We had a guest overnight

 Goodafternoon everybody!

Ourweather today is almost springlike. It isn;t so warm, although 8C isn;t really bad for now, but we have some sunshine, very little wind, but later this week temperatures may go down a bit, still now frost expected. It is quite different from Greece and Turkey at the moment, for example!

Yesterday was Jan's birthday and I tried to make him a nice dinner. There were a few phonecalls and cards so it was not a bad day and it just was a nice day. I had a started with a few marinaded gamba's, oh, they really were yummie. Then I had smoked salmon on toast with a two slices of hardboiled egg on it  and a few thin slices of cucumber . And I made a potatoe-rootbeet-salt hering. That tasted real good too. Lots of people don;t like our hering, it is raw fish layed into salt, but we love it. Also good just like this with some diced onions, and on a sandwich or bun too. As dessert I had some strawberries with a thick cream. Later on in the evening we had our coffee with a small piece of sweet pastry.

We have some left overs from yesterday, so we will have that for dinner today, easy peasy for me, hahahaha.

I told you already that the "lease"cat Muppet visits us again , but yesterday night, already late, at about 00.30 a.m. I sudden;y saw her standing at our kitchendoor. That was a bit strange, what to do. Well, with the still rather cold nights I cannot let her stay outside, so we let her in. Perhaps she would go after a few miniutes, but less was true, she didn;t want to go outside anymore.. She stayed with us all night and also all morning today. I had not much food for her, just a few cat-snacks, I gave her that, she really wanted something to eat. I suppose, but it is just an idea, that her owner may be was out, may be just the evening, or perhaps a whole weekend? As now the lockdown is easier, you can go to a pub or restaurant or theatre till 10.00 p.m. evening, but still it was strange she came so late to us. We'll see what will happen this evening or night.

I didn;t have a good night sleep last night, because I had a bit stomach trouble, and it happens a bit too often lately. I think it is time I make an appointment with my doctor and may be they will have to make an endoscopie again in hospital. The last one was 3 or may be even 4 years ago. At that time the doctor there said that may be they would contact me after around 3 years to make a new one, just to have a good look. But with all that corona stuff, lots of not directly necessary help is persponed. So I guess sme with me. But if the stomack (most is the upcoming acid, despite my medicin for it)bothers now too often it is probably time to go to the doctor.  I always need some time to finally call my doctor for something(not for Jan, then I am very decisive, but for myself, pffffff).

We'll just see what happens next week.

For the rest we cannot complain, it is a quiet life at the moment, soon there will be garden work needed, if the weather stays as good. I think Jan will start sowing some seeds, and it is good for him, to have something to keep him busy. Our nieghbour gave Jan a small greenhouse, a very simple one, but good enough. I found a picture of it

Simple but good enough. And it is rather big, so Jan can start sowing a lot of seeds, LOL.

And I made a picature(two in fact) of my last finished project, a crocheted blanket. It was a simple pattern stitch but nice and it works quite fast.

And at the moment I am making another blanket, but in a lilac yarn, in a waffle stich. I will still nedd this week I think to finish it. May be even two, when I've decided which border I will make on it. So suddenly I am gone from knitting and on to crochet. As long as my hands keep busy, specially when watching tv, it is okay. What I will do with the blankets? No idea, LOL. May be a gift here or there or I will donate it to a charity of some kind.

Good, that's about all for today, time to sit down on the couch, crochet a bit and watch probable some tv.

I wish you all a wonderful week, safe, not too cold or too warm weather,

No nice weather, but less lockdown to come.

 Goodafternoon everybody!

It is today around 7C, sounds not bad, but it feels not good, it is cloudy and it is real nippy. No, winter is definately not my season, speaking about the weather.

Well, it was so nice last week to see shops open again and that we could shop again. There is still a lot closed under lockdown, still horeca and culture sectors are having a difficult time. But may be next week there could come a little relief, we hope and perhaps soon they can open up again. Once we should learn to live with covid and you cannot hold all soceity in a lockdown for ever.

