Late post because of Christmas

 Goodevening everybody!

How was your Christmas? Surely quiet and probably not with a lot of people around. For sure here not, because of the lockdown. But nevertheless Jan and I had a quiet, but wonderful Christmas. I was only sad to know, that my friend overseas didn;t yet receive her Christmasbox. And I didn't yet receive the one she sent me. I don;t know what is wrong with the post nowadays, i really did sent it really early, already in the last week of November. So I hope it still will show up next week at it's destination.

Apart from this it was a lovely Christmas, really relaxed and nice. I made us a geat dinner for Christmasday, which didn;t took very much time, several things I could make in advance a bit, so there was no stress whatever finishing the last bits. The menu was: 

Duck breast fillet, with some orange juice and a few slices of mandarins freid in the juice and fat of the duckbreasts, haricots verts(French thin green beans) and Hasselback potatoes with a bit of garlic butter over it. 

All succeeded well and it was very tasty and as dessert we had some tiramisu. 

During the day and also evening we watched several wonderful shows and films, we had a great time I can say. 

For today I made it a bit easier for myself so we had a potatoesalad with slices of smoked salmon, and as dessert I made apples, filled with raisins and some sugar, and butter, from the oven dressed with a bit of butter/orange juice with a few thin cut orange peels and some whipped cream and some ice at the side. Pffffff, it was quite a meal but so yummie!

Now Jan is taking a little nap, so I have time to make this small post, later we will have a good cup of coffee and watch some tv, we have a lot recorded, so more than enough to fill the evening.

It is cold here at the moment, well, it was the last few days, this morning we had -3C here, but temperatures will go up again next week and you can belive it or not, we might reach around 13-14C during daytime and nights might have 7C, which is really high for this time of the year. 

Let's see how next week will go, I hope to receive soon a letter to make an appointment for the booster shot( but I am not too hopefull, and if it will show, I hope I can make that appointment by phone or if not otherwise, try it online. Much trouble all the time to get through by phone and even online at times. ) 

Fridaynight will already be the change of Old Year to New Year. 

I think I will make us a soup for dinner and then later on the evening some yummie snacks. You all take care and stayf safe and i wish you awonderful New Year's Eve. Till next year😊

Christmas week should be a happy one.

 Goodafternoon everybody.

It is grey, not so cold, with some drops of rain here and there. Temperature at the moment is around 7C. And best there is almost no wind. But later this week it will get somewhat colder, here on the coast perhaps we will reach at night some little frost(0 or -1 or so) and daytime will not very high, may be 3-4C. It is not my fab=vourite weather but if could have been worse.

It was a quiet week and at the same time busy. I tried to do some grocerie shopping every day, to get me all I wanted/need for Christmas. I almost have it all, which is great. I also had to get a prescription for some of Jan;s medicins from the family doctor. I went there myself, it is onlt two minutes from our house, to explain all to his secretary. well, i think all is settled now. Once the pharmacy has the prescription they can do there thing. I just have to keep an eye on the stock here and see that the repeat service is on time. But it will be must less strssfull, I hope.

Mupeet showed uup again, she comes every now and then for a visit and sometimes spents a few hours on my lap or with me in the kitchen. I don;t give her food anymore(well, sometimes a little scrap of meat or cheese every now and then as a treat, LOL), but in the evenings it seems she is home. It is nice to have her around every now and then.

Bad news is that from today on our country is again in a hard lockdown, so almost everything is closed(very hard times for shopowners and small businesses and horeca, also thaters and musicians)), only supermarkets and other food stores like baker, etc. are open till 8 in the evening and of course pharmacies and such. It is so sad that it is necessary, still because of Covid. There seems to be a new variant, that spreads twice a fast(which is about all they know about it now) and government has taken this decision, to be sure hospitals still can cope.

