Is everybody still holding on??

Goodafternoon everybody!

We had a few quite nice days, dry, much sun, pity the wind was cold, so it felt not as nice as the temperature showed, but.... it still was nice to see, blue sky and sun specially when you were inside.
Next week it will change a bit, it will be colder and also there comes a bit of rain. We'll see what comes of it, nowadays the weather forecasts seem to change by the day LOL.


How is everybody doing?
This week I was outside a few times, just for having some groceries and also getting again a few medicins for Jan.
Most of the people try to follow the instructions, also in the shops more and more they try to keep the distance of 1,5 mtr, and if it is a small shop, only limited number are allowed to enter at the same time.
I think it is a good thing.
The numer of cases here in Holland are still rising, as it was expected, quite a number of people are now at the IC, and it could become kind of a problem to have enough IC places. We still have enough over the whole country and they are working hard to have more. They hope this weekend or may be next week we will reach the top and then we will see if all the taken measures have the effect hoped for.
Till now Jan and I are okay and trying to keep ourselves busy and still a bit use all our muscles. Jan nowadays is more the gardener than I am, who could tell that a few years ago? It is a good thing he can keep himself a bit busy and moving around in the garden, at the same time he has some fresh air and stays rather safe from the virus.
Okay, I am a bit more at risk because I go shopping(sometimes you do need things), but I try to be careful and follow as much as possible all instructions.

Can you believe that in our garden we already have a few blooms on some of the Pelargoniums? Amazing! Also a hardy Geranium is flowering already. Our tulips, those of last week photo, are still flowering in all their beauty and soon we will have a second bit of tulips opening their flowerheads.

Perhaps you know of that very big park, the Keukenhof? Every Spring their are thousands and thousands of tulips(and some other bulbs too) to admire. But this year it is closed because of the coronavirus, and it is such a pity! Still they found a solution, it isn;t quite the same as walking there yourself, but a nice replacement.
They made a virtual tour of it and I have a link for you if you are interested(well, with more "free time" t our hands you might as well take a look LOL)
https://keukenhof.nl/en/
It is in english but I believe you can get it in several languages.
Don;t forget to scroll down on that page, there you can choose from a few tours.
Enjoy!

Oh, this weekend we changed back to Summertime, so the clock went one hour forward!
I almost forgot but Jan didn;t, so he already changed the clocks this night (he always goes to bed very late, a left over or perhaps "infection"from his former profession, having to work in changing shifts and doing lots of night shifts.
Okay, now I will check my stew that is on the stove(chinks of lam meat, and paprika, lots of onions, oh, also some carrots and mushrooms and even a bit of Chinese cabbage). with that I only will have to boil a few potatoes and we have our dinner this evening. For dessert we have vanilla custard with a few fresh raspberries!
What else did we have for dinner this week? Let me think.
I've made macaroni with minced meat and grated cheese(it was enough for two days, it is even better the second day) with a bit of salad.
The also I've made a kind of wok dish. Chunkds of chicken filet, onions, sliced chinese cabbage, some mushroom and bantam potatoes ( that are very small potatoes, delicious boiled, but even more if you fry them afterwards, when cooled down first).
Another day we had simple hamburger, boiled potatoes and grean peas and carrots(from a tin this time, I don;t use all the time fresh veggies, try to as much as possible, but sometimes it is even nice to have some tinned ones, like brown beans for example). Friday evening Jan and I made our öwn"dinner, meaning something very simple, so I made savoury French Toast (in US-English) (fried eggy bread in UK-English) for myself, Jan had some left over macaroni that I had in the freezer.
Yesterday I've made a potato-salad and we had smoked salmon with it, YUMMIE!.
So may be I have given you a bit of inspiraton for your dinner, who knows??
Good, now really have to go to the kitchen!
Wishing you all a very good week and for all a styaing safe of the virus week!
Take care and follow instructions and use your common sense too.
Till next week.

Just trying to keep up the spirit

Goodafternoon everybody!

Weather is rather nice, when looking out of the window. Coming out in the garden, there is sunshine, but a very cold wind blowing, so after all not really lovely weather. Temps are areound 10C but at night around zero.


Last week there happened a lot all around the world, of course.
But in our lives didn;t happen too much, because almost everything is in a close down. Schools, restaurants, sportschools, cinema's, lots of shops are closed now.
Supermarkets still are open, and shops where you can find groceries, pharmacies are open,
Beginning this week I still went out to do a bit of grocerie shopping. In our supermarket there were shelves enough that were empty, because people were hoarding, specially pasta, toiletpaper, milk, eggs, that kind of thing.
And there is enough stock everywhere, for everyone! Now people in the supermarket for instance are working very hard to get the shelves filled again, but it is almost impossible for them to keep up.
I will go out tomorrow to see if there is some bread , that's a thing we are running out a bit at home.
May be all this panice buying will come to an end in a few days, let's hope so.