We had again a quiet week, where not too mch happened. I know, it is boring to read my blog, but life has changed a bit the last couple of years. In the coming week or two I will try to have a few quotations from several companies for the removal of the ivy. It is growing on some spots like mad and we are not longer able to do that. It is taking too much energy and also it would be a bit dangerous climbing on stairs etc. I fear it will cost us some serious money, but it needs to be done. Perhaps it will not be necessary to dig it all out of the ground(that would be a real costly work), but it would be already great if they could remove the most of it above ground and also remove two small, but dead trees that are covered with the ivy too. I would be so happy if already the most of it would be gone and then we can prune or cut it ourselves again a bit. And may be it would be a good idea to have then a kind of contract that someone can come once or twice a year to do the trick. I have no idea how much that will cost, so again work for me to do in the next few weeks. 

And also in the next few weeks it will be time to collect bit by bit the forms needed for the tax return. Yes, it's a thing that returns every year again, and is not the favourite jb of mine, although it isn;t too much work. And I am happy every year again that I have an accountant that does all the rest of the work for me. 

Some day last week we were watching some program on tv and saw something amazing art. Probably there are more artists dojng about the same thing but this one is really good. It is a Nigerian artist who makes portraits with only a blue bic pen as tool And it is really amazing with what result. His name is Oskar Okonu and I think his work is real special.

I will give you a link where you can see some of his work. Take a moment to click the link, you will see something beautiful.

 https://www.boredpanda.com/realistic-drawing-blue-ballpoint-pen-oscar-ukonu/?utm_source=nl.pinterest&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=organic

Nothing more left than wishing you a real fantastic week to come, and stay safe.

Some light in the tunnel

 Goodafternoon everybody!

Our weather is dull, grey, around 5-7C, it is dry, but that's all. May be in the next days we will get some more sun.

Fairly good news. We are out of the hard lockdown. A lot of things are open again, like all shops, with some restrictions, but still..... okay. Schools open, high schools and universities too, people can go sporting again or training, but hard thing it is for the culture and horeaca sector. They are still closed and I think that now slowly nobody understands it anymore, and just wants to go as soon as possible back to more or less normal life. Infections are still rising, but still there is not real pressure on the hospitals, much less people have to go to hospital and that is already something. 

Séverine(daughter of my friend) is having lots of trouble of her booster. Sche had it last Sunday but had a lot of pain and it lasted so she called the doctor and he gave her some painkillers. I asked her how it was now, it was a bit better, but if it lingers on too long I think she ought to ask for some test or so. 

We have had regular visits of Muppet again, mostly in the morning, when I get up and go into the kitchen to make a cup of tea, shce is standing at the door, looking inside to see if somebody is there to let her in, LOL. Well, of course I let her in, then she receives some yummie snacks, just s little bit, and then she stays often with me till 12.00 or 1.00 a.m. 

It is all very quiet arpund here, with that lockdown there wasn;t much to do, I could just go for grocerie shopping and that's was it. So may be next week I will pick a day to look around in town centre, to see what is new. There are some small things I like to get, so it will be a good excuse.

Pity that the tram stop real near our house(just have to cross the street) has been eliminated byt the company. Seems there was not enough traffic at this stop. I don't know about that, but it is a pity, now we will have to take a longer walk to the next stop. They say they will see how it works during the year, and then make an evaluation of it. Hmmmmm, I have the feeling the stop will not come back anymore.

I am back in the knitting again, I am making larger blocks in different stitchesand I hope to make a smaller afghan/blanket with it. It would be kind of a sampler afghan. It is nice to have something to do with my hands during the evenings, when watching tv. It also keeps me more awake, at least a bit longer, hahahaha.

did I mention we finally have a new goverment? It is formed of about the same political parties as the one before, so what news to expect? I don;t know, they will have to prove themselves and work very, very hard, to gain again some confidence from the people. We now have 20 ministers and 9 state-secretaries. Pfffff, that's one thing they already did, to make more posts for ministers. There are some new faces between them, from some of them the people might have still some good expectations, but we will see what future will bring. 