I am ashamed to say that our The Nehterlands are way behind in giving the booster vaccination, so they are nnow trying to speed it up as fast as they can, but to make an appointment for it by phone is almost impossible at the moment, lines are too occupied. So they ask to do it online, but also that gives much trouble. So now they say people of above 60 will also get very soon a letter of invitation, but if it is as last time, you still have to call(in cases you want to go with your partner at the same time). Well, I hope Jan and I will have our booster before the end of January! I will try next week every now and then to call( I hate it to make an appointment online in this case), may be I get lucky. They could have started this booster vaccination already much earlier, and I don;t understand why they didn;t and why they don't use the help of everybody who is volunteering to give vaccinations, like family doctors. They could do that at their practice, which would be easier to go for a lot of people. No, they want those doctors to first have a class on location and there are waitinglist for that of several weeks. Can you understand that?????? I don't!  I can get very upset and angry about those kind of things. All could be going so much more easier and fluently and for all faster! 

Gosh it already is late, I almost have to make our dinner. Well, I only have to boil some patatoes, the rest is ready, has to be warmed up only. Do you all are almost ready for Christmas? It il be again for a lot of people a strange Christmas, like we had already last year too and I hope next year we will all be able to celebrate Christmas the old fashioned way again(meaning if you want to, you can have company, cleberate it with family or friends, just as we did in better times).

So next time I will post it already will be Boxing day, so I think I shall wish you already now a Merry Christmas, in good health and safety. Till next Sunday.

Christmas comes nearer

 Goodafternoon everybody!

It is a bit gloomy like weather, cloudy, it rains every now and then, but temperatures are around 10C. Unbelievable in December. But already for a longer time, wether is behaving otherwise as we were used to. 

On the news yesterday we saw the devistation the hurrincanes/tornados did to Kentucky. Oh my God, how aweful that has must been. And also other states are hit severe too. My heart is with all those people who in  a blurr of a moment lost all they have. 

We had a more active week this time. On Monday we started with the Christmas decoration, and as always the first is the tree. Well been busy for a few hours, we decided to do the rest the next day and my be even a third one was needed. And so it was. Good thing to do it in kind of shifts, it made us a little bit less tired this way and also the body didn't ache too much, hahahaha. 

It was worth it, our sitting room looks all cosy and full of lights again. I have made a photo, it is not very good, but you got an idea of the tree.

It may not look like much work, but you all know it all takes time and it is a tree of around 1,80 mtr. high. I also started to write enveloppes for the Christmascards I have to post, I couldn;t wait much longer to do that.Still have to buy a few more, well, I can do that tomorrow.

Then I had to settle something in the pharmacy. Jan is now in a pharmacy repeat service for his medicins. But at the moment all medicins don;t run out at the same time, they must re arraneg it a bit. So I had to get him one that will not last till next batch delivery(end of December). It was no problem, but I will have to get them a prescription for some of them by the family doctor, because his specialist in hospital cannpt give out prescriptions anymre for those. So he has a year prescription by his specialist, okay, but now I will have to call or go next week to the family doctor for the other ones. Once they have had that one time, they can call for repitition of the medicins to the family doctor themselves. It is a bit complicated, but once all settled I hope it will go smoothly. It will save me a few walks to the pharmacy, I can even let them delivered at home. Nevertheless I will keep an eye on the stock, just in case.

Do you know what? I don;t follow very much auto racing, formula 1, but nowadays it is a little bit more interesting because we have  Dutch driver there. And guess what? Today our Max Verstappen became Woldchampion, by beating Lewis Hamilton! And it is something special because Max Verstappen now is the first Dutch Worldchampion in Formula 1 in the history of the racing. And although I am not very much fan of autoracing I am a little bit prod now, LOL. It is quite an achievement for such a little country. Here is a photo of Max just after his win:

This was about all I think I have to tell. next week I will have to think thouroughly about our Christmasdinner, I want to try not to be for too long in the kitchen, but still have soething really yummie. I am sure I can figure out something. 

