And suddenly Christmas is over again!

 Goodmorning everybody!

Today we have very fierce wind at times, there is some rain, not really weather to be out, although temperature is still not really bad. Later this week it will drop a few degrees and will not reach more than around 4 C, with hee and there some rain.

Last week was in fact rather quiet, I just had to do some last groecerie shoppings, did that Monday and some on Tuesday and all was ready for Christmas. Gosh that was a good feeling and now we could focus on Christmasday.

But first update on the eye: I think it is getting better and betrer, I just have sometimes a bit trouble to see sharp with my glasses, which is understandable. You know what? When I have to read something( and I have variofocus glasses) I can do that better without the glasses and with the left eye LOL! It will not help for reading a book at the moment, but it shows that till now the operation was okay.

I hope you all still had a wonderful Christmas.We had a lovely Christmasday, we woke up a bit later than usual(some good sleep is wonderful), and during the day I already prepared a bit for our dinner, which was a very old-fashioned but tasty fondue. All kind of meat in small dices, with some sauces, some french bread with garlic butter, something like this:

And as appetizer we had a small prawn coctail, oh so ymmie too and desert a small tiramisu. 

Before dinner however we unwrapped our presents and we had such fun and a big smile on our face, there were all kind of things, from practical to just nice and also funny. I am grateful to Santa Claus, who did a wonderful job to make our day a bit more special! The best part of all the presents was the feeling that somebody did think of us, made effort to find us some lovely presents, it is that friendship that made our hearts feel warm.

Now suddenly Christmas is over and we are heading to the end of the year, which is still a very strange and different year compared to other ones. Let's hope next year will be much happier and much more safe again, although it will take still at least several months in which we have to hold on to safety measures, I am sure of that. But there is hope at the end of the tunnel, and as long as we have that, we human beings can do a lot!

Just a few days more and we will be in the year 2021. I already want to wish you all a wonderful NewYear's Eve and good start of the year 2021, and that we all in due course can be around our loved ones in the way we were used to. Laugh together, hug eachother, go out again to have a drink, etc.etc.etc.

Stay safe, and we will meet here again next year!

Soon it will be Christmas!

 Goodafternoon everybody!

We have mild weather, here and there a ray of sunshine, temperature around 10C, it will go down a few degrees at the end of the week.

How was the cataract operation? Well, it was not really a big deal, lookking back on it LOL. Of course I was nervous last Friday morning, we were at time at the hospital, and Jan could wait in the hospital for me(normally at the moment with the covid restrictions they do;t allow). And the actual operation took about 15 minutes? I didn;t see a lot, the other eye was covered and the left eye didnt see a lot either, only a very bright light. I didn;t feel much, and we could go home again at around 10 in the morning already. How is the eye now? It is kind of difficult to say, because the left side of my glasses isn;t right for the eye. But I tried some things out and I think it has helped a lot. So we'll see after a few days, and later when I have the control appointment and hopefully then I will be able to get myself a new pair of glasses, yippee. And we'll see after that what to do about the other eye. First things first, now we can look forward to Christmas.

It is just in a few days, not even a week anymore, can you imagine how fast time still goes at some moments? I have done last week already a lot of the grocerie shopping for Christmas, and that was a good idea I believe. Next week there are just a few things to shop for in the supermarket.

I will not make a long post, I notice my eyes get tired when I sit too long at the computer at the moment. That will get better too in a few days, but let's not overdo it now. 

With a picture borrowed from the net I want to wish everybody a Merry Christmas, in safety and good health. It will be a bit different kind of Christmas this year, as we have to be careful and not gather with loved ones and friends, but in spirit and our hearts we can be together. Let's look forward and hope with all our hearts that next year Christmas we can gather and hug and do all as we have done before with Christmas. So once again Merry Christmas to all of you, make the best of it and we'll meet again next Sunday!

P.S. Be kind to all animals, don't forget them either in these harsh times!

Bit nervous week to look forward too,

 Goodafternoon everybody!

Weather is not all too bad, start of the week was a bit nippy but now we will reach something like 8C daytime, which is quite good for the time of the year. I only could do with a little bit more sunshine during the day. It all is so grey with that cloudy weather. But still we should not complain. Other parts of the world have no good weather at all.

The week started with a bit of surprise. When waking up we put on the thermostat of the central heating on a bit higher temperature. Either Jan or me, just who wakes up first. Now Monday i woke up, and just looked at the temperature indicator and saw the little light on it with a code. Hmmmmmmmm? Something not right. Well, I seem to get nervouse very quickly these days, but I looked it up in the instruction book. Hmmm, didn't make it very much clearer. So I said to Jan, perhaps we should call our plummer, who also installed the kettle of the central heating and gives cleaning service every year. But Jan first looked at the kettle, and pushed the reset buttons, and after a little while all seemed to be in normal function. Nevertheless I wanted to be sure and called the plumber, explained the thing, he said it could have been a little power break, nothing to worry about. Just had to see how it worked and if the code came cback again I should call him right away. Glad to say it wasnlt necessary. So it was probably much ado about nothing LOL!

We received this week a box for Christmas and it was a really quick travel it made. It only took a bit more than a week to arrive! And all the way from the USA. Gosh, my box the other way took about 4 weeks! Can we understand it???? No, but I am happy visa verca they arrived in good shape and now the presents are under our tree, waiting for Christmas day to be opened. It is such a happy sight, every time again as I sit on the couch and look at the tree and all the beautiful wrapped presents. 

Jan had Monday the appointment with the lungdoctor, Seems he has kind of COPD(or probably chronich bronchitis), so she gave hi a prescription for two inhalers, on ethat he has to take once a day, and will work for 24 hours and one that he could use when he still has problems breezing when straining himself. He still has some trouble with the right use of the inhaler, but seems already to work and help him. Tomorrow he will take it with him to the doctor to ask how he should really use the 24-hour inhaler. I think he is doing something wrong with it, we looked it up on internet, but it isn't always working well(or he is doing something wrong). Hmmmm, I tried to be of help, but that didn;t solve the problem. So best is the doctor will show him and then he has to try it out I think for a bit of time, and see if it makes him feel better. Perhaps it works better when a "stranger"shows him , he might be less sutbborn(or can you call it also pigheaded?????).He will get instructions tomorrow and it will go better then.

After the stuff with the heating, we first took a relax moment, had some coffee and then finished the decorating of the room. It is all so nice and I like to see each afternoon and in the evening all the Christmaslights.  I also wrote the Christmascards, so I will bring them to the postoffice tomorrow and with a little luck all will arrive in good time. 

Now Friday will be a bit of a nervous day, because of the cataract stuff. I know I shouldn;t worry too much and i don;t, it it just something you don't experience every day, is it? Worst of it all is that I will have to be at the hospital a bit before 8.00 in the morning! I tried to get a later schedule, but that wasn;t possible, so we will have to get up quite early to be able to have the tram and bus in time. And so early I am not at my best, you know ROFL. But I am sure all will go well and I will have to take eyedrops for 4 weeks after the operation and in January I will have a control appointment(and they also will call me the next day after the operation).

And we also just got an email that the company of the windows will be able to place them on the 11th-12th of January. Gosh, suddenly all is going so fast, and with all the hospital things going on, it almost seems we are very busy with everything. We will be happy if the new windows will be installed, then we should see how we will get new curtains etc. But first let's think about thing that come first and that is the operation, then Christmas and the turn of the year. I will see if I can do already some grocerie shopping earlier, meaning this week Tuesday or Wednesday, because I don;t know how things will be next week. I think I will be able to go out already, but it is more that we might have more severe measures concerning the Covid. And it is also better to do the shopping this week, next week could be much more traffic in the supermarkets, despite Covid measures etc.

So there seems to be done a lot in just a short time. I wish you all a wonderful week to come and try to stay safe!

Start of Christmas decorating

 Goodafternoon everybody!

Grey weather, just aroud 4 C, tomorrow it wil rain and later it stays dry, and will be quiet weather with all the time temps around those 4-5C.

A quiet week, with Jan's lungtest, which went well and wasn;t too straining. we will hear result tomorrow as we have an appointment with the doctor in hospital in the morning.

Fist I want to thank the people who left me a uplifting and reassuring comment concerning my cataract operation. You are wonderful and it surely helps to feel a bit more confident and relaxed.

This weekend was really an outbreak of energy for me LOL. As we planned to start decorating for Christmas today, I thought it would be a good idea to prepare our dinner yesterday, so I will only have to warm it up in the oven. I did that, also did a bt of grocerie shopping, took out all the boxes with Christmasdecorating stuff(with Jan;s help), also made yesterday a new recipe, named Shatsuka, and I found it not bad at all, I think I will make it every now and then, with some variations.

Then after our dinner I took a shower and then was ahppy to be able to sit down and just watch tv!

And today we did already a large part of the decorating, the tree stands in all it's glory, the nativity scene is done, on the couches I have the Christmas throws, some Christmas lights are already installed, and now....... Jan and i are a bit of pooped out so we stopped and will do the rest tomorrow and may be even the next day. But I think all will be done by Wednesday and we will have a complete Christmas dressed sitting room. Nice, with all the Christmas lights, and the bears with their Christmashats etc.

I will leave you now already, because I do feel a bit tired after all the excersize of today LOL, but I wanted to post something, just to let you know we are still okay.

Wishing you all a fantastic week, hope you will all stay safe and talk to you next Sunday!

