Every day life is still strange.

Goodafternoon everybody!

Sun is still shining here, although temperatures are lower than begin this week and will drop even more next week. And probably we will get some rain too. The drop of temperature isn;t so nice but some rain would be very welcome.
Of course for us with the garden, but more for the farmers and nature in general.

What to say about last week? Life still is kind of strange, although I must say I somewhat get used to it. I am kind of lucky, I guess, that i can go out, although it is only to get us some groceries or some other stuff.
I don;t get very far, most of the time I do the shopping in the nearest supermarket and some little shops in the same street there.
I had a couple of rather energetic days this week(not too much hey, but at least two, I am sure of that LOL).

On Fiday i even went to the market! I needed some veggies and cheese, and although the market is reduced to only the food stalls(fish, vegetables, fruits, cheese, potatoes) so about only a 3rd of the normal capacity, it is nice you can go there. There are measures taken, you can ony follow one path, you cannot linger along back and forth, and to get at the stalls you will have to wait for your turn on distance. There weren;t very much people there, so I could do it quick.
I walked home(I went to it with the tram), it was nice weather and good to use the legs a bit. I must say that almost everyone on the street or in shops is paying good attention to keeping distance.

Oh,there is more. After I came home from the market I took another trip, this time to my friend Heidi to bring her some fresh ginger(she likes it to put into her tea) and as extra I bought her a small amount of little snack tomatoes( you know the tiny ones),  of all sortsand colors from the market and two rooted cuttings from plants in our garden. She can put those into a big planter she has on her balcony.
We even had a short chat with a cup of coffee, yes, we held a good distance from eachother, even in the house! It still was nice to actually SEE eachother again for a moment.

Yesterday I was rather busy, for a few hours. First started the washing machine. Around midday I went for a few things to the supermarket and also to the jewelry to have the battery replaced from Jan's watch. It stopped and then ticked again and stopped etc. So I think the battery was almost used.
Coming home I started to make a soup for our dinner. It always takes some time, had to make little meatballs for it too, slowly boiled some chicken legs, so I could use the meat for the soup.
In between the laundry was ready, so I hanged that out to dry. Returned to the kitchen and made some piroshki for us to eat with the soup.
I made it easy for me, I used prepaired dough in slices from the freezer, so I only had to make the stuffing from minced meat, chopped onions, and chopped boiled eggs.
(you can make the piroshki with all kind of stuffing, like cabbage or mushroom, bu tI like them most with the minced meat).
When all this was finished and I washed all the pans and so on, I thought I had a good day and it was about time to take a seat. No, before that I did feed the birds too and then sat down a moment in the sun(watching some of the birdies coming for their "meal").
They look a bit like this:( I only made the dough not that thick)

Today I take an easy day. We shouldn;t exaggerate our boosts of energy!
I watched a recorded crime film first, than took a shower, and then write this post. This evening I have still some sop and two piroshkit left, enough to have a meal for us, I can even give some strawberries as desert, yummie.!

In between all this I am knitting too, mostly in the evenings, and am now halfway a second panel for the big blanket. I have still a long way to go, before that will be ready. At least I will need 4 panels, may be even 5. Well, it keeps me busy and I like very much the stitcht I am using, the Mock Cable. It is an easy 4 row pattern, also easy to remember and looks lovely. I have a link for you if you want to know how the stitch is knitted:

https://newstitchaday.com/faux-cable-edging/

Good, the sun is just shining and right into the garden at the moment, so I will take a moment there, to get me some natural vitamins and also a bit of colour on the face.

Stay safe and still stay home as much as you can, because we aren;t yet done with this virus.  And if you go out, do it sensible and keep distance, small things to do but important to remember.
Wishing you all a lovely week!

"Adjusted"life is going on

Goodafternoon everybody!

We have in general not bad weather, sometimes it is the wind that makes it feel a bit colder(coming from the North), but at the moment we have again lovely weather, with some wind, okay, but lots of sunshine.
There was even a little bit of rain yesterday, but not enough to keep the garden happen for a longer time.
The only ones that are happy with it are the blackbirds, because after it has rained you always see them hopping around and getting a lot of wurms out of the ground. So for them it is a festivity.
Temperatures are around 17-20C later this week may be even a bit higher.

Last Monday Jan and I did get all that pruning stuff at the street and there were lots of sacs and some bundles and later(as we agreed with them) our neighbours put there an additional 6 or 7 sacs with cut ivy to it.
The picking up service did come very early next morning, wow.
Glad we got rid of it, we had it in our garden for more than a week.

I also did make a phonecall to my accountant, to to ask if he received all the taxpapers in good order(I like to be sure). well, all arrived and he will send the the declaration in time to the tax office. So that's done, and now we wait to see if we have to pay some moneyon top. I count with it for a certain amount, if that will be lower, well, that's okay.

