawberries with cream as dessert.
Not too bad for a Sunday hey?
Most of the week I just have a quick dinner, not too complicated and so, but it is nice to have something a little bit special every now and then.
I am not very keen on boiled potatoes(as for Jan he loves them and then mash them on his plate with some gravy), I am more from the fried potatoes, or sometimes pasta. I do have to say I have a very easy husband who eates about all I prepare. But I know of course his preferences and  I try to make a mix of his and mine. Sometimes it is so hard to come up with something for dinner, I do try to have something different every day, if possible with some fresh veggies. But every now and then I run out of ideas LOL.
Not a big deal, but challenging at times.
(and i don;t want to spend too much time on it every day, yeah, I have become a bit lazy on this point, is that a bad thing?)

Anyway, today we will have a tasty meal and then tomorrow is another day.
I have a kit for you today, named Dance thtough Time.
Have fun with it.
Take care, "see" you next week.
Download   HERE



Sunday, August 05, 2018

Love to watch European Championships

Goodmorning everybody!

Still very warm here, although it might be today a little bit less, but then next two days we will have very hot weather, temperatures even here at the coast around 30-32 C!
Then later on in the week temperatures will drop qujite a bit, to may be around 22-24C and we even might get some rain towwards wend of the week. We'll see about that. It isn't bad that temperatures will drop some, because lately it has been too much, I think. Then it might be nice if we could stay on temperatures of about 22 till late November or so????? Probably I am wishing too much, but who knows?

With those warm /even hot/ days we have had, you can imagine that I didn;t do a lot and tried not to move too much. I am in a position I can do that now, but I really pity the ones that have to work in those temperatures. That isn;t always very easy, although people working inside most of the times have airco, so it isn;t all too straining, but there are people who have their jobs outside and that should be hard!

Just before the weekend there started a combined event: European Chamionships in both Glasgow and Berlin. In Glasgow they have cycling(insideon track and outside on the road), swimming and rowing and gymnastics(hope I didnlt forget anything there) and in Berline there are athletics.
Love to watch almost all events, and there is coeverage almost all day till around 10.00 in the evening. Well, we don;t watch ALL day but we spent quite some time inside(just as good with the real warm weather, our living room is quite cool), picking out the events we like best.
I really like the gymnastics, yestrday there was the team event of the ladies and our team got bronze medal, which was more or less out of expectation. Our girls can be very proud of themselves.

Yesterday we had a scrumptious meal of boiled mussels, It was really yummie, and together with some french bread and garlic/herbs butter Jan and I had a well-filled stomach with it!
Have to think of something for dinner for the next two days, when temperatures will be really hot! I might make a potatoe salad and then we can have some cold meat with it, or perhaps some boiled eggs cold or warm. Nice thing about such a salad is, that you can put in almost everything, also good to use left-overs of vegetables and such.

Okay, this is about it for now, I have a cluster and quick-page for you from Arlene, which she made with the Close to the Seaside kit.
Have a lovely week, stay safe!
Download HERE