Bad sleep for a couple of days!

 Goodmorning everybody!

Short weather report. What to say about it? It isn;t really cold, but rather grey, sometimes rain and too much wind. There was one day last week it was real nice with temperatures of around 18-19C! Pity it didn;t last longer. Now we have around 13-14C, later this week it could go up one or two degrees, but it will stay rather unsteady, meaning, some rain, cloudy most of the time, if we are very lucky we might see the sun here and there.

Lsst weekend Jan didn;t feel all too good, had some trouble with belly, somewhere in it, kind of cramps in the intestins. He had that more, but also last year and that didnt end too well, so I am cautious with it. it happens every now and then, but I am never very happy to hear about it(IF he says anything!), but after a day or two it was already much better and I think now it is all over again.Let's hope it will stay away for a long time, because it is hurtfull for him.

On monday I went to the pharmacy to give them a lot of prescriptions of medicins that needed refill, and would pick them up later in the week.

Then I gotnext day a phonecall from the pharmacy that one medicin couldn;t be delivered, that's to say, Jan has it in small sachets, now they have it liquid in bottles. But I needed to now if it had all the same components(with Jan's medication and health history it is very important). The girl couldn;t say if Jan could use the liquid as well, I needed to contact the doctor to be sure. Oh God, next thing that went wrong. Called our doctor, he was on holiday this week. Then called hospital for contact with his specialist..... she was on holiday that week. Lucky there was an assistant who could help out. If it had the same componenets, they call that interchangeable, there was no problem. If the pharmacy couldn;t tell me, then the pharmacy had to call the hospital and not let me do that work for them. Okay, i called back to the pharmacy, had the "boss" on the phone and she assured me it was all the same. So I will have to rely on that(I do, we have good service of that pharmacy for years). They only had to convert the amount to be taken from powder to liquid for us. All is done and in good order and I picked up the lot on Friday. But there are always small things to be taken care of, that you dont count with and that is sometimes frustrating!

Wednesday we had our plumber again, no, don;t worry, no more leaks, he came to give a service cleaning to our central heating kettle(that's to be done every year, specially for the insurance, if anything might happen!). That is all ready for winter also(the kettle more than I am, hahaha).

And what about the bad sleep??? Well, it seems that the municipality is doing some work on the light poles/lanterns or the electricity cables for the tram and or lightpoles, I am not really sure what they work on, and it has to be done apparantly at night. All okay for me, good thay look after them so that it all works as it should, but they are using some machines that make a very irritating noise, a low and piercing humming sound, I don;t know if it is the motor or perhaps aggregate, anyway, more than annoying. They are busy already for 3 nights, and all still in short surroundings of our house. And it is specially annoying when being in bed, the sound and feeling of the sound through the ground isn;t great at all. It seems they only can do it at night, because the machine they use with the aerial platform only moves over the tramrails and that they can use then only between ca. 1.30 and 6 at night(then the tram isn;t riding). I really hope they are ready with it real soon, because it is not a good thing for my sleeping. I already am not sleeping all too well, but if that is interfering also.... well, after a night like that I don;t feel rested at all. And that is bad for the energy level and so on.

Anything really nice happened this week??? Cannot really think of anything, but all in all it was a quiet week, you know, it isn;t all as bad as it may sound LOL. I have accomplished still one thing! I finished the Christmas shopping, found this week on a trip for that the necessary, now I have to wrap that up, put it in the box and bring the box to the post as soon as I can. I have no idea how the delivery of post packages all over the world will go, so better send it away early, might arrive too soon, but better that than too late.

Now time to start on putting up some meat for stew this evening, needs some time so I better start it off now. Hoping i will have a nice and easy and not adventurous week to come, hahahaa, sounds boring but at times boring ad quiet is sooooooo good! It even gives time to have a good laugh about anything that comes up. Wishing you all a very good week in safety!

Waterpipe leak is fixed!!!

 Goodafternoon everybody!

Weather is quiet and not unpleasant. Not much wind, which always makes it feel better, we even have some little sunshine, and they think arpound Wednesday we could reach temps between 17-20C! That will be only for one or two days, but still.....not bad for second half of October.

