Shocking week!

Good afternoon everybody!

To start with the weather, it is raining now with lots of wind, although the temperatures aren't too bad yet. But they will drop from now around 17-18 to 14-15C later this week. It really is getting into autumn-weather.

Where to start? The week started quiete good, quiet, some plans in the head to do, all quite as usual.
Wednesday evening I already noticed that Jan wasn't all 100% himself. He also didn;t have much appetite in the evening, I asked him why, he answered that he had some tummy trouble. Okay, that can happen. But it got worse, he really hurt when having tose "stitches", so I said he needed a doctor. He wanted to wait till morning so I could call our doctor. But it got still worse, he vomited also, so I called the SMASh(night emergency doctor's post). First they asked if we could come to the doctor's post(in a hospital rather far away from us), but I refused. Jan was in no comdition, to get into a taxi.
So the night doctor came to us. Couldn't find right away a cause, gave him a kind of painkiller and medicin against feeling sick and vomiting.
Urged us to call our doctor in the morning. You can imagine we didn;t have a good night, specially Jan not, the poor soul.
Next morning I right away called our doctor. Explained it all to the assistent and urged her to send the docor over as soon as he could. He came around midday, and called for an ambulance, because he didnlt know exactly what the cause was, but said Jan was a fragile patient, so better take no risk.
On to hospital emergency. We were there for about 4 hourse at least, Jan had all kind of tests and scans. They couldn;t see anything causing those pains in the belly. Gave us the choice to stay in hospital ro going home. ou shouldn;t give people that kind of coice, I think,. but okay, there was no direct medical reason to keep him there. He got however the advice, that if it got again worse, we should call directly to the ER of the hospital and we would be fetched by ambulance.
I wasn;t happy with it, but Jan wanted to go home and see how it went.
For a bit early evening it seemed to go slightly better, but already soon it all came back and even worse. So at about 5 o'clock night I called the ER.
Explained, and asked for ambulance to pick us up. Then I got the answer that they couldn;t send it, but I had to call for the 112(emergency phonenumber for police, ambulance and firefighters). Strange, but okay, I did so. ecplained and there they said the hospital probably could send the ambulance. All very confusing but after half an hour there suddenly was the ambulance.
Then the whole circus started again with all kind of tests and scans(in the meantime, Jan got some painkillers, so it didn;t hurt that much). Becaue of his diminished liver function and slight kidney problems he cannot have all painkillers, but they knew that.
After a long session of tests and waiting, I think we were there busy for about 6 hours, finally they stumbled onto something.
I try to tell it all as short as possible, which isnt easy, sorry.
At last there came a specialist Jan knows from earlier stay in hospital and he told him that they seemd to see on the scan, that 3 bloodvessels, going to the intenstins, were smaller(partly blocked) and therefor the intestins didnt get enough oxygen rich blood causing in longer terms mortifying of the intestins, and at first possibility of getting into a knot. And that causing hose pain-stitches Jan felt.
Two options: doing nothing, he would die, very soon or in short time.
Second option: an operation right away, with no garantee of succes, that was all depending on the situation of the intestins, that they only could see and know when opening the belly and taking a look.
Quite shocking, isn;t it?? We never could have thought of this to happen.
Well, there wasn;t much to argue, Jan decided he wanted the operation.
Then after may be 10 minutes came the surgeon who would do the operation, explaining us what they would do. As they already were operatinm they would place some stents into the vains leading to the intestins, so the blood could run freely and well again. And then they would see how the condition of the intestins was, if there was a knot in them or not, and if there was any kind of mortification to see or not.
Jan was in the operation room wihin an hour I believe.!!