Good, I wish you all a wonderful week to come and please stay safe.

Many kids will have nerves today!

 Goodafternoon everybody!

It is getting a bit colder here, we have some rain, it differs how much in every region, temperatures are around 5-6C at day, so still not really bad. It depends how much wind we have and from which direction.

Today is a great day for kids, despite the Covid. Today Saint Nicolas is visiting and if not in person, for sure with a lot presents. It always is an exciting time for kids and it is a fantastic gholiday, it is a bit like Father Christmas in other part of the world. This is our Sinterklaas and his assistant.

For us it was a pretty quiet week, I tried to stay home as much as possible for a change, and most of the time I was in the kitchen( I like spending time on dinner and trying out sometimes new recipees), or at the computer, browsing a bit and playing some games. Normally I don;t download a lot of games from Microstore but I like match-3 games and they have some very nice ones at the moment Of course there are always in-app stuff to buy, but you can play very well without spending money, it probably takes a bit longer go through a game, so what? I like Jewels of Egypt and Jewels of Rome. Once you start with a game time seems to fly, gosh!

Oh I have some news about Muppet. Remember perhaps we missed her for several days? Well a neighbour who has pets himself, also was wondering what happened, he came to us to ask if we knew something As we didn;t he went to the lady who owns the cat to ask if all was okay. Well, that was the case. She tries now to keep her inside as much as possible, and she asked if we wouldn;t give the cat any food anymore. She said that she liked the cat slender and now it was getting a bit too fat. Hmmmmm, I am not happy with it but I will stay strong and not give any food anymore. Lucky, I didn;t see Muppet the whole week, but our neighbour still does. And bad news, Yesterday morning she was in front of our kitchen door. What to do now? Well, I didn;t let her in, and perhaps she will not come back anymore. But my heart ached, you can believe that! I have a feeling the lady who owns Muppet isn;t really womeone who cherishes a pet and takes real good care. Well, perhaps I am wrong. Nevertheless it is strangee that the cat still comes here and I don;t think it is just for food. Might also be for some attention, and cuddling etc. But okay, no more Muppet inside, that will be the best, unless I see that she still comes around and doesn;t look good. Then perhaps I should go and talk to the lady, but I hope it will not be necessary.

Good, after today, which is a relax day, tomorrow will be a busy day. We will start decorating for Christmas. We always wait till after Sinterklaas, although I rather would have started already this past week. It gives a bit more time and possibility to do it in bits and pieces. But Jan is completely against it, LOL!

So next two days I guess we will be decorating, I will try however not to to too much, but manger and tree will be there and some extra lights too on some garlands. And a few statues too, so still quite some work. 

But it will look so cosy again when all is ready and then it will be slowly time to think about dinner at Christmas. Seems far away, but if possible I want to get most of the stuff in advance, to avoid the big crowd in the few days before. It still will be a strange Christmas, with all that covid stuff still going on, but we will try to make the most of it.

If all works well in the schedules and plans of the government, we might get our boostershot somewhere in January. Not too soon, but at least they do it. Still there is still a to big part of the population without a vaccination and that is causing most of the prblems, for all in the hospitals. Bigger part of the patiensts with covid are the non vaccinated, so that tells something. In the big cities, like Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, Utrecht, vaccination coverage( or percentage if you want) is around 77%, while all over the country it is around 85%, which is not bad(that's all above 18 years old, but about the same if counted all above 12 years old too).It is however a shame that so many people are afraid to take the vaccination, because of non-information or dis-information. That should be changed somehow.

Oh, it is getting rather dark in the room already, so tim to lit a lamp, and then watch perhaps a bit tv and soon make our dinner, will be some chili beans(left over from yesterdays tortilla wraps), with some fish and some fries, yummie, It has been some time since we had French fries. It will taste good, with some mayonaise.

Good, I wish you all a lovely week, stay safe please.