Oh my God, last weekend you read we suddenly discovered a bad leak and I called immediately my plumber. He came for inspection on Monday afternoon and how wonderful could come next day with his son to fix the leak. It was struggling not having much water for almost two days, but we managed. I am glad the pipe could be reached from under the floor and wasn;t IN the wall. That would be a different story(mostly workwise but certainly costs of it!). It still made a small dent in our savings, but it wasn;t as much as I thought it would be. 

It all is due too some old waterpipes that are still from lead and that isn;t good at all.Not for health and not for strength. So if we can save enough next year(we also have the windows to pay for one) may be we can let the plumber  change the last bits of lead pipe, and that probably means breaking up wall and floor from the little bathroom / toiletroom. Hmmm, that will not be done for 5 euro! But if we can manage it would be great to have it done, we could do with a renewed, showerroom/toilet, with some fresh new tiles, new toilet, etc.,all light and also easier to keep clean. I am dreaming of it now LOL. That half Sunday whole Monday and almost whole Tuesday of waterpipe adventure somehow drained a lot of energy from me, and that's always amazing why. I couldn't do much in the house( of course I had planned sme things, but.......you could guess it......most of it involved needing water hahaha), then with the plumber in the house, it was walking back and forth, sometimes to remove things out of the way, then giving them something to drink, just feeling restless, and after they left I just felt I finished half a marathon. It always needs a few days to catch up again.

This "event"kind of overshadowed the whole week. We didnlt do too much, apart from the usual stuff. Because of the rather mild weather Jan could do some small things in the garden, it still needs attention to prepare it for winter. Amazing that we still have a rosebush that is full of buds and some of them start to open, Even the clematis doesn;t want to give up and gives a flower once a week or so. 

However, I am kind of proud to say, I started wrapping up some Christmas presents, and I am almost ready with it, just need one or two things more and then I can send the box away. Specially this year I will try to get it to the post real early, because it might take longer to get there.

Nice to see that the birds are returning. Yes, they know where they can get some food LOL. One morning, and also evening we had 8 parakeets on our rosebow, enjoying the peanuts and applepieces. Also some tits are back and I even saw a robin.

On the knitting front I finished the blanket for our bed, and now I am trying my hands on a cocoon shrug. I have one nice simple pattern for you, which is crocheted, but I am trying it to knit on straight needles in another stitch. Hopefully it will result in something nice to wear???? Anyway, I liked the simpleness of this one and I will give you the link to the blog. May be someone likes to try it. And if not this one there are lots and lots of free patterns to find of lovely shrugs, with or without sleeves. I have an image of this particular shrug and under it is the link.

https://www.gatheringbeauty.com/blog//2015/11/simple-crochet-cardigan.html#_a5y_p=4604727

I am using yarn of  kind of dark siena color, very much a fall color. And I am curious if it will become really a good fitting shrug-cardigan. If not............yarn is VERY patient, meaning pulling out the knitting work(is pulling out the right expression???? if not, please let me know what it should be then) and making something different with it.It keeps you busy, one way or the other hahahaha!

We have to find things to keep us busy inside, because that Covid 19 still isn;t gone and for now we are again in partial lockdown in the Netherlands. Numbers of infected are rising quick again, and it has to be stopped again, we aren;t safe till there will be a decent and for all safe vaccin. That will take some time so keeping distance, wearing a mask, not gathering with a lot of people etc. is the only way to keep it somehow under control. And nobody is liking it and it is difficult, but we will have to keep it up, for the health and safety for all of us!

And because this isn;t a very pleasant situation we should keep up our spirit with all we can find, and there are still a lot of things we can be happy with, I think. It sometimes are just small things that can make our day, isn't it?

Good, enough of that subject for now.! I have quite an easy day today, because yesterday I made us a pan of soup and backed us some pirogi(small pies you could say) and there is more than enough left for today for dinner. It is tasteful and nourishing enough. May be I will take a quick look in the garden, at the moment we have some sunshine, and almost no wind, so it is a good moment for it. the cAnd I will do some knitting, and watch some tv and tomorrow I will kick myself in the bottom and do something in the house, like for one vacuum cleaning and may be clear out one or two shelves of the wardrobe. There is still soooo much stuff we should get rid off! So that is kind of a plan for tomorrow. We'll see if it will be executed(you know.... me and plans.pfff, difficult).