I was a bit in a stress, you could say! About just two years ago I had almost the same situation, that time when Jan's kidneys had to had to be brought back to life again. He could die or he would survive. Well, that time he survived.
Now it was about the same. Quite a tricky operation, (specially because Jan was already having a fragile liver and also kidneys and all together it made it more tricky)with no knowledge of the outcome till the had opened the belly and even then, or just die.
Pffffffff, not the thing you are waiting for on a Friday!(or any day of the week)
I right away called Heidi, I just needed some support. She came right away, I think within 15 minutes she was there, and she just could see Jan for a minute and wish him well, before he went to the operation room.
Then I just had to wait. After Heidi and I (and also Séverine came over, so sweet)had a cup of coffe I decided just to go home and wait there.
 At about 5 o'clock a.m the surgeon called me to tell the operation went well, there seemd to be no dammage, they placed the stents into the vains and that worked really well. Of course we still had to wait how all would settle again,  but he was moderate optimistic.
Tonnes of weight fell of my shoulders!

I visited Jan Yesterday afternoon and of course he was terribly tired, but that didn;t matter. He still wss there! I saw the belly and I think he has quite a scar there, but that can heal. It will all take time, but that doesn't matter too much.
Gosh, I was soooo happy to be able to give him a little kiss and look into his eyes and hold his hand!!!!
In an hour or two I will go to the hospital again and see how he is feeling today. We just will have to take it day by day, won;t we?
Good, that was our week.

I will finish now, I think my laundy it just about ready, so I can hand it out, before it is time to go to Jan.
Please stay safe and look after yourselves and your loved ones. Life sometimes has nasty tricks up it's sleeves!

Probably last of the summer days.

Goodafternoon everybody!

Yes, this weekend we have still summer weather. Yesterday it felt already niice, but we had lots of wind, today there is much less wind and the temperature feels good. I think we reach around 21-22C. But..... next week temperatures will drop already, not too much but all counts in this time of year LOL.
Temperature will be around 17-19C and slowly the nights will be colder too, to under 10C, and you can feel that.
In the evenings the room feels chilly and so we put on the central heating on, and I wished we could have waited with that somewhat longer.(it all takes gas and electricity, and it isn;t very cheap these days).

It was a quiet week, I did achive a few things(small things, but okay, I did them hahaha), not interesting enough to mention though(and some I don;t remember off anymore anyway LOL).
But..... I did try out the washing machine! yeah, and I already know that the program I tried, will not be used a lot, it takes a lot of time! So next round of laundry will be done in another and shorter program, that will do the job just as good(I think).
And I also tried out the oven last Friday, just for a little thing, but it works fantastic(after I figured out how exactly use it, hahaha).
Today I made us an oven dish for dinner, yeah! I have cannelloni with minced meat, tomatoe sauce and bechamel sauce and covered with grated cheese.
It has been such a long time ago that we had that for dinner, so I am really looking forward to it! I will add a tomatoe salad to it and for desert there is a yoghurt with peach taste. Not bad for a Sunday.
I don;t make the cannelloni tubes myself. I buy them ready made, dried, and i just have to fill them with the minced meat (fried with diced onions, fresh basilicum leaves chopped, some pepper and salt).
It's much easier than making your own, although that always taste just a little bit better. Still, it is too much work for just us two. Why do it difficult if you can do it the easy way.
Only have to put it in the oven for about 25-30 minutes and yummie, it will be ready.


I cannot think of anything else to tell, so I better leave it for today and hope to have more things to share next week.
Stay safe and have a lovely week!

The kitchen looks renewed fo a part!

Good afternoon everybody!

Our weather is going up and down and up and down again. Frustrating!
Last week we had some rather cold days(if you compare with the heat we had before), we reached may be 17-18 C, sometimes cloudy and sometimes a it of sunshine. Also a day or two with dark clouds, making it look all very gloomy, and a day with lots of rain. This weekend we have better weather, with temperatures around 20-21C, sunshine so it looks nice and also feels quite good.
But that will be over soon. Next week is expected cool weather with may be temperatures between 15./16 to at the most 18C. Brrrrr, that will be a difference. We will need to put on the heating at times I guess, to be comfortable when we are sitting in the room.
Oh well, it is to be expected of this time of year, I only hoped for a bit longer summerlike temperatures.