Still you see in a lot of places people coming together and in close range, in parks, or at the beach and such. I can understand it, that you want to have some air and stretch your legs, but do it carefully. Please think of eachother, keep at least the distance adviced.
I have the idea that a certain number of people still don;t realize how tricky this virus is.
I am afraid that this situation will last for several weeks long and may be even longer.

So we will have to keep ourselves busy at home, nothing else to do LOL.
The keeping in motion is a thing we should try to do. They give now extra "sport" editions on tv, with simple exercises you can do at home. Well, to be honest, I don;t do them, hahaha. But...... I try to keep moving every now and then by vacuum cleaning, or dusting, or cleaning, and next week I will try to start sorting out some closets and perhaps a bookcase, things like that. Then you still use about all muscles and keep them in shape(more or less, hahaha). If you can, you will have to move around every day a bit, and if possible perhaps go outside for a short time, doing a grocerie shopping already helps.

I was busy on a blanket already started a long time ago. That one is more or less coming to an end(have to put some parts together and maybe it needs a border, don;t know yet) In the mean time I started a new afghan, YES! Couldn;t hold myself back. I already bought some yarn for it(don;t know if I have enough, and if I come short, if I can go to the shop to buy more, could be the shop will be closed). I have it in two colors of green

 In reality the above is darker green

And this should be a greyish mintgreen, doesn;t look the right color here.
But perhaps it gives you an idea.

I wanted it to be an afghan made in different crochet stitches. Already for a long time i didn;t do much crochet so it is a nice change from the knitting.
Perhaps it was better to make a photo myself but I still don;t know if i can put my little photocamera into my laptop with the Windows 10. I don;t want that connecting it to my laptop upsets the whole laptop, you know waht I mean?
The camera is an Kodak Easy Share V1003, so already from years ago.
Anybody perhaps an idea if I just can try without messing up all kind of things?

For the rest we keep busy with watching tv(although there isn;t always a lot of interesting to see) but we manage to find enough to get us through the evening and sometimes already afternoon too.
Next week I also would have to go out perhaps to get some medicins for Jan, he is running out of some. But may the pharmacie will bring them, I don;t know what is best for them, so I will call them first to ask.

Jan keeps a bit busy in the garden at the moments the weather isn;t too cold or wet. There is quite some to do there, but for now it is mostly a bit too cold to go there for a longer time. Oh, we planted tulip bulbs last year and some of them are coming to blossom now. And they look beautiful. They have "double"flowers in yellow with a bit of orange, it seems(again: photocamera would be handy, I don;t have a phone with camera, ..... not yet). I don;t know the name of the tulip anymore, so I searched a bit the web to find one that comes close:

And with this uplifiting phot I will finish now this post!
Hope you are all safe and wel and will be for the coming time too!
Make the most of the time you will have to stay at home!

People have gone a bit crazy!!

Goodafternoon everybody!

Although the weather report announed a rather nice day, I cannot feel it at all!
I just was in the garden to fill the bird feeder and hang out some cunks of apple, but I was glad I could go inside quick after that.
It feels not nice at all, there is a cold wind, we should have some sun, but I cannot see it, so it isn;t as predicted. Porbably the sun will come out around 5 in the afternoon for a moment, and that will be it!

Oh, I had misfortune this week one day. I think it was on Tuesday, when I was out for a little gorcerie shopping. On the way home I suddenly felt a "knick" holding my shopping cart. I looked at it and on side of the handle was broken.
I managed to get home. Gosh, now I had to find a new one, because I m so used to that handy little thing, that I cannot do without it. Hmmmmm, in the neighborhood we didn;t have a shop that sells those things. Best is to go to the market, where you can find one for a decent price.(I know perhaps other places where you can buy one, but those are quite expensive, perhaps of a better quality, but that's not always sure). So the market it was next day. And I found one that will do. It is even of a little bit bigger size, which is okay.
We will see how long this one will last LOL!

I had other plans for that Wednesday, but it was all changed because of that shopping cart buy. See???? Better is not to plan too much ahead. Life comes in between with all kind of things to its will, hahaha.