I wish you all a wonderful week to come and please take care and stay safe!

 

How long ago we had lovely weather????

 Goodafternoon everybod!

Yes, it almost seems really months ago that we had lovely summer weather with nice temperatures, and we good sit in the room with opened garden doors and windows, sit in the garden with the parasol, go out without a coat, etc???? it wasn;t that long ago, only now we suddenly changed to quite some different weather. In short every day we have some rainshowers, some days heavy and long ones, some days short ones every now and then, rare moments of some sunshine, temperatures going down, we may have in a few days only around 11C at daytime. Brrrrrr, for me that's a bit on the cold side, specially if we have some wind blowing. And then knowing that in other parts of the world they would be happy with the rain we have now!

It was a really quiet week that rippled on. So I suppose this will be a short post LOL!

******** PAUSE*******

Help, I shouldn;t have used the word "rippled"!!!!

For some time Jan already told me, that it seemed if he heard water prippling or dripping, sewemed somewhere in our shower/toilet room, but at times it stopped again, so we couldn;t lay our finger on it. Once it was something with our neighbours, and that was settled. But today Jan told me he had once more a bad noght sleep, almost couldn't sleep because of that dripping sound. Finally today he went through the area and ended up at the watermeter in the ground and there he saw that water was running, probably from a broken pipe somewhere.!!!!! Now all was clear, but now we are not happy at all! I called our plumber(yes on Sunday and he answered the phone, great guy), we told him the story and he advoced us to close the water supply, only open it if we really needed some water and close it again when finished and he will come tomorrow afternoon. OMG, i fear it will be a repair that could turn out costly perhaps! Nothing to do about it, it has to be done. Let's stay calm and hope he can fix it, and soon too!

You see, if life is going rather well, and quiet, always something happenes to turn it upside down again! 

I filled for now two buckets with water for we will need some water here and there, for exaple for cooking, making some coffee, toilet, and more. The water supply is off now, if we really need to tap some more water we will turn it on for a few minutes and then off again. otherwise the waterbill will be even more staggering. I am already afraid a bit for the bill next year! Whatever! Let's first see it will be fixed and worry then about bills for plumber and watercompany. Still it isn;t a nice surprise.

That said I think i will finish now, I am not in the mood anymore for some more rambling, can you understand? So I wish you all a lovely week, without any bad surprised(good ones are always nice ) and stay safe!

I like the colors in fashion this fall and winter.

 Goodafternoon everybody!

It really isnlt summer anymore, sigh! we have had a couple of days with lots of rain, seems we might see some sunshine today, but also again rain and there is a hard wind blowing. Not really cold yet, around 15-16C, but it is better inside at the moment.

Not so much happened this week, only that we got our flu shot. The first time we had it, I think about 3 or 4 years ago, I had no trouble with it at all. Last year I think my doctor did touch perhaps a muscle or something, I had some small pain during a few days. So this year I told him that, he just smiled and let the nurse do the shot. Well, there was no difference LOL! She did it very well, but already for a few days, I have some "pain"on the spot, it is a bit red,so I think I am just somewhat hypersensitive for the stuff. Never mind, it will go away in a few days I think.

We have some parakeets back in the garden. Teu've left us for quite some time, no idea what caused it, but I am happy some came back again. And also a bunch of tits come for dinner or lunch LOL.

Years ago we got the old birdhouse from Heidi's garden(she gave it to us when she moved out the house ) and now it was about time to give it a facelift. So Jan cleaned it up and gave it a new coat with transparant stain and it looks a lot better again. 

Thursday i went to town centre, just to look around  a bit and also needed to look for a certain present and also wanted to see if I could find a nice new sweater for winter. I looked through my sweaters and there wasn;t much good stuff anymore in the closet. Some really too old and some a bit too small, so I thought after years of almost wearing the same I could do with some new. I found a nice sweater, in white and beige, soft and just a little bit oversized. I like the trends for this winter, the colors are nice,

You can make great combinations, gives you lot of possibilities.

So, the rest of the day I will take it real easy, tomorrow I will need my energy for the housekeeping stuff LOL. This week I started to crochet panels together from the blanket I finished already long time ago. I did two, next week i will try to do the other two and see if the blanket is big enough. Then of course need to do a border for making it look good etc. But..... at least I started it and I have a small afghan almost finished too and with the rest of the yarn I started to make me a scarf for winter. 