Yes, it really happened! I have my new appliances, whoohoo! Last Thursday two guys came with the stuff, early morning at about 9.30 and I think they were ready with it all at about 13.00 a.m. Gosh, it looks a bit different now.
 I also have a spare pladce in the kitchen now where I had my dishwasher. We didn;t buy a new one, because I can do the dishes and that myself, it is done so quickly, no need to have a machine doing it for me. It uses a lot of water, more than I use by hand. But now we have to figure out waht to do with the space. Best would be to make some shelves there and use it for my pans or something like that. I donlt know if we can find a ready made cupboard of the size needed and what it will cost. Or may be we can find someone who could make us what we want. Till we figured out what to do I can hid the gap with a little curtain, that will look at the least better than that dark hole LOL.
Next week I will try out the oven, first have to look into the booklet to read the meaning of all the little drawings. All is rather obvious but I feel better when I first saw the explanation in the booklet.
After a few time it will all be very easy going.
I am happy that finally we were able to replace some of the old stuff, because they were really at the end of life! LOL.
Best had been to may preplace the whole kitchen(with cupboards and so) but that we cannof afford. So for now, it will do.

Oh we also did  buy something else at the same time. Not long ago we bought ouselves a new tv. Well, we werenlt all too happy with the sound. So now we have a soundbar and that makes a lot of difference. Sound is much better and you also can adapt it to your liking or to the program.
Pffff, that were a lot of expences in short time.
Necessary? Yes, most of it and the soundbar? in a way to, and why not give ourselves a little present?

Next project will be to find somebody who can take away an old tree in our garden. The tree is dead, not too big, but overgrown with ivy and it is bending over to one side. I fear it will break when there will be a storm and then the damage might be quite big. specially when it fall is into the neighbours garden.
One of our beighbours migth know somebody who could do it for us for a not too heavy price(when I call a specialized company for it, I think it will cost me a lot of money). Let's see what this person will charge us(if he wants to do it) and then we can decide. But it has to be done this autumn.

Another good thing from having the new appliances is, that we had to clear out the fridge, and one or two cupboards and drawers, so the men could easily connect some pipes etc.
It gave me the chance to look over all the stuff and clear out some of it. It feels so good when you finally decide to throw some things away, and get rid of some things that take room and that you never use(so it came out seeing it coming out of the cupboards LOL). Okay, it wasn't all too much but again a start.
It is unbelievable what you gather over the years, specially when you have a house where there is quite some room to stuck stuff away for a while ROFL.
I will have to do that kind of clean out several times more, believe me, because we have far too much of everything standing and lying around!
Good to bear that in mind and when I have another burst of energy I should do some cleaning out again.

The daughter of Heidi, Séverine, is zstudying now! She is doing a study to become speach therapiste. I think it is great. She has to travel to another city, about an hour travel all together, with the subway and then also tram or bus. And her mother is worrying a bit about that. I understand, because she is still a yongster, only 17, and then all alone making the travel, specially when it dark in wintertime and so. But it seems most of the time she can travel with one or two other students, doing the same study, so that is reassuring.
I hope Séverine will finish the study, it takes at least 3 years, and isn't that easy as it may seem. I wish her all kind of luck.

Okay, that is it I think for this week. Time to grab a bite(it will end in a little sandwich I think hahaha) and then perhaps already prepare a bit for the dinner this evening.
And also I can perhaps sit for 15 minutes in the sunshine, taking advantage of it while I can, because next week I don't think it will nice enough.
Have a wonderful week everybody, try to stay safe and healthy!

This week I will have the new appliances!

Goodafternoon everybody!

The weather isn't great for the last few days, but a little rise of temperature is coming this week.
We had quite some rainshowers, also sunshine, one or two days with too much wind, we even had to start the central heating on in the evening, not for long, just to make it feel comfortable. I really do hope that temperatures will rise again and stay for a while around 21-22C at daytime and that night temperatures will not go too low yet.