News about the eyes

 Goodafternoon everybody!

Weather still isn't really bad, although temperatures are going down. There are days sometimes from still 8-9C, but soon this week they will go donw to around $c daytimes. And possibility of nightfrost at the coast. Brrrrrrrr! So next week it will be time to put on the wintercoat, with it's furry inside layer.

 

In general it was a quiet week, again, yes. Till now we didn;t have much trouble of the cablenet work that was announced. The new lightposts are placed and connected to the electricity cbales, and are shining. They give much light, but i don;t like it. It is a very cold light(LED), and bright. I really liked the older ones more, they were shorter and gave also good light, but that was more to yellow, much warmer, not so "penetrating". oh well, probably in one or two years they will change it again LOL.

I had my hospital appointment for the eyedoctor and the result was that I have cataract in the left eye, the sight has been going down a lot, so I will have an operation and they will put in a new lens. I will still need a pair of glasses, but they can bring it down to around -2,75( and now I had -8 in the left and before the cataract already something of -5 or so.). They will first do the left eye and see how that will go. And if i want, they can do later also the right eye. But let's start with one at the time. I already will be happy if the sight will be a lot beter and sharper, then I can probably take a new pair of glasses with variofocus(as I have now). I must admit that i find it a bit scary, eye sight is real important and although not often this kind of operation will fail, you'll never know. Let's just trust the surgeon. Most scary I find, that i only will have an anaesthesia in or around the eye, so only local. Meaning I will at least hear all they do and say. Not my idea of an smooth working operation. Hmmmmmm, lots of people did it and are okay, so I should survive that too. And I will have it already on the 18th of December!!!!! So that is real quick. First weeks it will be however a bit difficult to see really well, because of my actual pair of glasses, but it will sort itself out, I hope.

First next week Jan will have his lungtest, that's first to cope with. Then the week after appointment to hear the result and then the week after that I will go for the eye. Pffff, not the best start of December and way to Christmas time. But we will try to relax a bit, mostly by starting the Cjristmas decoration next weekend. 

You see, although we don;t have a busy day one after another, in larger time spread we do have a lot going on. And with all this it is sometimes hard to find an every-dya energy to do all the usual and necessary things. Lately I find myself pushing ahead several things, by saying: Oh, I can do that tomorrow or the day after. Recognizable?????? And i must not give in to that too much! That is no good thing for me. So I am glad soon decoration time is there, it also makes you do several things that otherwise you would leave aside, LOL. 

I had last week a short phonecall with my friend Heidi(and I should call her again today, or possibly tomorrow) and she told me they have now a new doggie, a puppy! The same breed as the other ones, something of a shihtzy-boomer. There seem to be a lot of different looking ones, but this one a much the same as the last one, Tom. Only Heidi told me this one is almost completely black, with a bit of white at the end of the tail and on the breast. It is a bit difficult to go on a visit now, but i will see him soon enough, I hope. At the moment they are very occupied with the little one, named Rolo, to train him, of course. 

 Time to "jump"out of my pyamas and put on a nice warm and comfy home suit. Then there is some sppedskating to see on tv and in between I will prepare a bit for dinner. Not much to do so, I only do want to make us a new batch of stew pears, yummie.

I wish all of you a lovely week and please stay safe, although we are a bit fed up with this situation. But....... think about yourself and people around you. With some extra attention a lot of misry or harm can be avoided. Take care and talk to you next week!

This week may be some news about the eyes

 Goodafternoon everybody!

Looks not bad outside, temperatures are around 10C, sometimes cloudy, but even some moments with sunshine. For me it could last all winter this way, and you wouldn;t hear me complain much LOL!

A quiet week again, and no disturbance from tramrail work at night. That is already a wonderful thing. Only begin this week we had a form in the mailbox that the next 2 oe 3 weeks we might have some disturbance because of works on the new lighposts and cablenetwork. Meaning mostly, digging up the street first for the lightposts, closing the holes and then perhaps next week opening up the sidewalks again for the cablenetwork. Pffffff, they surely now how to plan things! Why can;t they open up the street and do both jobs at one time???? Seems difficult to realize.

Best thing of it is that work is done during daytime, so we have not much disturbance during our sleep. Of course when they start digging up etc. they start rather early mornings, so there is some annoyance. But good we will survive that too.

After a looong time of no going there I finally went again to the market this week. There are still some small restrictions and guidlines for Covid, but oh my, it was good to be there again, and also see all the stalls open again. After a few month of buying supermarket packed cheese(not really bad, but ....)I could buy us again our cheese at the cheese shop/stall. My oh my, it tasted good, and may be it is just in our head, but that cheese really tastes a lot better than the one of the supermarket. I also bought a little bit of fresh vegetables, biggest was a red cabbage. It was a huge one and only for € 1,00! Home again I prepared it for the freezer, so put a quick boil over the cut cabbage, cooled it down in freezer bags and now we have for abot 10 times red cabbage at dinnertime as sidedish. When I take a portion out I boil it for may be 1/2 an hour )must get soft, but still with a little bite to it), with sugar, cinnamon, some raisins and a few drop of viinagar or lemonjuice(for keeping a bit the red color). Yummie, that is quite a different taste as the one already ready to warm up that you can buy in jars. 

I found also a great waistcoat for Jan, it is lined with soft kind of furry stuff, so real comfy and warm for wintertime in the evening or so. He already had it one from the day I gave it to him, so it must have been a good buy hahaha.

This week i will have my appointment with the eyedoctor in hospital, where he will look at my eyes and see if I will need an operation for cataract. I hope so, because I notice for longer time that my left eye has lost a lot of shaprness. Now we will have to see when they can do the operation(if needed, of course). In december Jan has now an appointment for a lungfunction test. Asked for by the cardiologists, who didnlt find anything with the heart or vaines around, but Jan is a bit short of breath when doing an effort. We'll see what it will show. I am happy they keep an eye on Jan and investigate well, but sometimes you get a bit tired of doctor appointments. 

Can you imagine that in about 4 1/2 weeks we already have Christmas?????? The idea still has a bit to land in my brains. In two weeks Jan and I will start to decorate for Christmas ! And then the year is almost over and somewhere in January we will have our new windows, may be my cataract operation and I will have to wait for about 3-4 weeks before I can get myself a new pair of glasses. Gosh, In a few weeks time so much has to be done LOL.

Well, today it is a relax day, there is some speed skating to watch, and I like that, as you might know. Tomorrow I must be more energetic again, hahaha.

I wish all who celebrate Thanksgiving a blessed and also safe Thanksgiving! And wishing all a wonderful week. Before leaving I found this on the net and thought all could do with a little laugh:

A lot of us have pets and you will certainly recognize this

Again a rather quiet week, with some mail.

 Goodafternoon everybody!

Weather is still in general not bad, we have still temperstures around 11-14C, some rainshowers, some sun, also cloudy days, and that's almost depressing. I don;t mind it being colder(better not but if......)but give me then a bit of sunshine. It still makes you feel better. Well, it is what it is, we have to accept that.

As the post title says, we had again a quiet week, which is good for us at the moment. Off and on they are still working on that tram stuff at night, so off and on we are disturbed in our sleep and that's no good. Could last for some weeks more as I read on the website, oh glory!

That asaide it all was kind of good. I had a phonecall and this week too some mail from the hospital with an appointment date for the eye doctor, will be on the 25th of November. They will do two or three test in one day and I will know what the result is. Will they see cataract and can they do an operation etc. Already read in the brochure added that they can place different sort of lenses, but only one is payed by basic contract of health security. For the other ones you will have to pay a certain amount yourself. Pffff, I guess that could be not cheap so I will have to have a good chat with the doctor to know what is best for me. I would be happy when all of it will be done with and i could go for a new pair of glasses. But that will still take a bit of time. Pity also that the eventual operation will be done in another hospital, the less easy for us to go to, it will be just a for a few hours I will be at the hospital, but I would be so happy if I could have the operation in the hospital we always go to. Seems to be a problem, but I always could ask later the doctor, if there is a possibility to have it in a nearer hospital. We'll just have to see.

Jan also had a phonecall from the cardiac doctor that the vains around his heart are in good order, they couldn;t find anything disturbing, so that is quite good news, now he wants Jan to have another photo from his lungs. They already have several and quite recent, but okay, if that is all to do. Jan is a bit short of breath, but he has this already for some time, and for 99% sure the result of him smoking. Yes, he should stop, he already is smoking less, really, and I dont know if quitting it will give him back his breath. Oh, Jan made me happy yesterday, hahaha. I allready try to persuade him to go for a short walk every day(he needs to after his fall, to uplift his condition a bit). But he didn;t do that, or only one or twice in several weeks. But yesterday he made a walk. Not really long but he did one without taking a pause and he was proud of it. LOL. Well, this is a start, I hope he will do that more aften whenn the weather is a little bit nice.

Yesterday it was a great day for lots of chldren, because Sinterklaas arrived again(he is a bit like Santa Claus elsewhere in the world). He is the good man who knows all about the children and brings them presents on the 5th of December, and sometimes also in the time before during the night, leaving some small things(candy mostly, but also a small present) in their shoes thay can put in front of the fireplace. Nowadays many houses don;t have a real fireplace anymore, so it could be at the backdoor or near their bed or whatever.

With the covid the arrival was made different, because crowds aren;t allowed. It still was nice to see and I am sure many children were very nervouse yesterday evening when going to bed, hahaha.