Jan wanted to do another job this week, the window cleaning of the front windows. But he didn;t get to it. I don;t know exactly what was wrong with him, but he said he didn;t feel really perky, bit of trouble with the belly and stomach. So better he took it real easy for a couple of days. I think already yesterday it was a lot better, not yet quite, but it seems today it is all good again.
so if it stays that way, may be later this week we will attack those windows LOL. At the same time we can clean them inside and also wash the lace curtain.
That's one of the things that we need to do.

There hasn;t much changed about the semi lockdown we have here. And it will stay that way I think at the least till the end of April, may be even till mid-May. Then may be we will have a re-start of the economy in stages. Every time a few things that can start or open again, like schools, perhaps restaurants, coffeshops etc( under strict conditions of course). It still will be a difficult time for longer.
I think it is better to do it slowly and prudent, and not have to regret a fall back and have a second outbreak of the virus.

Oh, I was surfing a bit on the net this week, just to see if there also still was something nice to see and yes, there was enough.
And to give you a little bit of happy feeling I gathered a few links, that might lift your spirits up a bit and make you smile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXxnAr7e8cI  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIoip2yFyVs  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm47coWDtb0

If you want something more about nature look at this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tvA3Ezqjl8

and if you want to have a really good laugh
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK94wpWFDZc
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udaF7x4zL2I

Now about time to take a look at the stew that is on the stove, has to stay on for at least an hour more, ay be even a bit longer. It is chopped lamb meat, lots of onions in it, also fresh paprika, cut in larger pieces, and mushrooms.
I will boil later some potatoes and perhaps make some salad or boil some grean beans, not sure yet LOL.

I hope you are all still okay and are holding on. Not always easy, but what has to be done, well, has to be done.
Take care and till next week!

Easter with a bit of sunshine.

Goodafternoon everybody!

Let me start with wishing ou all a Happy and Blessed Easter!
It is however a bit different Easter than other years. We cannot visit our loved ones and friends as we normally did, and that will be that way for a longer time too.

The weather here has been really lovely for the last few days, we had temperatures around 20-21C, lots of sunshine and almost no wind. So we could open the doors to the garden, let some real nice air into the house. The garden is slowly awakening from winter, all in all I think it is about 3 weeks ahead.
This week wasn;t much different than the week before, of course, although there were some small events(everything is almost some kind of event at the moment LOL).
Monday Jan went to the hospital to have an ultrasound for some vains in the belly. He was checked for his temperature entering the hospital and had to keep distance. All went well there, although this ultrasound took more time than his usual one. He had a phonecall from the surgeon on Thursday, that all looked rather well with his stent and vains, although he could see perhaps a small stricture in one of the vains in the belly. For now no action was necessary, but in 3 months the surgeaon wants another ultrasound to see if there were changes. I am glad they keep a good eye on it, it is reassuring.

Oh, all the time on tv you here that you should try to keep fit during the isolation at home, so they show little exercises that you can do etc.
well, this week Jan and I had our part of exercise!!!
We have ivy growing along one of the walls of the garden, but it has grown too hard so it was really time to do some pruning. That isn;t always the easiest thing to do with ivy. But together(although most of it was Jan's work)we managed to get rid of a lot of it. One part of it we cannot prune yet, because we know there are several nests of tits, blackbirds and so and we don;t want to disturb them. That will have to wait till the youngsters have gone!
We didn;t do the pruning all in one day, that would have been really too much.
So Wednesday was the first "shoft"then a day of rest and Friday a second one.
For now it looks a lot better, although there is more to do later in the year. May be we will let it do by a professional, because part of the ivy in the back has grwon into a dead tree, so the tree has to go to or at least be cut down. It isn;t a very tall or tick tree, but we cannot do it by ourselves.

Now we have lying around several bundles of longer and thicker branches, and lots of sacs with fallen pine needles and small pruning stuff. That will be collected next Tuesday. So we wil have to bring it to the sidewalk tomorrow.
Another exercise, pfffff!

I finished my crocheted blanket but I am not really happy with it. Some of the stitches look really nice, but in the whole I think I will use the yarn again. I started already with another blanket or afghan project( I still had a bit of yarn from the crocheted one) and this time I am knitting it. I think it looks much nicer.
I started the 1st panel in the Mock cable stitch, which is real easy, but looks lovely. Not sure yet if I will make 3 or 4 long parts and sew or crochet them together or that I will make more or less large blocks, perhaps in two or three different stitches. Sounds all as if I thought it through very well, but I didn;t LOL! I think the plan will come about as the knitting of the first part progresses.
Probably very chaotic way of work, but most of the times it seems to work with me, so.............................
And in the mean time I am busy, while watching tv.