And now I think I will make a cup of tea and do a little game on the computer. The dinner is already ready, I just will have to warm it up in the oven. Yesterday I made us some "Kaiserschmarrn"a kind of pancake in Austrian style. It was real yummie and for sure to make again after some time.(as you see I put a link on it, so you can see what it is exactly and they have a nice recipe there). Try it, I am sure you will like it! You can have it as lunch or dinner and if you don;t want to use the rum, you can soak the raising also in some orange juice.

Have a wonderful week and stay safe.

And again a year older!

 Goodafternoon everybody!

Our weather is not too bad. Yesterday it rained almost all dy, but today it is mostly dry with even some sunshine and temperature around 7C. It will stay more or less this the whole week, with not much wind. 

Yesterday ws my birthday and I reached the age of 69. Pfffff, it is going fast towards the 70's. It was a quiet day, I had some birthday phonecalls, and I opened my birthdaygift from Edna and found in the package a lovely pocketwrap she made in a scrumptious soft yellow color. I just love it.

Last Thursday Jan and i went for our boostershot. The travel with the tram and bus was easier than I though and the bu stopped real near the location, so that was a good thing for Jan. There was a queue but it wenT all rather fast and we didnlt have to wait long. We couldn;t chose the vaccin, pity, the first two vaccins we had from Pfizer, so I would like to have the booster too from Pfizer, but we gott it from Moderna. Not a big deal, those two seem to go well together. I had no trouble from the vaccination and I am so happy we finally have it both. Now it is waiting till government decides we can go out of the hard lockdown. One day it has to happen, it is actually unbearable, specially for the trade, shopkeepers etc. I think we just have to learn to live with the covid, perhaps have a vaccination each year and just treat it as a severe flu or so. Life has to go back to normal again.

On Friday Jan and I did remove all the Christmasvdecorations, it took us a few hours, but we managed to do it all in the afternoon. It always looks a bit empty the first day, but once used to it again, it is good too. 

After a long time of no visits of Muppet she suddenly came by on Thursday morning. She stayed a couple of hours and today she also payed us a short visit. It is nice that she comes along every now and then. she looks well, so she is taken good care of, I think. I just have the impression Muppet looks sometimes for a bit of company. well, she can have that with us, LOL.

At the moment I am not knitting anything, but my hands like to stay busy during watching tv. So I will look around on the web may be for some charities that can use some afghans or blankets. That gives me something to do and it could help a little bit.

That will be my task next week, among the usual things of housekeeping and grocerie shopping. 

Time to watch a bit of tv(there is speedskating and you know I like it) and then later have dinner and may do a little game on the computer after dinner. we'll see.

I wish you all a wonderful week, stay safe.

First post in 2022

 Goodafternoon everybody!

Of course to all of you a Happy New Year! 

How did you celebrate it? Here it was real quiet everywhere, because of the lockdown, although I think here and there people broke a bit the rules. Well, perhaps not always the most sensible thing to do, but very understandable. 

Jan and I had it very quiet. I made some yummie snacks for the evening, brought a few to our neighbour and watched some lovely tv. On New years day Jan and I looked into all the presents of the Christmasbox of my oversea friend Edna and it was great. We had such lovely presents and it was a good start for the New Year. (The box just arrived after Christmas, but never mind, we just did Christmas a week later again).

Just after Christmas I tried my luck on the phone for the booster and how wonderful, I just had to ring once, wait a real short time and could make an appointment for both of us. Pity that at the location the most near we only could have one end January, or even begin February. That was a too long wiat I though, but lucky thay had opened another big location, takes a longer trip, but okay, I will be happy when we have the booster. It will be on Thursday, the 6th of January. Hopefully there will not be a too long waiting queue. 

Today we will have just one day of really lazy behaviour, I have a simple dinner, not much work, but good enough, later in the evening we will still have a bit of left overs from New Years snacks, so I guess we will not starve LOL.

Tomorrow the "normal"behaviour should start again, with some laundry to do, some cleaning and such. Most important for us this week is getting the booster, and we should fill in a question list today or tomorrow to take with us to the vaccination. 

Time now to have a small sandwich or something like it, perhaps a cup of tea( I could take a tea with cranberry and apple taste my friend sent me in the box, I think this is a good idea!

Have a wonderful week.