Friday I had to go to the supermarket for some of the usual things, like some milk, bread, etc. And I couldn;t believe my eyes walking though that supermarket! Lots of things wheren't at the shelves anymore. Completely sold out, like most of the milk, all kind pf the pastas, lots of canned or jarred veggies, I needed a little package of minced meat, looked for it, forget it!! Sold out!
Also toilet paper and kitchen paper where an issue. All because of that corona virus! People really got crazy and started to buy extra stuff. Not just one package extra, no, in bulks! Can you believe that????? And just can anybody tell me why???? I think it is rather selfish too. I can go along with buying a little bit extra, perhaps understandable. But not like this! And how about the people who cannot go shopping during daytime, like e.g. hospital personal, policeman, other people that work in shifts. They too want a bottle of milk for the next day, but when they go grocerie shopping just after dayshift, there aren;t almost any supplies for them left.
And it isn;t necessary to bulk, there are enough supplies and there will be. We are not in a war situation of something like that!
I hope people will get their senses back and act normal again.
That virus isn;t a nice one, that's for sure, and we should take care and follow up instructions of the health organazations and government. But please get real again and think twice!

Good that's off my chest, ROFL!

I am still kind of working on a blanket I started long ago. It will be finished, but in the mean time I was looking on Pinterest and suddenly saw lots of nice blankets, this time chrocheted ones. I fell in love with some of them instantly and now(what else??)I want to start one too with the crochet hook. Not yet decided which one, or with what kind of stitch. May be just one stitch, or may a blanket withlots of stitches(I saw a few and they looked really beautiful).
Perhaps some of you are inspired by the following foto's I borrowed from the web. I will give you some links to, where you can find the pattern(all are free as long as I know) and also a link where you can find lots of different patterns for blankets. May be one of you will make one after looking at the pictures of them?
Let's start with the first one

 http://www.thoselittlethings.nl/2018/03/

==========

https://patterncenter.com/celtic-crochet-afghan/
This one looks not the easiest one to make, but you have to admit it is a beautiful one!
===
Now a link where you can find lots of different ones.
http://www.diyhomedecorz.com/crochet-blanket-patterns/
And if that is not enough, just look at Pinterest, search for afghans or blankets knitted or crocheted and there is enough!
have fun looking around.

That's it for today.
I have an easy job for dinner today, because we will have again the soup I've made yesterday. There is much left, so we will finish it this evening, perhaps with some buttered bread on the side and that should be enough. If we may get a bit hungry later this evening, we always can make a sandwich or so.
Wishing you all a lovely week, hopefully you will all stay healthy and not catch that virus. Just try to take precautions, like washing your hands more often, stay away from bigger crowds, if you have to cough, do it in your arm. Use tissues when blowing your nose. Don't hug the people you normally do. If you dont have to go out, stay home. And please use your senses and don;t over-react!
Till next week.

Nice meeting with Heidi this week.

Goodafternoon everybody!

Still having okay weather, some days we even had quite some sunshine, but with exception of one or two days there still is too much wind and also rainshowers.
Temperatures are okay and at times even higer than the average.
All in all we shouldn;t yet complain too much there are places on this earth where people have much worse circumstances, spoken of the weatherconditions!

I have a plaster on u thumb today, there where it goes into your hand, very nasty place to have a "wound". My own fault, of course. I have a cunk of old cheese and wanted to cut of some slices for a sandwich. Now this old cheese is very hard to cut with a cheese slicer and yeah, Kyra did it! Right into my hand. And it was also a new cheese slicer so very sharp. Ouch! It will take a little while to heal, meaning I better use a glove when washing the dishes etc.
I should be more careful, but you can take a bet one it that every now and then I have those kind of accidents LOL!
(By the way, the very old cheese tasted very good on my white sandwich).

A few small plans were achived this week, not all of them so I am partly happy with myself, hahaha!
Oh, I didn;t have to call the hospital about Jan's appointment, he did that himself, wow! Seems he will have just and ultrasound, to check the vains and all.  Why couldn;t do it a more eloborate one when he had one just a week or two ago? Then the doctors could have shared the results.

Last Wednesday I had my appointment with Heidi. We were lucky it just was a good day concerning the weather. I had to wit just a few minutes for her in front of the restaurant/lunchroom where we would meet, and it was nice, because I could stand there in the sunshine and a bit out of the wind and it felt sooooo good. That warmth of the sun was delicious!
It was just noon when Heidi came along. We chose a place in the lunchroom, on the covered terras(they had heater there so it was real nice to sit) and ordered us two cappuciino at first and a bit later something small for lunch. It was so nice to have time to chat with eahother in another setting than normal. Normally we meet at eachothers homes, and that is okay, of course, only suometimes it is nice to go "out", you know. Only the last few years I wasn;t able to invite her for it, or even pay half of the bill, we didn;t have too much money.
And I didn;t want her to pay for it every time. Now I was able to invite her and it was a good feeling.
It was so nice that we kind of agreed to do it more often, and I already now where we will go next time. It will be in another location, something new, but it had real good reviews and it looks to be a cosy place from the outside . Now we only will have to find time may be next month to meet again LOL.