Okay, I wish you all a wonderful week, hope you all will be and stay safe!

All in all it's been quite a good week.

 Goodafternoon everybody!

Weather is not really bad, but we could do with littler bit better LOL. Last few days temperatures are around 16-17C, with very much wind and pouring rainshowers every now and then. Yesterday already better, almost no rain and even some sunshine. Today about the same, and more or less for the whole week, you know, asome sun, some rain, temperature will stay 17-18C.

Last Monday I got my referaal for the eyedoctor in hospital, and I made a call that afternoon. Gosh, there are waiting lists there! For now it seems it can take about a month to get a first appointment. I had hoped for a appointment next week or so, but not a chance. Well, we will have to do with that.

Tuesday was a day for grocerie shopping and some housekeeping, I tried to do it all that day, because I had a lunch appointment with Heidi next day and wanted to have some things done, so I could sit with a "clear conscience" hahaha.

Heidi and I would meet at about 1.00 a.m. in town centre. So we did and decided to go to a small cafe-lunchroom nearby our meeting point. It was a nice place, quiet and with a nice range of sandwiches or other yummie things and for a not too high price. We decided to take a cappuccino and a sandwich(french bread it was) with goatcheese. Gosh we got about half of a big baguette, well covered with the cheese and bit of salad. Really fresh and tasting it was. We had a nice chat together, about all kind of things, in all tranquility and it was real nice to so again after a long time. We will try to do it again in a few weeks time.

After we said goodbye I made a quick visit to one ot two shops in town centre, and founc a few nice things. I found a curtain of christmaslights, we can use that for an inside window in our sitting room. Oh my, I was looking for that already for so long and never found the right one, or even sometimes not at all, so when I saw it I bought it. Also bought some birdseed in a shop where it is available in autumn and winter and for a nice price. I will go there for sure lots of times, because birdseed is used a lot in our garden LOL.

Next day Jan and I had to get up rather early, to go to the hospital, appointment with surgeanfor his vains. He had two scans to see if there might be something wrong with a stent they placed in a vain near hos liver. Well, we had good news, it all was still in good order so need for a further appointment at the moment.

It was a bit funny that we had to come to hospital to hear this mesaage, it good have been done by phone too! Never mind, I was glad to hear this result, hopefully all will stay well with Jan for a longer time! He is doing better every week after his fall, we even went to hospital without the rollator. Home again, Jan said it might have been a bit too much, but ...... he made it to and from without to much trouble. And after we had a cup of coffee, he had a good sleep on the couch(not surprising, because he almost didn;t sleep at night and the effort he made with the walk).

Yesterday the weather wasn;t really bad, and I did work for some time in the garden. There were some plants in need of cutting and also replacing and this is about the best time to do it, so I took courage in both hands and went to work LOL. Also cleared up a messy corner in the garden, where we put the pruning stuff, and debries, I filled up 4 big plastic sacs, and it looks much better in that corner again. I just left a little place in "disorder", where there are a few bricks and some soil and some small branches, nice place for a frog or toad that need a place to stay in winter.

Now I think I will sit down with a cup of tea on the couch, watch a bit of sport and take it easy for the rest of the day. Tomorrow I want to do some necessary things, like laundry, ironing, and such, hope I can do a lot in one day. Oh and Wednesday we will have to go for our flu shot.

I wish you all a wonderful week and hope you will stay safe!

We'll have to prepare for fall!

 Goodafternoon everybody!

We have some gorgeous days at the moment with temperatures around 21-22C, in full sun and without wind even a bit higher), and we will have that for some days more. Later in the week, towards the end, they say temperatures will drop again to perhaps 18,or 17C, That is the normal temperature for the time of year, but if you would ask me, I could do with some weeks more in the 21-22C LOL.

I will first tell you some sad news. Last Tuesday afternoon I had a phonecall from Heidi in which she told me that her doggie Tommy had crossed the rainbow! It happened so suddenly, no one saw that coming.  Of course they all are sad and it will take some time to get used to the fact, there is no dog in the house.

