Sunday, November 29, 2020

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!



Sunday, November 22, 2020

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


Sunday, November 15, 2020

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!

Sunday, November 08, 2020

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!!



Sunday, November 01, 2020

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.