As a little joke I always buy a small candy and put it in jan's shoe and place it in front of the fireplace. He didn;t notice it yet, so I am curious when he will see it. It isn;t a great thing, but we always have fun with it. And it is good to feel sometimes like children again if ony for a moment. 

I am still in my pyama's at the moment, so it is time to change in something else(but still comfy) and perhaps already start preparing dinner a bit. This evening around dinner time our Dtuch soccer man-team will play in the Nations League and of course we want to watch that. So it will be nice to have all ready and just to warm up, and eating while watching the match. You notice, that I like easy and quick????? It is nice I have time now to already start cooking early afternoon, and it makes it a quick preparation for only one or two additional things at dinner time. It is not that i mind the cooking or the time necessary. It is nice to be able to split it up sometimes and save time at dinner time. 

Hope you are all doing still fine, and wishing you a lovely week ahead and stay safe!

We got quite a shock yesterday evening!

 Goodafternoon everybody!

Weather is quiet, practically no rain, temperatures around 13-16C, here and there some sunshine, so not bad for the time of year.

They are still working on the tram electricity cables, although some nights they are a bit further away, and we don;t have too much trouble of it. However it is very annoying and some nights it is interfering with our need of sleep. Let's hope we will catch up in a few weeks time, that's all we can do.

It was in all a very quiet week, how wonderful, I managed to do some jobs I planned to do, and also had time to take it easy on some days. It is still no fun around here with all the Covid, we even have harder measurements for a few weeks, not a total lockdown, but all bars, cafe's restaurants are closed sompletely, theaters are closed agin, musea, government advises people to work at home as much as possible again, not use the public transport when not really necessary etc. It seems to work because the amount of affected cases is slowly going down again, but still not enough. It doesn;t make life happier, we can all agree, but we will have to hold on somehow to beat it, or till we will have a good vaccin against it.

Yesterday evening it was all so nice, we had a nic evening ahead, with some programs to watch we really like, and just around 22.30 p.m. we were watching a bit of soccer competition when suddenly there was a very, very hard "boom"with lightflash, and we really sat like frozen on our couch. Then went to the window to see what happened and then went on the street when more people came out. Seems there were some young guys, probably in a car, that thought it was funny to throw some very heavy fireworkcracker to the trambooth and crach the glass in it. It was such a strong blast that (for the second time already) two big windows of our neighbour were crashed. We were just lucky our window isn;t really opposite the booth!

Of course a lot of glass on the road, a lot of people coming ut of their house, not knowing what happened, but all angry about this stupid "attack". Police came really quick, but of course no possibility to catch the perpetrators, they were long gone. But really, what ideas have some youngsters of "fun"?????? And it wasn;t the first time the tramboothglass was crashed. Nobody was hurt, thanks for that, but it could have happened if there was somebody waiting for the tram. 

After a while everybody went back to their home, there wasn;t anything we could do. Poor neighbour had his window sealed at the least very quickly, or may be even repaired, I didn;t see that. I will go over to him later today just to ask how he is doing. And take in ind that he too wil have new double glassed windows in January, but with this event in mind he might be thinking to take special glass, like amored glass or so. Only that would be really very expensive and would it help in the end???? I don;t know.

This was all the excitement this week(not the one we were waiting for).

I do want to congratulate all Americans, you have a new president. I wish him all the best and may he be blessed. And if he wasn;t your choice, please be honest and  brave enough to give him a chance.  It comes all to one basic thing : peple will have to come together and work together to make the best of it.  That's all I want to say about it.

Now it is really time I get out of my pyama's and start doing something. First I want to prepare our dinner and then I want to go for few minutes to our neighbour and by then it will almost be time to warm up the dinner I think. well, not completely, I think I will have time to sit down with a cup of tea and watch something nice on tv, before warming up the dinner, LOL

Wishing you all afabulous day and very good week too, and please stay safe!!

We had a really happy news this week

 Goodafternoon everybody!

Weather is grey and rainy with lots of wind most of the time, temperatures not bad yet, something around 15-even 17C, but that will not last for much longer. End of this week we will be at temperatures around 11-12C, which is normal for this time of the year.

As long as it isn;t freezing or snowing, we can handle it with not too much trouble hahaha.

It was a very quiet week, with nothing of real importance happening. Oh so boring and oh so wonderful to have that experience again. Of course i did several things, obvious the necessary things in the house(although I must admit I wasn't too energetic in that field), some shopping for groceries, and I once went to city centre for a quick visit, to buy me some yarn I needed to be able to finish some projects.  I am happy to say that I have a box ready for sending out to be in time for Christmas. I think i will do that this week, at the latest next week, so it will have plenty of time to arrive at time.

Yesterday I was quite busy in the kitchen. I tried my hand on a variation of a Cornish Pastry and I must say it was a tasty result. I made the filling a bit different from the traditional filling, I used new potatoes, onions, mushrooms, carrots, green peas and smoked salmon and small shrimps. This variation was inspired by the Cornish Pastry with smoked haddock from an english cook Tom Kerridge.

https://www.lifestylefood.com.au/recipes/23494/super-smoked-haddock-pastie

I have 4 big pastries of an amount of 450 grams of flower, but of course you can stick to the original quantities if you should decided to try it.

So this evening we will have the same meal, I only will serve a light soup before, to have something warm for dinner. 

And this week we had a wonderful news. it came in a mail from my niece in France. her daughter gave birth to a wonderful boy on Thursday evening. His name is Oleg(love the Russian name!) and was 3,5 kgs and length of 50 cm. Both in good health, all went well and the parents are of course ever so happy, as well as my niece and husband, to be grandparents once more!

Now that is real good and happy news in these wicked times.

That's about all for this week, let's hope next week will be quiet too, I am very much in favor of "quiet and not too stressfull"these days LOL!

Wishing you all a very good week, in safety, and say: bye, buy, till next week.

Bad sleep for a couple of days!

 Goodmorning everybody!

Short weather report. What to say about it? It isn;t really cold, but rather grey, sometimes rain and too much wind. There was one day last week it was real nice with temperatures of around 18-19C! Pity it didn;t last longer. Now we have around 13-14C, later this week it could go up one or two degrees, but it will stay rather unsteady, meaning, some rain, cloudy most of the time, if we are very lucky we might see the sun here and there.

Lsst weekend Jan didn;t feel all too good, had some trouble with belly, somewhere in it, kind of cramps in the intestins. He had that more, but also last year and that didnt end too well, so I am cautious with it. it happens every now and then, but I am never very happy to hear about it(IF he says anything!), but after a day or two it was already much better and I think now it is all over again.Let's hope it will stay away for a long time, because it is hurtfull for him.

On monday I went to the pharmacy to give them a lot of prescriptions of medicins that needed refill, and would pick them up later in the week.

Then I gotnext day a phonecall from the pharmacy that one medicin couldn;t be delivered, that's to say, Jan has it in small sachets, now they have it liquid in bottles. But I needed to now if it had all the same components(with Jan's medication and health history it is very important). The girl couldn;t say if Jan could use the liquid as well, I needed to contact the doctor to be sure. Oh God, next thing that went wrong. Called our doctor, he was on holiday this week. Then called hospital for contact with his specialist..... she was on holiday that week. Lucky there was an assistant who could help out. If it had the same componenets, they call that interchangeable, there was no problem. If the pharmacy couldn;t tell me, then the pharmacy had to call the hospital and not let me do that work for them. Okay, i called back to the pharmacy, had the "boss" on the phone and she assured me it was all the same. So I will have to rely on that(I do, we have good service of that pharmacy for years). They only had to convert the amount to be taken from powder to liquid for us. All is done and in good order and I picked up the lot on Friday. But there are always small things to be taken care of, that you dont count with and that is sometimes frustrating!

Wednesday we had our plumber again, no, don;t worry, no more leaks, he came to give a service cleaning to our central heating kettle(that's to be done every year, specially for the insurance, if anything might happen!). That is all ready for winter also(the kettle more than I am, hahaha).

And what about the bad sleep??? Well, it seems that the municipality is doing some work on the light poles/lanterns or the electricity cables for the tram and or lightpoles, I am not really sure what they work on, and it has to be done apparantly at night. All okay for me, good thay look after them so that it all works as it should, but they are using some machines that make a very irritating noise, a low and piercing humming sound, I don;t know if it is the motor or perhaps aggregate, anyway, more than annoying. They are busy already for 3 nights, and all still in short surroundings of our house. And it is specially annoying when being in bed, the sound and feeling of the sound through the ground isn;t great at all. It seems they only can do it at night, because the machine they use with the aerial platform only moves over the tramrails and that they can use then only between ca. 1.30 and 6 at night(then the tram isn;t riding). I really hope they are ready with it real soon, because it is not a good thing for my sleeping. I already am not sleeping all too well, but if that is interfering also.... well, after a night like that I don;t feel rested at all. And that is bad for the energy level and so on.

Anything really nice happened this week??? Cannot really think of anything, but all in all it was a quiet week, you know, it isn;t all as bad as it may sound LOL. I have accomplished still one thing! I finished the Christmas shopping, found this week on a trip for that the necessary, now I have to wrap that up, put it in the box and bring the box to the post as soon as I can. I have no idea how the delivery of post packages all over the world will go, so better send it away early, might arrive too soon, but better that than too late.