Before making this post I already prepared part of the dinner.
I will have egg-stuffed meatloaf with bacon slices around it . Something looking like this

Then some boiled potatoes and a salad.
Good enough I think for an Easter meal(hey, there are some EGGS involved)
The sun is disappearing slowly now, so I think I will sit for a short time in the garden as long as there is still some sunshine and a nice temperatures. Tomorrow and the day after we will have an enormous drop of temperature! It will not be more than around 9-10C!! But then later on in the week it will rise again to may be 18C. Let's hope so, because I am getting really used now to the warmer temperatures and also the happy making sunshine!

Take care of yourselves, stay safe, stay at home as much as you can, and if not possible, keep the distance!
Till next week.

Priveleged with a garden

Goodafternoon everybody!

We are still under mild lockdown(staying at home, work from home if you can, schools closed, restaurants etc. closed, only go out for grocerie shopping, making a litle walk is okay, but maintain distance, etc.).
And it is not always easy, and now I am talking just about us two in one house, we don;t have children, that cannot go to school, still have to get lessons on line as much as possible, young children can go out on the street to play, but in very small groups of perhaps 3 and for short time during day. we can do our shopping still ourselves, well, I do that, better not let Jan go into shops etc, bit risky.
This will last at least till and of April and then we will see how things are going.

It seems in our country the Covid infections and intaking on IC is flattening down a tiny little bit, but nothing to get very excited about yet. The result of all measures taken will be visible perhaps at the end of the month.
This all meaning it is still a tricky situation, and also getting very difficult for all kind of small or bigger entrepreneurs.

It all is sounding very depressing, yes it is and yet we must try to keep our common sense and not let fear for the "unknown"take over.

 Perhaps it is very easy said, but it is the only thing we can do.

So let's keep ourselves busy in any kind of way. 

I am still working on the green afghan, I think I am almost there to finish it

(it will not be a very large one this time), then I must make an edging on it,

that will make it look much better. Oh, there are lots of edgings you can make, 

but i think I will not make it too difficult.

Every now and then I do some housekeeping stuff, yes, unbelievable but true LOL,

😁, and I also try to make our meals as easy but also tasty every day. That is 

sometimes a hard thing to do, having to think what to eat for dinner. Well, most of the time I am more or less successful. That keeps me busy, because I try to prepare in advance for the evening. 

For example today I've made already small kebeb on skewers

something like on this photo

Also boiled bigger chunks of potatoes, those I will put in the oven with some oil, seasoned a bit, so that they will get a nice crispy crust, and I have mini tomatoes and some corn salad.
Should be quite enough, don;t you think?

Last week Jan kept himself busy in the garden a;most every day. For one or sometimes two hours he was busy re-arranging pots, filling them, also weeding and filling garbage sacs full with sweeped up needles from the trees and some leaves came too, hahahaa. Now we have I think standing 8 big sacs standing in the garden and two bundles of pruning stuff waiting to be picked up. I've made an appointment with he collection service for garden waste. The earliest date they could come was on the 14th of April! Gosh, that takes time. I guess lots of people are working in their gardens now and there is a much bigger offer of garden waste to be picked up. But okay, at least it will be done.
Now a little bright note to that. I suddenly noticed that there has been a start with road works close to our road. Gosh, perhaps the week of the pick up they would be busy on our part and may be it wouldn;t be possible to put the garden stuff at the edge of the sidewalk.
Good, a few days ago I had to go out for grocerie shopping and I walked to a man who seemed to be a teamleader of the roadworkers(yes, I kept the distance of 1,5 mtr!). I asked him if he knew if they would be busy on our part at that date and told him of the garden stuff pick up. He asnwered that he didn;t know but that he would ask the supervisor. I asked him if he could come to our door to tell me the result(it was close of where they were working at the time) and he said he would do that. He wrote our housenumber on his hand and that was it. And yes, it worked!!!
Next day at about 11 in the morning the doorbell rang and there was that ever so nice man to tell me, we easily could put the stuff outside, because at that time they wouldn;t be working at our part.
Now I call that a super service! It just made my day!
This week we will have real nice weather, they say we can have temperatures to 18-20C! with little wind and only a little bit of rain.
Gosh, just now that is becoming nice weather we will have to stay in. And here we are priveleged, because we have a garden to sit in. Also people in an appartement with a balcony, how tiny it may be, still have possibility to enjoy a bit the sunshine.
It is more difficult for people who haven't those possibilities. Lucky here we still can go out for a walk, only people cannot go in bunches to parcs or the seaside or woods. There are restrictions and even close downs for it. 

About time I finish my rambling now, wishing you all a good week, hopefully everybody is still safe and will be.
Jan and I are still okay, thank God for that.
Try to keep up the spirit, till next week!
 

Good, I think I rambled enough for today adn will finish now.
I just hope everybody is still okay, Jan and I are still okay, let's hope it will stay this way.