There wasn;t much going on last week, although I had one day an injection of energy suddenly and I took advantage of it to clean on top of the kitchen cupboards. Yeah, it was necessary. I always put on some newspapers or kitchen paper on them, which helps a lot against  getting dirty. But still it needs a cleaning every now and then. It is taking some energy, because I have to climb up a ladder and down again and up again etc. etc. Still, I am happy I did it, even cleaned some little windows that I only can reach with climbing up the ladder, so I was rather happy with myself LOL.
And I also did it now, because I expected the guys with the new appliances soon.
I had hoped they would come this last week, but had no phonecall. So I called, but they didn;t call back and then Jan went there on Saturday to ask why not calling back and when they thought they would come placing the new stuff.
It seemed they had some trouble with trucks not working or so, could be true and they had a lot of work(the last thing I do believe). But okay, now they will come on Thursday, between 10.00 and 12.00 morning.
Oh, I will be so happy to have it all finally and I am getting even a bit nervous about it. I will have to take time to read the instruction books of the apppliances, most of it will be simple enough to handle, but I always have trouble with instruction books. I wonder why often the instructions are written in such a way that it looks aweful difficult, and once you get the hang of it it is rather simple?????

Well, we will see how it all will go, First the installation of the things, hopefully the guys will not encounter any hidden problems!

Pity that slowly autumn is getting into the garden. Lots of plants lost their flowers, although we still have some blossoms here and there. The hollyhocks are still blooming, and also the roses are showing a second life! Jan already took out our tomatoe plants, we had a few tomatoes of them, but now a great harvest. Now we only have to clean the plastic pots, take out the used soil and so. We can use the soil from the pots in the borders, there it casn recycle itself, so to speak. Some parts of our borders need some more soil and this is a good way to do it. It isn;t always necessary to buy bags full of new soil.
If next weekend the weather will be nice enough, I think we will replace some smaller bushes. We probably will cut back and then dig out one of our hortensias( the white one), because it isn;t really pretty anymore. I have a cutting from it standing in an other part of the garden, so I still will have a white one and it is kind of special to me. I once got it from a good friend of ours, lots of years ago as small plant, and it grew and flowered well for many years. Our friend died long ago at rather young age, so it is a memory of her.
Now I still have the cutting of the original to hold on to the memory.
In it's place we will plant another hortensia, a dark red one that at the moment grows in a pot, but is getting to big for it.
Also have to replace a smaller azalea, with a fantastic color of flower, so it will be more in sight when it flowers.
There always is work in a garden, which I don;t mind, but some things will get tougher to do, the more we get older. But for the moment we can handle it still rather well, we'll see how it goes the next few years.

Also I am looking around for a new laptop(two actually),  can buy a new one but that is rather expensive, so that will be the last option. I am sure I can find soon a good second hand one, that will serve me for a couple of years.
First the new appliances and then the new laptops and then the installing of the programs I always use and that in windows 10! Oh dear, I hope I will not encounter too many problems with it.

At the moment, when Jan and I are at our computers (most of the time Jan reading the news and then playing a game and me at times reading some blogs and then playing a little game, not yet ready for designing again sorry), we put on "old" records we sometimes didn;t play for a very long time. And it is nice, you know! Sometimes it brings memories, and sometimes you didn;t even know you had some songs on disc. It isn;t easy to remember which artists we all have, because I think we have around 600 records, then we also have quite some cd's, so music enough!

Good, that is it about for today. I think  will make myself a cup of tea, play may be a little solitaire and later on watch a bit of sport on tv.
I am having a really easy Sunday, and it includes the dinner.Yesterday I made us a chicken soup, well filled and there is still so much left that we will have that today too! Perhaps just a sandwich with butter with it and our stomach will be filled again. If we get a biit hungry later in the evening we always can take something like a sandwich or may be some frankfurters( most of the time  have one or two cans with in the cupboard, always handy to have).

Wishing you a lovely week, hopefully you will all stay safe from any hurricanes, or heavy rainshowers, or extreme heat(all depends where you are living obviously).
See you next Sunday!