Now time to start on putting up some meat for stew this evening, needs some time so I better start it off now. Hoping i will have a nice and easy and not adventurous week to come, hahahaa, sounds boring but at times boring ad quiet is sooooooo good! It even gives time to have a good laugh about anything that comes up. Wishing you all a very good week in safety!

Waterpipe leak is fixed!!!

 Goodafternoon everybody!

Weather is quiet and not unpleasant. Not much wind, which always makes it feel better, we even have some little sunshine, and they think arpound Wednesday we could reach temps between 17-20C! That will be only for one or two days, but still.....not bad for second half of October.

Oh my God, last weekend you read we suddenly discovered a bad leak and I called immediately my plumber. He came for inspection on Monday afternoon and how wonderful could come next day with his son to fix the leak. It was struggling not having much water for almost two days, but we managed. I am glad the pipe could be reached from under the floor and wasn;t IN the wall. That would be a different story(mostly workwise but certainly costs of it!). It still made a small dent in our savings, but it wasn;t as much as I thought it would be. 

It all is due too some old waterpipes that are still from lead and that isn;t good at all.Not for health and not for strength. So if we can save enough next year(we also have the windows to pay for one) may be we can let the plumber  change the last bits of lead pipe, and that probably means breaking up wall and floor from the little bathroom / toiletroom. Hmmm, that will not be done for 5 euro! But if we can manage it would be great to have it done, we could do with a renewed, showerroom/toilet, with some fresh new tiles, new toilet, etc.,all light and also easier to keep clean. I am dreaming of it now LOL. That half Sunday whole Monday and almost whole Tuesday of waterpipe adventure somehow drained a lot of energy from me, and that's always amazing why. I couldn't do much in the house( of course I had planned sme things, but.......you could guess it......most of it involved needing water hahaha), then with the plumber in the house, it was walking back and forth, sometimes to remove things out of the way, then giving them something to drink, just feeling restless, and after they left I just felt I finished half a marathon. It always needs a few days to catch up again.

This "event"kind of overshadowed the whole week. We didnlt do too much, apart from the usual stuff. Because of the rather mild weather Jan could do some small things in the garden, it still needs attention to prepare it for winter. Amazing that we still have a rosebush that is full of buds and some of them start to open, Even the clematis doesn;t want to give up and gives a flower once a week or so. 

However, I am kind of proud to say, I started wrapping up some Christmas presents, and I am almost ready with it, just need one or two things more and then I can send the box away. Specially this year I will try to get it to the post real early, because it might take longer to get there.

Nice to see that the birds are returning. Yes, they know where they can get some food LOL. One morning, and also evening we had 8 parakeets on our rosebow, enjoying the peanuts and applepieces. Also some tits are back and I even saw a robin.

On the knitting front I finished the blanket for our bed, and now I am trying my hands on a cocoon shrug. I have one nice simple pattern for you, which is crocheted, but I am trying it to knit on straight needles in another stitch. Hopefully it will result in something nice to wear???? Anyway, I liked the simpleness of this one and I will give you the link to the blog. May be someone likes to try it. And if not this one there are lots and lots of free patterns to find of lovely shrugs, with or without sleeves. I have an image of this particular shrug and under it is the link.

https://www.gatheringbeauty.com/blog//2015/11/simple-crochet-cardigan.html#_a5y_p=4604727

I am using yarn of  kind of dark siena color, very much a fall color. And I am curious if it will become really a good fitting shrug-cardigan. If not............yarn is VERY patient, meaning pulling out the knitting work(is pulling out the right expression???? if not, please let me know what it should be then) and making something different with it.It keeps you busy, one way or the other hahahaha!

We have to find things to keep us busy inside, because that Covid 19 still isn;t gone and for now we are again in partial lockdown in the Netherlands. Numbers of infected are rising quick again, and it has to be stopped again, we aren;t safe till there will be a decent and for all safe vaccin. That will take some time so keeping distance, wearing a mask, not gathering with a lot of people etc. is the only way to keep it somehow under control. And nobody is liking it and it is difficult, but we will have to keep it up, for the health and safety for all of us!

And because this isn;t a very pleasant situation we should keep up our spirit with all we can find, and there are still a lot of things we can be happy with, I think. It sometimes are just small things that can make our day, isn't it?

Good, enough of that subject for now.! I have quite an easy day today, because yesterday I made us a pan of soup and backed us some pirogi(small pies you could say) and there is more than enough left for today for dinner. It is tasteful and nourishing enough. May be I will take a quick look in the garden, at the moment we have some sunshine, and almost no wind, so it is a good moment for it. the cAnd I will do some knitting, and watch some tv and tomorrow I will kick myself in the bottom and do something in the house, like for one vacuum cleaning and may be clear out one or two shelves of the wardrobe. There is still soooo much stuff we should get rid off! So that is kind of a plan for tomorrow. We'll see if it will be executed(you know.... me and plans.pfff, difficult).

I wish you all a wonderful week to come and please take care and stay safe!

 

How long ago we had lovely weather????

 Goodafternoon everybod!

Yes, it almost seems really months ago that we had lovely summer weather with nice temperatures, and we good sit in the room with opened garden doors and windows, sit in the garden with the parasol, go out without a coat, etc???? it wasn;t that long ago, only now we suddenly changed to quite some different weather. In short every day we have some rainshowers, some days heavy and long ones, some days short ones every now and then, rare moments of some sunshine, temperatures going down, we may have in a few days only around 11C at daytime. Brrrrrr, for me that's a bit on the cold side, specially if we have some wind blowing. And then knowing that in other parts of the world they would be happy with the rain we have now!

It was a really quiet week that rippled on. So I suppose this will be a short post LOL!

******** PAUSE*******

Help, I shouldn;t have used the word "rippled"!!!!

For some time Jan already told me, that it seemed if he heard water prippling or dripping, sewemed somewhere in our shower/toilet room, but at times it stopped again, so we couldn;t lay our finger on it. Once it was something with our neighbours, and that was settled. But today Jan told me he had once more a bad noght sleep, almost couldn't sleep because of that dripping sound. Finally today he went through the area and ended up at the watermeter in the ground and there he saw that water was running, probably from a broken pipe somewhere.!!!!! Now all was clear, but now we are not happy at all! I called our plumber(yes on Sunday and he answered the phone, great guy), we told him the story and he advoced us to close the water supply, only open it if we really needed some water and close it again when finished and he will come tomorrow afternoon. OMG, i fear it will be a repair that could turn out costly perhaps! Nothing to do about it, it has to be done. Let's stay calm and hope he can fix it, and soon too!

You see, if life is going rather well, and quiet, always something happenes to turn it upside down again! 

I filled for now two buckets with water for we will need some water here and there, for exaple for cooking, making some coffee, toilet, and more. The water supply is off now, if we really need to tap some more water we will turn it on for a few minutes and then off again. otherwise the waterbill will be even more staggering. I am already afraid a bit for the bill next year! Whatever! Let's first see it will be fixed and worry then about bills for plumber and watercompany. Still it isn;t a nice surprise.

That said I think i will finish now, I am not in the mood anymore for some more rambling, can you understand? So I wish you all a lovely week, without any bad surprised(good ones are always nice ) and stay safe!

I like the colors in fashion this fall and winter.

 Goodafternoon everybody!

It really isnlt summer anymore, sigh! we have had a couple of days with lots of rain, seems we might see some sunshine today, but also again rain and there is a hard wind blowing. Not really cold yet, around 15-16C, but it is better inside at the moment.

Not so much happened this week, only that we got our flu shot. The first time we had it, I think about 3 or 4 years ago, I had no trouble with it at all. Last year I think my doctor did touch perhaps a muscle or something, I had some small pain during a few days. So this year I told him that, he just smiled and let the nurse do the shot. Well, there was no difference LOL! She did it very well, but already for a few days, I have some "pain"on the spot, it is a bit red,so I think I am just somewhat hypersensitive for the stuff. Never mind, it will go away in a few days I think.

We have some parakeets back in the garden. Teu've left us for quite some time, no idea what caused it, but I am happy some came back again. And also a bunch of tits come for dinner or lunch LOL.

Years ago we got the old birdhouse from Heidi's garden(she gave it to us when she moved out the house ) and now it was about time to give it a facelift. So Jan cleaned it up and gave it a new coat with transparant stain and it looks a lot better again. 

Thursday i went to town centre, just to look around  a bit and also needed to look for a certain present and also wanted to see if I could find a nice new sweater for winter. I looked through my sweaters and there wasn;t much good stuff anymore in the closet. Some really too old and some a bit too small, so I thought after years of almost wearing the same I could do with some new. I found a nice sweater, in white and beige, soft and just a little bit oversized. I like the trends for this winter, the colors are nice,

You can make great combinations, gives you lot of possibilities.

So, the rest of the day I will take it real easy, tomorrow I will need my energy for the housekeeping stuff LOL. This week I started to crochet panels together from the blanket I finished already long time ago. I did two, next week i will try to do the other two and see if the blanket is big enough. Then of course need to do a border for making it look good etc. But..... at least I started it and I have a small afghan almost finished too and with the rest of the yarn I started to make me a scarf for winter. 

Okay, I wish you all a wonderful week, hope you all will be and stay safe!

All in all it's been quite a good week.

 Goodafternoon everybody!