And I say to you that I shed a little tear too, hearing about it. I will miss him too, he was a little bit our pet at distance, you know.

Wednesday I called the doctor for an appointment about the eyes. I could come on Friday morning, and after a short visit, he will give me a referral for the ophthalmologist. I can pick it up Monday morning, and then I will call the hospital for an appointment. I hope I can go there soon, but the doctor already warned me that they have quite a long waiting list. Well, we'll see what comes.

Oh, Thirsday we had the final measurement for our windows. They would come between 4.30-5.30 a.m. but earlier in the afternoon we had a call with request if they could come righ away(that was around 3.30 a.m.) Of course it was no problem, they did their thing, we had a few quiestions to ask, they were answered to satisfaction, and now it is waiting when they can come to place them. That was the only thing that didn;t please us too much, they said it could be as late as January next year! It seems they have a very busy calendar, and also the Covid stuff didn't help. But I will keep hope they might be able to do it a bit sooner. It is a bit of disappointment, because we had hoped for late November may be. On the other hand it gives us some more time to save some extra money LOL! Let's try to see the bright side, hmmm?

In between all that of course the "normal"things had to be done, but not truly interesting to tell, only that I took courage in both hands and cleared a part of a closet. Meaning I searched through some clothes of Jan and me, got rid of quite some stuff we NEVER wear anymore, still a lot of it in good order, but out of fashion, or we donlt fit in anymore. And also gor rid of some sets of duvet covers, that really needed replacement. Gosh, that gave some space! I still have enough sets, may be it needs another search through, and certainly more of the clothes. But it is again a good start. Next will be the towels, big and small ones. I hope I can do even more in the next few weeks. 

Yesterday Jan and I worked in the garden. It is about time to plant some spring-bulbs, so that we did. We still had some tulip bulbs from last spring, we stored them after the bloom and drying in the shed and I am curious how they will do this time. And I also had bought(of course, what else is new???)some new ones. So in some planters there are now the bulbs, with on top of them still some annuals that won;t give up blooming and performing well(due to the quite good weather).

And in the spirit of this week, when Jan said he could stall his bike at the moment perhaps IN the shed(normally it is in the hallway, but due to his falling accident, he surely would not take his bike for some time, and I stalled it in the garden under part of the roof of the shed). I took a look in the shed and saw no place for the bike, really(and it is really a small shed). What to do? I got rid of a lot of old wood, of all kind, some big cannisters with some rests of old paint in it, some folding chairs, we never will use anymore etc. Jan had some trouble with throwind away a part of the wood, (old shelves, and left overs from who knows what LOL) but I didn;t gave in and I am glad I was tough! Now we have quite some stuff that i can put on the street and then call the municipal service of bulky waste collection (they come collect it for free). Oh my, I was rather proud of myself. Now we'll see if i can put some more things in that collection. It usually takes a few days before they can come along, so that will give me perhaps opportunity. We save so much stuff, always saying it will come to use some day, or something like that and most of it never will be used again! Is that something that sounds familiair to you????

Good, I just made a quick break to taste the stew that is on the stove. It is a breasing steak chopped up in dices in some Indonesian herbmix.  They call it Rendang. There are an awefull lot of different ways to make it.Depends on the boemboe. 

Boemboes are finely ground spice mixtures used in Indonesian cuisine. Traditionallythe ingredients are ground in a mortar. A bumbu paste is created by adding (vegetable) oil

This time I made it easy for myself and bought a ready to use made bumbu. It isn;t always as good a freshly made, but I tasted it just now and it isn;t bad at all! Quite spicy, I can say. Well, I can always ad some water, or some creamy coconutmilk extra, also depends on how much the cooking liquid9water and some creamy coconutmilk) reduces. I already was a bit careful when bying the bumbu, I looked on the pack how spicy it was, smart hey? Yes, i like a little bit spicy, but not so much that your mouth looks on fire! And secondly, most important, I cannot eat too spicy, it gives trouble with the stomach. Not sure yet what I will make additional to it. Usually you eat some rice with it, but Jan isn;t a rice eater at all, so perhaps I just make some boiled potatoes and some vegetable, or perhaps some nudel, that's also an idea. Oh my God, always all the choices that have to be made, hahahaha.