Please let the summer stay a bit longer!!!

Goodafternoon everybody!

We had a few very warm days here again, but now weather is going really to change this week. YHou can notice it already today, although we still have sunshine, but temperature has dropped to around 21 and will drop a lot more this week according to weather report. It will be no more than may be 17-18C and I am not yet ready for that!!!
If that goes on for several days, we might need to use the central heating again, because inside our house it always feels a bit cooler. And when you don;t move around too much, you easily get colder and don;t feel comfortable.
Oh, I just hope it will be a kind of "dip" and that next week the temperatures will go up to again 20-22C, and that we will have a true nice and rather warm Indian Summer.

Our guest has gone home again. I am talking about Tommy, the dog gfrom Heidi. She came last Tuesday afternoon to pick him up. she had first a little chat with us(it was very warm that day) too cool down a little bit with a drink.
And you know, we only had the dog for a few days, but in the evening we missed him, because we were already kind of used to let him out.
I must say Tommy was no bother at all, he was so quiet, you almost didn;t notice he was there, really.
Oh boy, he gave Jan a shock, yes! I think it was Monday evening, and Jan wanted to give him a short walk late evening, so first Jan prepared himself(putting on his shoes and so) and then came in with the leash for Tommy.
He called him, but no reaction! he called again, still nothing, so he touched him to get his attention. Still nothing. Now we both were worried! So I looked and touched him, but he still was breathing, although almost not noticable.
Well, I shook him with siome force and then he awoke and in no time stood on his feet. Seems he was just sleeping very deeply asleep! PFFFFF! I already saw a scenario of us calling the vet ambulance and Heidi and all that. But no, nothing of that. All was normal and well. LOL.

Wednesday I had a rather productive day. Meaning I was in cleaning mood and such. yes, worth to mention because it doesn;t happen every day ROFL.
I accomplished several things, made me feel good, Jan was nice to me and took over the vacuum cleaning.

I am also spending a little time at the computer searching for recipes for my friend Edna, that will have to be easy and quick things with low sodium. I already found some things, but I will gather first a fair amount, so she will have a varied choice. It is nice to see what is possible, and there is much more to find than you think, that tastes good, is easy and quick and also good for the health.
It will also be good for us, because I try to cook low sodium too. Specially for Jan, with his retaining fluid rather easy and also for his kidneys. So it will be an interesting search for me too.
I have loads of recipes in maps that I collected over the years and also still from my mother's collection.(She was a great cook, and loved to prepare special dinners for friends and family from time to time).
But I donlt know if it is the same with you, but I notice that at the end I make just a certain amount of those recipes more often or regularly.
I like to try out recipe, that's for sure(and I will be able to do so again when I have the new appliances), and I have a great hubby, that always taste them.
He is a real easy to satisfy, of course he has his likes and dislikes but he rarely says he really doesn;t like the food I prepare.

It is such a shame that one of our favourtie quizzes, called The smartes person, is finished again for this season. It is a quiz in which you actually have to have some good generale knowledge. But now we have a new season of The Voice of Holland Senior again. That is really interesting at times.
And soon (if I am right it will be next Saturday) a new season of Stricktly come Dancing starts at the BBC. I just love that program.
There also started some new detectives so there is more than enougfh to watch( sometimes we just don;t have enough time in the evening LOL).
We could watch during the day some things we recorded, but most of the time I don;t have the patience for it and of course there are things to do during the day.
last few weeks I watched the tv serie Victoria(about queen Vicoria of Great Britain) and I loved that too. The second season of it just started this weekend, so I recorded that and still have to watch it. Yes, I not only love to see detectives, but also from time to time historical series.

Good  think I did enough rambling for today, hahaha. It is about time I take a look at the stew I am making with lamb meat. That will be for this evening dinner, together with some boiled potatoes and a salad with mini-tomatoes.
There will be enough left of the meat for tomorrow also, so that will be an easy job for dinner then.

Have a wonderful week to come, stay safe and hopefully you will have some good weather.