Sunday, September 25, 2022

Lot more quiet and relaxed this week

 Goodevening everybody!

We've just finished our dinner and Jan is taking a little nap, so good time to make a small post. The weather is  bit less, although we still have moments with sunshine, but also some rainshowers and of course the temperature is letting us down, juust around 14-15C. That is below average for this time of year.

It was a rather quiet week with not much happening, so in fact I have about nothing to tell you LOL. Of course we did some things in and around the house, and I am glad we have found some energy for that.

Tomorrow Jan will have a phone appointment with the lung doctor, more to check how he is doing. well, not much air, of course but that will never come back, but as long as he does things in slow tempo and takes little brakes in between it is going not too bad.

My friend Heidi has been in hospital again because she had trouble with the infusion line that provides the medicin into the upper bloodvain near the hartchamber. She has PAH, which cannot yet be cured but lucky there is already longer time this medicin. So a new infusion line has bee placed, but it takes every time a longer time to settle itself and stay put. She also has to realize she is getting older and that this disease will more and more ask from her to take it easier than she does at the moment. But I am glad the operation went well and she is already home but has to take rest for at least two or three weeks. As you can guess, I worry about her, and I hope she will be around for many more years. It already is a kind of miracle she is still around, because it isn;t a disease that normally won;t let you reach old age. 

Okay, not so very uplifting post-writing, but sometimes it is good to write it down. What we will be doing next week? Probably the usual houskeeping stuff, which is also good to keep up as much as possible. Later this evening Jan and I will be watching some soccer and for sure also some detective serie. We have enough stuff recorded on tv to fill a lot of hours, hahaha.

Hope you all are doing okay, I wish you a wonderful week and till next time.

Sunday, September 18, 2022

A much better week with still hard work.

 Goodevening everybody!

Yes, we've just had our dinner and I thought it a good momonet to make my post. Our weather has been very dull today and kind of sad, lots of rain, temperature just about 14C, so not my kind of weather. Seems that next week temperature will creep up a bit to 19 or 20C with a wind from the south, so it will feel much nicer.

Well, our week was for a poart still filled with clearing out and we started to put things outside already on Wednesday, so we didn;t have to put it out all in one evening, would have been too much.

Most work was the dismanteled wallunit, some shelves of it were quite heavy to lift, but we managed together with a little helping hand from a guy, who was at the street taking groundwater samples. It was a young man and I asked him if he could give a little helping hand and that was no problem for him. How nice, isn;t it? Yes there are still nice people on the world. Gosh, with all the shelves and other stuff out of the garden, we have lots of spac again there, hahaha. Then I had to go out to find some caster wheels for under our coffee table. We do have to move it (we do use it often as our "dinner table", because then we watch also some tv. I know, it isn;t the way you shuld have your meals, but it is so comfortabe and easy. But the table is quite heavy, so solution could be those wheels.

I did find them but now we had to fix them on the table. Probably we could manage, but to be honest, I didn;t want Jan to do it, it would be a bit straining on him, turning the table on the side and doing the job. And Heidi's husband Danny, offered to come and do it for us. So he came with Séverine on Saturday afternoon and did the job for us. So sweet of him to do this. I was gratefu and happy. Now we can ride the table almost with one finger, wonderful. Also handy when I have to vaccumclean.

What else happened. Oh yeah, we had a letter from the electricity company(also the gas deliverer) that our monthly sum to pay would more than double! Good heavens, that was not good news. It all seems to do with sudden"shortage"of gas delivery(due to partly the war in Ukrain. But to be honest, for this winter and spring we have enough in starage for the whole country. So the rise in price is far in advance, because the "market"has gone crazy with gasprices. For really much people it will be impossible to pay anymore, take an average hard working family with a bit more than basic earnings, and one or two kids. They cannot afford those gas/electric prices anymore. It will become , in fact already is, a huge problem in the coming months. Some help is given from the government, but it will not be enough. Now there are proposals from a lot of members of our parliament to use a special law we have, that will allow the government to set a ceiling for the gasprice, like it was around January this year, that would be mandatory for the energy suppliers(or companies). But our government is soooooo slow in taking decisions and action, I cannot understand why. NOW is the time to act and they cannot wait till somewhere next year to perhaps do something.

I think a lot of people will have very big trouble paying for energy, but also not being able to buy proper food anymore and soon will be in debts. It is really a hard time now, with prices rising for all food, now the energy(for all the gas) with exeptional high price, housing market going crazy. Coming months and probably all next year life will become very difficult. Let's hope our government for once will listen to the parliament and the ideas and act, very soon.

Now tomorrow will be the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in Great Britain. It will be broadcasted world wide I think and I will probably watch it too. Not all the time, but some moments, and I am sure it will be very impressive .

Oh, also something nice to look forward too is an invitation we received from and daughter of an acquaintance, for a birtday party of her sun who will have just one year! Isn;t that sweet? She asked it well in advance, because it will happen in November, but still, it is a nice thing to look forward to. Now I will have to go on the search for a little present, of course. I asked her what she would like and she said she would like some booklets. I think that is a nice thing, then the parents can read a little story when the little one goes to sleep, look at some pictures etc. Nice.

Okay, time to slowly put on the coffemachine and enjoy a quiet evening on the new couch, yippee. Have a wonderful week, stay safe in all ways.

Sunday, September 11, 2022

About a new living room

 Goodafternoon everybody!