Weather is not really bad, but we could do with littler bit better LOL. Last few days temperatures are around 16-17C, with very much wind and pouring rainshowers every now and then. Yesterday already better, almost no rain and even some sunshine. Today about the same, and more or less for the whole week, you know, asome sun, some rain, temperature will stay 17-18C.

Last Monday I got my referaal for the eyedoctor in hospital, and I made a call that afternoon. Gosh, there are waiting lists there! For now it seems it can take about a month to get a first appointment. I had hoped for a appointment next week or so, but not a chance. Well, we will have to do with that.

Tuesday was a day for grocerie shopping and some housekeeping, I tried to do it all that day, because I had a lunch appointment with Heidi next day and wanted to have some things done, so I could sit with a "clear conscience" hahaha.

Heidi and I would meet at about 1.00 a.m. in town centre. So we did and decided to go to a small cafe-lunchroom nearby our meeting point. It was a nice place, quiet and with a nice range of sandwiches or other yummie things and for a not too high price. We decided to take a cappuccino and a sandwich(french bread it was) with goatcheese. Gosh we got about half of a big baguette, well covered with the cheese and bit of salad. Really fresh and tasting it was. We had a nice chat together, about all kind of things, in all tranquility and it was real nice to so again after a long time. We will try to do it again in a few weeks time.

After we said goodbye I made a quick visit to one ot two shops in town centre, and founc a few nice things. I found a curtain of christmaslights, we can use that for an inside window in our sitting room. Oh my, I was looking for that already for so long and never found the right one, or even sometimes not at all, so when I saw it I bought it. Also bought some birdseed in a shop where it is available in autumn and winter and for a nice price. I will go there for sure lots of times, because birdseed is used a lot in our garden LOL.

Next day Jan and I had to get up rather early, to go to the hospital, appointment with surgeanfor his vains. He had two scans to see if there might be something wrong with a stent they placed in a vain near hos liver. Well, we had good news, it all was still in good order so need for a further appointment at the moment.

It was a bit funny that we had to come to hospital to hear this mesaage, it good have been done by phone too! Never mind, I was glad to hear this result, hopefully all will stay well with Jan for a longer time! He is doing better every week after his fall, we even went to hospital without the rollator. Home again, Jan said it might have been a bit too much, but ...... he made it to and from without to much trouble. And after we had a cup of coffee, he had a good sleep on the couch(not surprising, because he almost didn;t sleep at night and the effort he made with the walk).

Yesterday the weather wasn;t really bad, and I did work for some time in the garden. There were some plants in need of cutting and also replacing and this is about the best time to do it, so I took courage in both hands and went to work LOL. Also cleared up a messy corner in the garden, where we put the pruning stuff, and debries, I filled up 4 big plastic sacs, and it looks much better in that corner again. I just left a little place in "disorder", where there are a few bricks and some soil and some small branches, nice place for a frog or toad that need a place to stay in winter.

Now I think I will sit down with a cup of tea on the couch, watch a bit of sport and take it easy for the rest of the day. Tomorrow I want to do some necessary things, like laundry, ironing, and such, hope I can do a lot in one day. Oh and Wednesday we will have to go for our flu shot.

I wish you all a wonderful week and hope you will stay safe!

We'll have to prepare for fall!

 Goodafternoon everybody!

We have some gorgeous days at the moment with temperatures around 21-22C, in full sun and without wind even a bit higher), and we will have that for some days more. Later in the week, towards the end, they say temperatures will drop again to perhaps 18,or 17C, That is the normal temperature for the time of year, but if you would ask me, I could do with some weeks more in the 21-22C LOL.

I will first tell you some sad news. Last Tuesday afternoon I had a phonecall from Heidi in which she told me that her doggie Tommy had crossed the rainbow! It happened so suddenly, no one saw that coming.  Of course they all are sad and it will take some time to get used to the fact, there is no dog in the house.

And I say to you that I shed a little tear too, hearing about it. I will miss him too, he was a little bit our pet at distance, you know.

Wednesday I called the doctor for an appointment about the eyes. I could come on Friday morning, and after a short visit, he will give me a referral for the ophthalmologist. I can pick it up Monday morning, and then I will call the hospital for an appointment. I hope I can go there soon, but the doctor already warned me that they have quite a long waiting list. Well, we'll see what comes.

Oh, Thirsday we had the final measurement for our windows. They would come between 4.30-5.30 a.m. but earlier in the afternoon we had a call with request if they could come righ away(that was around 3.30 a.m.) Of course it was no problem, they did their thing, we had a few quiestions to ask, they were answered to satisfaction, and now it is waiting when they can come to place them. That was the only thing that didn;t please us too much, they said it could be as late as January next year! It seems they have a very busy calendar, and also the Covid stuff didn't help. But I will keep hope they might be able to do it a bit sooner. It is a bit of disappointment, because we had hoped for late November may be. On the other hand it gives us some more time to save some extra money LOL! Let's try to see the bright side, hmmm?

In between all that of course the "normal"things had to be done, but not truly interesting to tell, only that I took courage in both hands and cleared a part of a closet. Meaning I searched through some clothes of Jan and me, got rid of quite some stuff we NEVER wear anymore, still a lot of it in good order, but out of fashion, or we donlt fit in anymore. And also gor rid of some sets of duvet covers, that really needed replacement. Gosh, that gave some space! I still have enough sets, may be it needs another search through, and certainly more of the clothes. But it is again a good start. Next will be the towels, big and small ones. I hope I can do even more in the next few weeks. 

Yesterday Jan and I worked in the garden. It is about time to plant some spring-bulbs, so that we did. We still had some tulip bulbs from last spring, we stored them after the bloom and drying in the shed and I am curious how they will do this time. And I also had bought(of course, what else is new???)some new ones. So in some planters there are now the bulbs, with on top of them still some annuals that won;t give up blooming and performing well(due to the quite good weather).

And in the spirit of this week, when Jan said he could stall his bike at the moment perhaps IN the shed(normally it is in the hallway, but due to his falling accident, he surely would not take his bike for some time, and I stalled it in the garden under part of the roof of the shed). I took a look in the shed and saw no place for the bike, really(and it is really a small shed). What to do? I got rid of a lot of old wood, of all kind, some big cannisters with some rests of old paint in it, some folding chairs, we never will use anymore etc. Jan had some trouble with throwind away a part of the wood, (old shelves, and left overs from who knows what LOL) but I didn;t gave in and I am glad I was tough! Now we have quite some stuff that i can put on the street and then call the municipal service of bulky waste collection (they come collect it for free). Oh my, I was rather proud of myself. Now we'll see if i can put some more things in that collection. It usually takes a few days before they can come along, so that will give me perhaps opportunity. We save so much stuff, always saying it will come to use some day, or something like that and most of it never will be used again! Is that something that sounds familiair to you????

Good, I just made a quick break to taste the stew that is on the stove. It is a breasing steak chopped up in dices in some Indonesian herbmix.  They call it Rendang. There are an awefull lot of different ways to make it.Depends on the boemboe. 

Boemboes are finely ground spice mixtures used in Indonesian cuisine. Traditionallythe ingredients are ground in a mortar. A bumbu paste is created by adding (vegetable) oil

This time I made it easy for myself and bought a ready to use made bumbu. It isn;t always as good a freshly made, but I tasted it just now and it isn;t bad at all! Quite spicy, I can say. Well, I can always ad some water, or some creamy coconutmilk extra, also depends on how much the cooking liquid9water and some creamy coconutmilk) reduces. I already was a bit careful when bying the bumbu, I looked on the pack how spicy it was, smart hey? Yes, i like a little bit spicy, but not so much that your mouth looks on fire! And secondly, most important, I cannot eat too spicy, it gives trouble with the stomach. Not sure yet what I will make additional to it. Usually you eat some rice with it, but Jan isn;t a rice eater at all, so perhaps I just make some boiled potatoes and some vegetable, or perhaps some nudel, that's also an idea. Oh my God, always all the choices that have to be made, hahahaha.

 

First I think I will make me a cup of tea, and perhaps a bit of gardening, now that it still is noce weather. There are still lots of things to do in the garden, to prepare it for autumn- and wintertime.

You all have a lovely week to come, try to have some laughs and smiles and stay safe.

 

Busy with a lot and nothing LOL

 Goodafternoon everybody!

Another week has passed, in more or less nice weather, not too warm, just around 19-20C, but we had some rain and later this week more and more sun, and now the next two or three days will be as in high summer, they expect temperatures around 27-30C! Oh, perhaps a bit too warm, but still we should enjoy it, it will not last long and soon we will have forgotten how that feels.

It seems lately that Mondays are my most energetic days hahaha. I just wrote it down on the calendar to see what I did that day. I started with a bit of grocerie shopping, (my start is always late in the morning, remember that, I am kind of a diesel, coming on speed very slow, but once I am on the right speed, WOW, ) Coming home first of course putting all the things away, then I think I had a quick sandwich or so, Then I gave Jan a haircut, it was about time again.After that you always have hair lying around, even if you have a plastic on the floor to prevent it. So best is to do a vacuumcleaner round. Then I made a cleaning in the toilet room, not everything but the most necessary things, so the walls and so I left as they were.

A little pause, and then into the kitchen to do something about dinner. Finished it as far as possible, oh and also made finally an appointment for the hairdresser. Think it is quite a well-filled day.

Next day we had to go to hospital for Jan's CT-scan. That takes time, first the travel to and from it(it was the further away hospital, so it takes about 1/2 an hour to get there. Then the waiting and scan and back home again. All went well, and home again we took a cup of coffee and then I don;t know what i did exactly.