 

First I think I will make me a cup of tea, and perhaps a bit of gardening, now that it still is noce weather. There are still lots of things to do in the garden, to prepare it for autumn- and wintertime.

You all have a lovely week to come, try to have some laughs and smiles and stay safe.

 

Busy with a lot and nothing LOL

 Goodafternoon everybody!

Another week has passed, in more or less nice weather, not too warm, just around 19-20C, but we had some rain and later this week more and more sun, and now the next two or three days will be as in high summer, they expect temperatures around 27-30C! Oh, perhaps a bit too warm, but still we should enjoy it, it will not last long and soon we will have forgotten how that feels.

It seems lately that Mondays are my most energetic days hahaha. I just wrote it down on the calendar to see what I did that day. I started with a bit of grocerie shopping, (my start is always late in the morning, remember that, I am kind of a diesel, coming on speed very slow, but once I am on the right speed, WOW, ) Coming home first of course putting all the things away, then I think I had a quick sandwich or so, Then I gave Jan a haircut, it was about time again.After that you always have hair lying around, even if you have a plastic on the floor to prevent it. So best is to do a vacuumcleaner round. Then I made a cleaning in the toilet room, not everything but the most necessary things, so the walls and so I left as they were.

A little pause, and then into the kitchen to do something about dinner. Finished it as far as possible, oh and also made finally an appointment for the hairdresser. Think it is quite a well-filled day.

Next day we had to go to hospital for Jan's CT-scan. That takes time, first the travel to and from it(it was the further away hospital, so it takes about 1/2 an hour to get there. Then the waiting and scan and back home again. All went well, and home again we took a cup of coffee and then I don;t know what i did exactly.

Oh, last sunday I also did a bit on the ivy in our garden, that grows like crazy, always, early Spring Jan already took away a ot of it, but there is still a part, that has to be done. We try to do it ourselves, but probably later in Autumn we will have to call in a gardener, that can take care of it for us. Nevertheless I could cut and break away quite a lot, without climbing on a ladder(If I donlt really have to, I don't do it, it is a bit tricky in the garden on the soil putting a ladder).

Wednesday it was the hairdresserday. Oh, I am sooo happy I went there, I have really short hair again and it feels fantastic and it's so easy to comb and keep it modelled. Gosh, suddenly it seems if I walk a lot lighter, LOL.

Rest of the week nothing really exciting, apart from Friday, when I , also finally, went to the optician, to loo for another pair of glasses. And after they did the eye-measurement gave me the advice to go to my doctor who could give me referral to an ophthalmologist, because i might have start of some cataract. Gosh, I did not expect that at all! Now isn't the opinion of the optician all conclusive(because there are quite some differences between the divers opticians), so tomorrow I will call my doctor for an appointment and see what he thinks. Never could be wrong to have a really professional measurement in hospital, because my last measurement already was some years ago and I notice that my glasses arent quite good enough anymore. But you see, when at last things seem to go rather smoothly, there always is coming something in between that scews it up(forgive the expression, but if really sucks a bit.) On the other hand, it might be not that serious, so we'll wait and see and act then.

Today is a nice day, temperature already is much better, lots of sun, and I am already happy that it goes eacht week a bit better with Jan. He even washed the windows at the backside of the house! With some perseverance I could talk Jan out of the idea to use the ladder, (which was only needed for the little windows at the top), and that was a great relief for me. The little windows he could do with and extended window washer I still had somewhere). Well, we can see through the windows again, LOL, and Jan feels better to have done something again after a longer time. Everybody happy, yeah!

Good, that's about all there is now. Oh, just one good bit of news too, Heidi wasn;t feeling really happy end last week, had something like a cold, although no fever. Still, with her health condition it is tricky nowadays so she had a testing for Covid-19 and was negative, so NO corona. That was for everybody a real great relief.  

It might be just the good tie now to have a moment in the garden, the sun is shining there now, so why not take advantage and enjoy the weather. Wishing you all a very good week and hope everybody will stay safe!

P.S. Yesterday Jan and I watched on tv a show of "Holland got's talent", and sometimes there are some really surprising auditions to see, as yesterday. I give you the link, hope it works for all of you. I found this something really special and it touches your heart. It's all about the first audition, with the puppet of paper.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F1YIpbjSyU