Our weather still is nice, we had two days a bit less, but with some rain, and now we will have a few more days of around 22-23C and then at the end of the week temperature will drop to 17-18C. Still not bad, but it could have waited a little bit longer with that.

Good our new furniture is standing! Last Monday the guy who would put all together came on time and it took him about 3 hours(so you may iagine how long it woud have taken us and the trouble we for sure would have had!).

During the time this gu was busy in the room Jan and I could  "demolish"more or less the old wall unit, now we have the sitting area in the garden full of shelves and such and lots of carton too from the new furniture, but next Friday the bulky waste collection service will come, so now we just have to bring all to the street. We will do that in steps, but oh my, how happy I will be to see all that go! And as we were cleaning out the old wall unit and such, we also right away looked through all the stuff and we have a lot that will go too and it will bring a little bit of space. 

I have taken some photos of the new furniture. May be on the photo the color of the couches is a bit darker than in reality, but we are really very happy with them. They sit great and the color looks so warm in the room. And also the curtains we bought some time again do fit great with it.Now we still have to do some work there, first will be to paint the walls, but we will see when we start with that. I think we first have to "tank"agin some fresh energy.

So that was our week, getting the furniture in place and slowly we already filled the wall unit with things we want to keep, it is just every day do some things and we will get there. Here are now the photos":



Have a woderful week, stay safe!


 


Sunday, September 04, 2022

Never again please like last 4 days or so!!!

 Goodafternoon everybody!

To start with the simple thing, we have warm weather around 26C, at the moment more cloudy, but still dry. May be tomorrow there could fall some rain, but also that might happen later in the week. Still going to warm around 26-28C and later in the week it will drop to may be 23-21C.

But what a week! You kow that last Friday we would have delivered the new furniture. Okay, that still stood. But Tuesday Jan said to me, that he already heard for a few days a strange sound when being on the WC, and it didn;t feel right. So we checked the water meter and the little wheel on it was turning, and that is no good sign when not using any water. Remembering the last time we had a leak and it did cost us a whole lot of money I called our plumber Wednesday morning. I had quickly contact and told him our problem, and the he said he was at that moment in the South of France, on the way to his holiday location, for 3 weeks. Oh boy, what to do? He told me he woud contact his son(also working in the familybusiness) and that they would contact me. And so they did in the afternoon. They would come to us the next day around noon. So they did, and to make it short, they spotted the leak under our pantry place. So as there is stuff atnding there we had to remove a part of course. They would come next day already in the morning to try to repair it. But also we had the furniture to be delivered in the afternoon!! Can you imagine the stres I had to go through? Well, perhaps another could stay very calm, but not me. All our living room was disorder, as well as our bedroom and extension, and during the week I already tried to find somebody who could disassemble our old wall unit, but nowhere a possibility(or it was probably when you payed a lot of money). And the bulk waiste collection service couldn;t pick up our wall nit and some other stuff still after at least one week! So we couldn;t put the unit on the street. Good, we decided that if the people who delivered the furniture would help us(as they promised already) they could put the unit in our garden and then Jan could disassemble it easier during the week. So was done, it is standing now already half disassebled in the garden. So far so good. Now the new furniture. All in good order, only one thing we didn;t know: The tv unit, display cabinet and coffe table were delivere in pieces and we had to assemble them ourselves! Why didn;t they tell us when we bought it? The guy said to us that it was written on the copy bill we had, but who is reading all the little letters on the back ? To say it mild: I told him I didn;t find it very nice of him(but to say the truth I said some very unpolite words, because I was at the end and completely done. Well, now there is coming a handyman from them on Monday to do the work, but I have to pay that. So now we have standing our new couch but not the rest. And after the old wallnit was removed, oh my God, I already feared it, but a part of the wall looked sooo dirty and still with partly old paint on it, we couldn;t leave it like that. So yesterday Jan painted the worst part of the wall, but we still have to do the whole wall and better would be the whole room! Not very nice days, and I and I am really exhausted!

The plumber also was unforseen and did cost a good sum of money(but I am happy they could fix it for now, when their father is back from holiday he will make an appointment to see what has to be done about the rest of the still lead waterp pipes, probably it will be quite some work and take real money too), then the furniture guy to pay extra, welll, I could imagine some other days with happier events!

For now we have a bit of rest, now tomorrow hopefully we will have standing our furniture as intended, then we can start to put all things in the display cabinet etc. and clean up the room( oh yeah we also gave our floor already a good clean up last Wednesday, so that was quite some work too). A small good thing is that the furniture guys took our old couches(we agreed on that when buying the new stuff).

What to do then next week? First Monday, then the day after or so starting to put all things back(one good thing is that we have a lot of things we put aside to give to the bulky trash pick up service, including the disassembled old wall unit, hoorray!!). The I have to make an appointment for the pick up service, then I have to come into hte "normal"rythm of life again, but that will take some days I fear.

After this perhaps a bit chaotic story about my week, you can understand I don;t yet have photos of the new furniture, LOL. I have to say that our couches look very nice, sit good, and the color is great and the curtains make a good color combination with it.

Is there any good news? Probably yes, because Séverine had a thorough test this week in hospital and i seems she doesn't suffer from the PH diseasy. Well, let's hope that stays so, now they only have to find out why she still is feeling quite miserable.

Reading back a bit what I wrote about the past days, it might not seem so terrible, but believe me, it was quite stressing. I hope this will never occur anymore!

Thanks anyway to visit and read my lament, I wish you all a wonderful week. Cross your fingers we will have some more luck this coming week?