Oh, last sunday I also did a bit on the ivy in our garden, that grows like crazy, always, early Spring Jan already took away a ot of it, but there is still a part, that has to be done. We try to do it ourselves, but probably later in Autumn we will have to call in a gardener, that can take care of it for us. Nevertheless I could cut and break away quite a lot, without climbing on a ladder(If I donlt really have to, I don't do it, it is a bit tricky in the garden on the soil putting a ladder).

Wednesday it was the hairdresserday. Oh, I am sooo happy I went there, I have really short hair again and it feels fantastic and it's so easy to comb and keep it modelled. Gosh, suddenly it seems if I walk a lot lighter, LOL.

Rest of the week nothing really exciting, apart from Friday, when I , also finally, went to the optician, to loo for another pair of glasses. And after they did the eye-measurement gave me the advice to go to my doctor who could give me referral to an ophthalmologist, because i might have start of some cataract. Gosh, I did not expect that at all! Now isn't the opinion of the optician all conclusive(because there are quite some differences between the divers opticians), so tomorrow I will call my doctor for an appointment and see what he thinks. Never could be wrong to have a really professional measurement in hospital, because my last measurement already was some years ago and I notice that my glasses arent quite good enough anymore. But you see, when at last things seem to go rather smoothly, there always is coming something in between that scews it up(forgive the expression, but if really sucks a bit.) On the other hand, it might be not that serious, so we'll wait and see and act then.

Today is a nice day, temperature already is much better, lots of sun, and I am already happy that it goes eacht week a bit better with Jan. He even washed the windows at the backside of the house! With some perseverance I could talk Jan out of the idea to use the ladder, (which was only needed for the little windows at the top), and that was a great relief for me. The little windows he could do with and extended window washer I still had somewhere). Well, we can see through the windows again, LOL, and Jan feels better to have done something again after a longer time. Everybody happy, yeah!

Good, that's about all there is now. Oh, just one good bit of news too, Heidi wasn;t feeling really happy end last week, had something like a cold, although no fever. Still, with her health condition it is tricky nowadays so she had a testing for Covid-19 and was negative, so NO corona. That was for everybody a real great relief.  

It might be just the good tie now to have a moment in the garden, the sun is shining there now, so why not take advantage and enjoy the weather. Wishing you all a very good week and hope everybody will stay safe!

P.S. Yesterday Jan and I watched on tv a show of "Holland got's talent", and sometimes there are some really surprising auditions to see, as yesterday. I give you the link, hope it works for all of you. I found this something really special and it touches your heart. It's all about the first audition, with the puppet of paper.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F1YIpbjSyU

Lot of hospital travels these days LOL

 Goodmorning everybody!

Our weather has improved again the last few days. Temperatures are around 19-21C, but with a lot of sunmoments, so we should not complain at the moment. 

Thos week Jan and I had to go  to the hospital because Jan had to undergo some tests. And as I am a kind of mother hen, I go with him just because he still walks outside with the rollator and it is sometimes tricky in the tram(getting up and then hold balance when tram is using his brakes). No, first he had this week a call from heart surgeon with result of last test, now he wants to do also a CT scan, to be sure all the stents are still okay etc. Well, better a good check than not I say.

And last Thursday Jan had to go to hospital for a gastroscopy. It was middle of the afternoon, a bit annoying, because Jan had to be sober for it, so couldn;t eat anything from around 7.00 a.m. Lucky he could drink something, like water or tea. So we went at time, I "delivered " Jan at the spot, hahaha, and went quickly to town centre to look if I could find that summer/autumn jacket I was looking for. I knew where to go for, now just hoping there wasn;t a that long queue at the cash registers. I was rather lucky, so now I have a very lightweight jacket, that still is warm enough and that I even can fould up and put in a small pouch, easy to carry with you. Wonderful!

The gastroc=scopy went well and quick, but as Jan had a light anesthesia, he had to stay there for about an hour to "sleep"it off. I went there around 4.15 p.m. had to wait a little while and there he came out of the ward. Still a bit sleepy, so I was happy he was awake enough to walk, we catched the tram, came home, had something to eat and Jan went back to.... sleep. Wow, in long time he didn't sleep as much as that day and night LOL!

Just before we went to hospital with the post came the appointment for the CT scan. That should happen next week, but then I saw that it was in another hospital. Normally no a big deal, but this was in one that for us was difficult to go to, bad connection, we had to take two or three lines, one with tram and the others by bus, very unhandy, by taxi it would cost us a fortune(and also difficult with the rollator). So right away I called to hospital to ask if they could change the appointment to another hospital. And in no time(the lady at the phone was wonderful) we had another appointment in another hospital. That one we could go to with the tram we have in front of our house, and it stops in front of the hospital. So we will go there on Tuesday. 

We also signed the contract for the new windows and sent it to the company. (so did our neighbor, we sent it in the same envelope). Now it is waiting for the date they come for the final measuring and then wait for the date they will come to place the stuff. Very exciting times(also very expensive, but it's something that will be for many years, and is an improvement to the house). When the windows will be places, we can go looking for curtains , because we must use probably another kind of systems to hang the curtains. You cannot drill into the posts of these windows, so it will be with a may be magnetic system, or plying curtains or whatever). We like to have the upper part of the windows free and the lower part covered by net curtains and we also want to have new drapes(the old ones are really old and a bit de-coloured and so). It's more Jan who likes to have the upper part free from netcurtains, for me that isn;t really necessary, and is we would take "whole"ones, it would be much easier to hang them. Just with a rail against the ceiling or wall. But all that we can do only when the new windows with windowsill are placed. Oh, there is a lot of planning etc. coming our way towards the end of the year! Somehow we will survive it, LOL, and I hope at the end we will be happy with the result.

I am still knitting every now and then, although I first should put together the blankets that are more or less finished. Well, I have the panels done, so now I must crochet them together and see what edge I will make to it. In the mean time I started another one, LOL. As I was in town this week for the jacket I also bought a bit of new yarn. Couldn;t resist it. I will make this into a smaller afghan, just to use when taking a little nap on the couch. That's at least the idea.

We'll see when I get that finished, It keeps me busy with my hand during watching tv, and if I shouldn;t use one or two afghans/blankets, I always can give it away. 

Oh boy, it's time I wake up Jan, time passes quickly when writing the blogpost. Then we could take a cup of coffee and may I will right away make our dinner for this evening then I only will have to put it in the oven later today. Seems a good plan( we will have mashed potatoe with sauerkraut mixed together, it is a dish that is made quite a lot here in Holland). Probably I will make too much for one day, so for tomorrow it will be the same(but it tastes always better the second day). There will be little slices of fried bacon in it too to give it a bit more taste.

It looks nice outside, so may be later today I can do a bit of pruning and cleaning up in the garden. May be Jan can even start to put some tulip bulbs in pots, so we will have nice flowers next spring. He can do it when sitting down, and I can bring him the things he need, and it will be good for him to do something again. He feels so "useless"at the moment, which I utterly can understand. He is yet in no position to do a lot, but slowly he gets better and more steady on his feet. It is just a matter of time.

Wishing you all a wonderful week, and stay safe.

Jan gets his training bit by bit LOL!

 Goodafternoon everybody!

The last few days weren;t the best of summertime here. Temperatures have dropped with some speed, we had rain, thunderstorm(just one LOL), a day with a really fierce storm, today some wind but rainshowers off and on, all with temps around 18-19C, which isn;t really nice summerweather. But if all goes right, middle of next week it will be better and temps will go to 20-21C with lots more sun.

Speaking of training of Jan, last week he had two visits to hospital which went quite well. This week he had his check-up appointment with his doctor of Internal disseases, and we had to be quite early there, at 10.00 a.m. It went well, with the tram and walking of Jan, and oh luck, we even didn;t have to wait long before he was called in. All seemed to be okay, but still the doctor wanted to do an endoscopy, to be sure. So that will be coming week on Thursday.

Jan also had to give some specimen of certain stuff(LOL), so after visit we came home, he did his thing and i went back to hospital to drop off the stuff. As I alwready was halfway, I took the oppot=rtunity to go to city center, wanted to look for a lighter coat, something you can wear in summer/autumn, when it is frisk, but not cold enough for the winterjacket. Something with probably a hoodie and that could have a bit of rain. Well, the shop I wanted to check out, had a loooong line of waiting people in front of it, so I skipped the search and will go may be next week on another day and time. Instead I looked around in some other shops if i could find something for Christmas present, or some things I have on a list of things that I could use or need, but that aren;t in a hurry, understand?

Didn;'t found much, which saves of course some money hahahaa, but....... I did buy Jan a pair of shoed. Yes, I normally don;t do that, because it is a rather "personal"thing, but I wanted him to have some kind of sporty looking shoe, and lighter of weight than the one he is wearing the whole time. I saw a pair that i liked very much for a very low price(sale of 50% off). So I took courage and bought them.At first he was a bit cross that i bought the shoes, but he tried them on, they seemed to fit well, so I think he is still a bit happy with them(which he will not tell me now, perhaps ony after some time, I know him!!!).

I am happy to say that slowly it seems to go the good way up for Jan, he even walks at times at home without the rollator. Okay, he isn't yet to compare with a running hare, speedwise spoken, but it's progress. Outside will be another story. Better to go for safety and use the rollator there for some time longer.