Yesterday I went for a real short trip to the market(in forst for the cheese) and came back with a few more things. No, not too much, just a few things more, amongst it with some lamb chops and small potatoes. We will have the lamb chops this evening, with some fried potatoes and a bit of vegetable.
As soon as I finish this post I will go into the kitchen to put the lamb chops in a marinade.
I will try this recipe I found, it is simple but I think it will be very tasty.

Ingredients lamb chops with thyme and rosemary for 4 people

12-16 lamb chops
4 cloves of garlic
A few sprigs of thyme
A few sprigs of rosemary
4 tablespoons olive oil
Pepper and salt

Zipper the leaves of the thyme and rosemary sprigs. Finely chop 

the thyme and rosemary. Press the garlic cloves.
Mix the thyme, rosemary, garlic, olive oil and a little pepper 

and salt. Place the lamb chops in a large bowl. 

Pour in the marinade and mix everything well together. 

Place the lamb chops in the fridge and let marinate for 2 hours 

(or longer). Stir the marinade and the lamb chops occasionally.

Remove the lamb chops from the fridge half an hour before baking.
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Heat a frying pan or grill pan.

 Place the lamb chops in the pan and sear all around. 

Cover the baking sheet with baking paper. 

Place the lamb chops on the baking paper and slide the 

baking sheet into the oven. Bake the lamb chops with rosemary 

and thyme in 8 minutes. The intention is that meat is still 

a little rosé.

May be you get the urge to make them too one day LOL!

With that I will leave you now in peace, wishing you all a lovely week and for all a

healthy week! 

Slowing down is okay, but not too much!

Goodafternoon everybody!

Well, it is just a few minutes after noon, hahaha, but I thought I better do my blogpost now, because later today there is some speedskating to see(and you know I love that) and I want to put some stewmeat on for this evenings dinner before that.
Our weather has been still windy and even stormy some days, quite some rain, today we see some sunshine every now and then, still strong wind, but the wind should slow donw coming week and that's already something good.

I did some planned jobs this week(not too much but okay, I DID something which is already quite a thing nowadays. Yes, really, I notice that I slow down in doing things, well, it is more the getting started. Once busy, it goes still not bad at all. Perhaps it is just getting more lazy, could also be a part of it LOL, and it could have to do partly with the weather. I always feel more energetic and willing to do something in summertime, even already springtime.

This week Heidi and I planned to have a "meeting"somewhere in town, to have a coffee, perhaps having something to eat during lunchtime, so we could have again a good chat together. But it didn;t take place, because Heidi called it off. She has an aunt, who is very ill(cancer) and not doing well. Her mother wanted to go to her (aunt is living in another town, not too far from here) and Heidi wanted to go with her and that was just at the day we should have met. Of course it was no problem, her visit to her aunt was more important so we will make another appointment perhaps next week.

At the moment every news and talking programme on tv has the issue of the corona virus. I can understand it, because it is a tricky one that is still spreading around. This last week we had the first coupe of infected people in Holland too. Still nobody should panic, but it is a nasty virus, and hopefully they will find quickly a cure for it. Till then we will just have to be careful and follow up advices from doctors and not believe all the nonsens that already is told about it and not believe the "so-called"advices.
One of the things that bothers me is that there are instantly some people who want to take advantage of it and use this virus to go along houses with some tricky story to get into houses just to steal some stuff or money or to get money from people as "donation" for e.g."research"or whatever they invent. So be careful of anybody coming at your door with some story!

Oh, last week Jan suddenly got a letter with an appointment at the hospital with the surgeon, this time for control of the bloodvessels. I wondered if this has to do with the operation of last year or just yearly control of other bloodvessels??
I think I will call Monday or Tuesday to ask whatfore this appointment is. He first has to do a kind of test or so and a week later Jan has an appointmet with the surgeon. Could have to do with that operation last year, but then the control is rather late. We'll see and hear next week.

Jan also started to put some seeds into a small greenhouse. One species already came to growth, and are doing well on the windowsill. It still is too early to already re-pot them, a bit too small, but may be in a week he can put some of them in separate small pots. They still have to stay inside to get taller and stronger, may be we can put them outside already in April(which is normally too soon, but with that strange weather we have it might be possible).
Soon we will have some tulips also flowering in the garden.
I will have to make some photos then, but I don;t know if my little photocamera works with windows 10! It already is a camera of some years ago and I don;t know if i can plug it in the USB just like that and if it will work with the laptop.
Is there anybody who would know that?????
Would appreciate your help!

Okay, time to do some cooking and then it can stay on the stove for some time, and I can watch a bit of the skating.
Wishing you all a lovely week and safe week too!