Last Monday I had another burst of energy, and did a lot of things I had on the to-do list and it felt quite good. Next day I had in mind to do some more, but got a phonecall of Heidi if she could visit us with Séveru=ine. Of course she could, It was great to see her again and Jan was happy too to be able to speak to someone else but me, hahaha.

It's not looking too good outside. There is quite some wind and every now and then a rainshower(and that are heavy ones). It almost looks like Autumn, but I n=am not ready yet for that. It was even so chilly yesterday evening that we pt on the heating for a couple of hours, just to get the chill out of the house. May be it will be necessary this evening too. It seems so early for that, so hopefully later this week with more sun and a bit higher temperatures we can do without it again.

Not too much is happening around here, as you can tell. Oh, I hear the washing machine making it's noise, which means the programm is almost at the end. So time to hang out the laundry, and take a look at my stewing pot with some lamb meat. That's dinner for this evening. Stewed lamb, with some onion, paprika, and some seasoning. I will make us some potatoes to go with it and see, what veggies I have in a pot. The kind you only have to warm up for a bit in a little pan. Easy does it sometimes, don;t you think?

I wish you all a very good week, and stay safe!

Our heatwave is done with.

 Goodafternoon everybody!

It is cloudy, every now and then a rainshower, and also some sun, and temperatures are around 21C. So that's a big difference with two weeks ago and even with part of last week. I love to have a warm summer but there are some limits LOL!

Last Monday Jan had to go to hospital for a test of his vains. It was somewhat early, 9.20 a.m., (for us almost like midnight hahaha), so we had to get up quite early morning to get ourselves ready to go.

It was now the big question if Jan would be able to make the expedition, but he did rather well. Okay, he will not be able to go for a speed competition in athletics, but he withstood it quite well. Lucky we have the trm just opposite our hose, it was more the distance from the tramstop to hospital that could have been tricky. The more, because they started to buils that new part and we had to go to the backinstrance, further away.

All went well, we made a restpoint, before going into hospital and also had a seat on a bench after he had done the test. Then back home. He is never a complainer, so I will never really know how he felt, but he looked good. The good extra on it was, that he slept very well during the night, I thinkk for about 6 or 7 hours in a row! That's amazing for him!

Same thing we had to do again on Thursday for another test. It went well also. so his in jury seems to heal, although slowly. He even now tries to walk a few steps in the house without the rollator. That still is difficult and I have some fear he does it too soon, but he has to start with it once, otherwise he will never walk without the rollator(and he hates it, I know). But he also is happy he has it and can move around.

That were the big things of the week. Doesn;t sound to be much, but it were time consuming expeditions, so those days there was left not too uch time for me to do other things(apart from having the energy or not ROFL). Still I managed to get some things done that were on my list, and that gave some satisfaction.

We also got the offer for the windows from the last company. Jan and I looked it through and we were left with a few quiestions. Well, I took the phone right away(wow, what an energetic move I made, hahaha) and had a real good and nice and informative conversation, I right away talked through a few changes, and only two days later I had the new offer with the possible changes and adjusted price on my doormat. That's a service, isn;t it?

We will have to talk once more with our neighbor, but I think we will both go for that last company.( It should be better too, because we got a little discount because we both asked for an offer and probably commission. I'll be glad if the signed order will go out and we will get a date for the works to begin. If all is good it will be done in one day. We only will have to make some area free from stuff standing around, take off the curtains, cover the floor at some places etc. the day before. I hope Jan will be able to do then some things together with me, and otherwise I will ask Heidi for some help, or may be Jan;s brother. We will see how things will be by that time. I think it could be done somewhere end Octobre or so.

For coming week I already have everal little jobs written on my calendar near my laptop(it;'s a good place for the calendar, because I almost sit every day for a moment or longer at the laptop and automatically look at the calendar, yeah, you know older brains, hahaha).

Gosh, tomorrow is the date of our marriage, we will be marries 13 years already, but together already for 28 years). Then there will be medicins to order and pick up, I should try to make an appointment with the hairdresser, may be already make an appointment with our plumber, who every year does the maintenance of the central heating kettle, and Thursday jan has to go to hospital again for his 6 months check-up appointment with his specialist for internal diseases( you know his liver and stomach and so on). So it seems to be quite a busy week, together with the usual things that have to be done, like some grocerie shopping, some cleaning around, probably some ironing, and if I have enough energy left at the end of the week change the covers of the duvets on the bed. I know, it all doesn;t seem so time consuming, but I don;t start my mornings usually at 9 o'clock anymore, I like to have a slow start, so there is less daytime left then, ROFL.

Okay, I think that is all there is today. I should take a look at my meat, that is on the stove, some beef that needs a few hours to stew, but then it will be so tender and taste well, together with some boiled potatoes(not my favourite way of preparing potatoes, I like them more out of the oven or fried, or made as french fries), but sometimes it just suites the rest, and probably i will make a salad with lettuce and lots of small tomatoes of different taste and colour. Strawberries as desert and we may have some plums later in the evening( I bought them and tasted one or two and they are yummie). Yes, we have to think about the vitamines, and better to have them from the food then from pills, if we can.

I wish you all a lovely week to come, and as always I hope you will stay safe!

It was a hot and sticky week!

 Goodafternoon everybody!

We had a real hot and sticky week, yes. Temps did rise over 30C, with practically no wind, adn although we have a rather cool house, we did reach temperatures of around 28C(evening!), so in the sitting room it was kind of okay, but in the bedroom oh gosh, it was warm.

Because of that(and no we don;t have airco and no ventilator, normally we don;t need that) we didn;t sleep very well. Yesterday there was a bit of thunder and lightning, so we hoped there would come a rainshower, and ...... just a few drops and nothing more. Perhaps tonight there might come some rain, let's hope so, it would cool off the air. Still next week we will have good weather with temperatures of around 24C, which is nice summer weather, but better to handle.

As you can imagine we didn't do very much, it was just too much effort LOL. Still I went to city centre one day, lucky that day there was some more wind, and I took the better hours, and I found two pair of shoes in sale, one sandal and one low kind of sportshoe, also two t-shirts for me and two for Jan(these too in sale, and a nice sweather for Jan for just aa few Euro, and even found some presents for Christmas.

It all togethr was a very succesfull mission. That was about the most i did this week, only I think it was on Thursday, i gort a call from Heidi with requiest if i could go to her house in the afternoon to give Tommy a little walk. They were out of town and couldn;t get back early enough for that. Okay, I did it, but I wasn;t all too happy, because it was very hot that day. Never mind, Tommy was happy with me and that made the trip already good for me.

Last Monday Jan went again to the physiotherapist, it all looked good, and the man said for now Jan could do the exercises at home, but if he though something didn;t go well we always could call for a new appointment or advice. And it is going off and on so to say. Some days it goes rather well, and another day he has pain, cannot move too well. I think somewhere this week in his sleep he twisted perhaps the muscle again a bt and therefor was quite in pain the next day. It just will be a long process, with ups and downs.

Tomorrow will be quite a challenge for him. He has a research to be done for his vains at the hospital, so we will have to go by tram and then it will be a little walk to reach the hospital. I think Jan will be able to do it, but nevertheless it will be straining. I am really curious how he will feel after he gets home again. My prediction is, that at the least he will be very tired. And later this week he will have to go to hospital again for another research. And the week after he has an appointment with his doctor in hospital. Pffff, he will notice that he will use the leg a lot!!! Worst of all is that tomorrow's appointment is real early morning so we will have to take the tram quite early, to have enough time to walk in quiet pace to the hospital. 

It will all end well, I think, but at the moment Jan isn;t feeling very happy, because he cannot do the thing he would like, like working a bit in the garden, taking a little walk(without rollator), or moving around without trouble etc. I know it can be very frustrating.

In the mean time we still are kind of busy with the window stuff. I am still waiting for one offer, and then the neighbour and we will have to decide which company we will take, so that all can be done before the end of autumn, I hope.

When that starts(the window placing I mean) next thing will be searching for some new (net)curtains and probably drapes too, because the ones we have yet are very old and showing it slowly LOL. But because the new windows are made with high quality plastic frames(they just look like wooden, but you don;t have to paint them anymore, hoorray), we have to have another system for hanging of the net curtains. It isn;t advoced at all to drill into those frames. But I already saw on the internet that there are special systems for it and quite ingenious too. So aftr we have the windows right away choose some curtains and let them make and I also want them to be hung uup by the curtain shop/company. 

Oh, still so many things that need to be done or bought, but with Jan not able to walk much, that all has to wait for a bit, because we need to go to several shops for it. All will be good in the end, it only will take some more time I guess.

This evening we will have a bun or may be two with some pulled pork meat on it, perhaps a bit of salad aside. I didn't have courage to cook a whole meal today, so the pork I only have to warm up in the oven for may be 25 minutes and we can eat. Very easy and quick and not much trouble too. Tomorrow the temperature will be a few degrees less, so I will cook again kind of properly, hahaha.

That's all, folks, let's see how next week will come on. Have a wonderful week and stay safe!

We have an official heatwave now!

 Goodafternoon everybody!

Yes, when 5 days in a row temps get over 25C we have a heatwave. And ut us really very hot here. Along the cost where we live, it already is around 29C now, in our garddn even several degrees more. It will stay this way till apparantly Thursday, then there might be some thinder and lightning and some rain, and it will cool off , still there will be nice temperatures, better to handle, like around 23C.

I love it when it is real nice and warm weather, but now it is even for me a bit too much. Worst of all is that there isn't coming much out of my hands, I become very lazy, it is just too warm to be very active, so I wait till temperature drops a bit and then I must do some housekeeping again!

Last Monday n=my friend Heidi came by to pick up the dog, I think he was happy to see her again, but may be he will miss me a tiny little bit???? That evening it was a kind of strange feeling, not having to go our after dinner and later in the evening, you know. However, how much I love that little dog, it also was wonderful to be able to sleep soomewhat longer on Tuesday morning LOL.

How is Jan doing? it goes better by very little steps. But he already went out twice or so for a very short walk. He also does some exercises every day. Tomorrow he will have another session with his fysiotherapist. May be there will be another appointment, and perhaps that will be enough(I know also that the fysio is going on holiday soon), so may be Jan will have a check-up session after that holiday.

Could be useful.

In another week Jan will have several appointments at the hospital, but I think he will be able to go there(with rollator, of course!) by tram. From the tramstop to hospital isn;t very far to walk, he should be able to do that. Of course I will go with him, I will feel much better doing that than sitting home, wonderinf how he will cope.

It was so warm the last couple of days, that somehow we weren;t very hungry, specially not at dinner time, so yesterday evening I got us some buns, and covered then with some salat leaves, then a slice of smoked salmon and some slices of hardboiled egg, and a few cut up buns with pastrami, salat and some cucumber slices. It tasted real good, easy to swallow and later in the evening Jan took a bowl of quick made soup.

Today I will have a ready-made borsjt(Polish beetroot soup with lots of veggies in it). Just will have to warm it in a pan, and I still have some salmon and pastramie and bread from yesterday. So a quick meal, that will taste good enough and we could take also some strawberries as desert. 

Time to take a cup of coffee now, and I will wake up Jan(he went back to bed early this morning, because of the warmth he didn;t sleep very well this night.). But now it is about time he takes a cup of coffee, and opens his eyes, otherwise he will have trouble this night again to sleep a bit.

That's all for this week. I wish you all a wonderful week to come, and stay safe!

 

 

I think I walk more than I usual did.

Goodafternoon everybody!

We had nice weather and yesterday and specially Friday it was hot! We reached around 30C or so.

Today is somewhat cooler, because of the wind, next few days will be around 21C, but towards the next weekend temperatures will rise again a lot.

We might complain it is too hot, but it is Summer and if we didn;t had some warm temperatures we would complain also, so what to do? I think being happy we have nice weather, we can have the doors open, and it looks happy with the sunshine and blue sky.

Pfffff, another week with Tommy, and although I really love the little guy, he is no trouble at all, it is a bit hard to get up around 7.30 p.m. and go out with him, and then again 3 more times(well, the last walk is really a quick one, 10 minutes or so). But it breaks the day, it needs a total different planning and it might be good for my condition, but I feel the legs sometimes LOL! It is just that we aren;t used to it, that's the whole point. And sometimes it don;t like too much going out after dinner(rather sit down and watch some tv) but harder is it to get up on your feet again for the late walk. Why? I am just nicely settled on the couch with usually a pair of cosy lounge-paints, and then you will have to get your jeans on and shoes and get moving.

It might sound as if I complain deeply about the dog sitting, but that isn;t true. It is just the getting used to it that isn;t so easy, but I do it with love for that doggie. If you take care of a pet, you will have to do it well.

I have a bit of good news to tell. Last Monday I decided, together with Jan(wow, he agreed without much discussion)to call the doctor and have an appointment.. We went there on Wednesday afternoon(Jan walked the little distance, which was already a kind of victory for him, it was the first time in 3 weeks he got out on the street). He told the doctor about the situation, that it didn't get much better, or much too slow. So the doctor proposed to have some

physiotherapie. As we only have basic health insurance the treatment isn't reimbursed by it, meaning we will have to pay for it completely ouselves. Not so cheap, but for your health you will have to do anything if you can.

We could make an appointment right away(they have a physiotherapist practise in the same place as our doctor(that is very handy!) and Jan could have an appointment that same afternoon, only had to wait about 15 minutes. That was great! The physiotherapist let Jan do some simple exercises, and also homework to do! It was a good thing I pushed it through, Jan felt happy about it too afterwards. Next appointment will be tomorrow, and perhaps he will have a couple more, but the physiotherapist already said, he didn;t think Jan needed a log treatment.

It was, by the way, a very nice guy, and just the right type for Jan.

Now Jan already went out 2 days in a row(just for may be 10 or 15 minutes, but never mind, as long as he does that exercise of walking outside(at the moment still with the rollator of course), he will get the feeling back and slowly also the strength again and confidence again. And hopefully after a while he will be able to walk again without the rollator.

I just had a call from Heidi to tell me, they would start driving home this afternoon, so somewhere tomorrow they will be home again. And that means Tommy will be here only for today and may be tomorrow and then goes home again. I suspect, he will miss us a little bit, with us he is never left alone, he gets a lot of attention and much more treats(I know, not always so good, but I don;t overdo it, trust me).

Yesterday I had a little attack of cooking virus, so I made us a soup and backed us a small pirog(that kind of Russian pie, with minced meat).

That makes it easy for this evening's dinner, we will have the same LOL!

And I have strawberries with cream as dessert.

It is a rather simple, but tasty and quickly served dinner.

It is nice weather at the moment, not so steamy hot anymore in the garden, so perhaps it is a good idea to take a set there for a little while, perhaps I could take a small icecream????? Not a bad idea.

So I wish you all a wonderful week, stay safe, and till next Sunday.

A week of early waking up LOL!

Goodafternoon everybody!

Weather last week was on and off, you could say. Some days a bit or rain, or just cloudy, another day there was more sun, yesterday we had quite some rain(good for the garden), temperatures not exciting, around 18-20C.

Coming week it should go up again in temperature. Well, a few degrees would be nice.

It was a quiet week, although for me kind of filled, because I have Tommy(my friend's dog) to care for. Pffff, it isn;t easy to wake up early morning and after a cup of tea go out for the doggie walk around 8.00 a.m.( but, sometimes when I get back I take a little nap on the couch to catch up with missed sleep, hahaha) then I take him out around 1.00 -1.30 p.m., again after dinner around 6.40 p.m. and for a very short one, just on a little grass close to our house for the nightstuff, around 10.30 or so p.m.

That last one isn;t perhaps really necessary, I know my friend doesn;t do that often, but I think it is better for him, otherwise it is such a long time till next day.

He is no trouble at all in the house. Most of the time he is sleeping, LOL.

Every now and then he wakes up, and looks if we are still around.

The best time for him is coming home from his walk, because then he gets a little treat, like some small doggie cookies.

This morning however he gave me a little fright, when I let him out. Suddenly he limped, and didn;t want to walk. So I tried to look at the paw he suddenly didn't use, couldn;t see anything, but he wasn't happy me touching it. I tried however, to kind of "massage"him between the toes, to try to clean it. Then he walked again but not happily.

So I made it a short tour, at home tried to check it again, he let me, but not happily again. But after a while he walked again rather well in the house and when I walked him just before posting now, it all seemed okay again, He even ran again for a bit. Pffff, that was a relief. I will keep an eye on it still, to see if it really is okay.

At the moment he is lying near my chair, all happy again after his little treat.

With Jan it is about the same. It looks as if some days the leg is hurting a bit less, although he still needs one or sometimes two painkillers. So it isn;t yet getting lots better and it is almost 3 weeks ago now. So I think I will have to be firm and make an appointment for him at the doctor. I just think he needs to make a check and I like a bit of advice. It will however be a struggle to let Jan agree with it. In those cases he is sooo difficult! But I think it is the best thing to do now, have a chat with the doctor, by phone or better in the office. Will be difficult for Jan to get there, but with patience he should be able to walk that little distance with the walker.

I know he feels aweful by it, not being able to do a lot, not participating in the walks with the dog, doing some things in the garden, etc.

Nothing to do about it at the moment, it will take time. In about 3 weeks he has an appointment at the hospital with his doctor there, half year check and so. I have no idea yet how he will be able to get there. Could be by taxi or perhaps a friend could drive us, or may be he has to cancel the appointment and make a new one a bit later. We'll see in about two weeks how Jan is and feels.

We had another company last Monday for the windows. We are waiting for the offer, it could take a bit of time as the agent told us, because now there is the construction holiday time. Nothing to do about that. I however got quite a good feeling about the company. Now it all depends on the price for the work.

In between that there are of course the usual things to do, so all together I feel rather busy. Must admit that sometimes I skipp a housekeeping task to the next day, but I try to do at least one or two things a day. Today I only do the walks and of course make dinner, but that's about all. Tomorrow I think I will do a bit of ironing, and next day probably have to do some grocerie shopping. I don;t like to take the dog with me doing that(only sometimes when I just need one or two things, he knows to wait in front of a shop, but I don;t want him to sit there for a very long time), so I have extra walks to do.

The dog will be here still next week and may be one or two days extra, depending on the return of Heidi from holiday.

I think it will be a strange experience again when he will be gone. We are getting used to in having him around.

That's bout all for this week, not much exciting, although it feels for me as if I had a very busy week, with lots of things I did. Must be the change of day routine.

I wish you all a very good week, hopefully you all stay safe.