Busy "support"weekend ahead.

Goodmorning everybody!

As promised I went to Heidi's on Wednesday afternoon to walk the doggies.
But first Jan went to hospital for the echografy and blood sample, we'll now the result next week, when he will see his doctor.
Because we were up so early, we bot took a catch up nap ;ater in the morning and I almost woke up too late for the doggies. Shows we both needed the extra sleep.
I was rather lucky, that it stayed dry when I was walking with the diggies and they were happy tro be outside for a while.

Yesterday we had a rather cold and grey day. I had to go out for a moment, but it almost felt like a day in beginning Fall! It was a big drop of temperature and about all day on and off a drizzling rain.
But this morning it looks a lot different. Sun is shining, sky is blue, with just some clouds, temperature will go up steadily in the next few days, so all looks bright again.

We will have a busy sport weekend to watch, of course there is the Giro(Italian cycling tour), tennis on Roland Garros, but most interesting for us the start of the Wold Championship Field hockey.
We have high hopes for our teams, men and women, Hopefully they will meet our expectations! Weather is going to be fine, so that's already a thing to be happy with.
This year the event is taking place in our town, lucky for us it's not too close from our area, so we will not notice a lot of the visitors.
Then there are a lot of faires taking place too this weekend, so we will have to make a kind of schedule, if we don;t want to miss the matches on tv  LOL.

If the weather stays the way it looks now, we might have a couple of hours in the garden, probably on and off sitting on a chair, because you always see something to do when you sit in the chair! Always some dead flowerheads nee to be pinched off, which keeps a plant flowering for a longer time, then you see a spot that needs bit of change, so a swap of plants could help to make it look better etc.
If you want to have a really relaxed moment in a chair, you should take a book or magazine, otherwise your eyes always see something to do!

Before posting the new freebie I must give you the link to Linda's blog again, she made an awesome quickpage with the Breathless kit, and if you go there she could do with a little hello to cheer her up, because she isn;t feeling 100%, probably she caught a bug.
Today I have part one of the kit "Time Windows", think it's a versatile kit.
Wishig you a magnificent weekend and see you again on Monday, hopefully with some good news of our hockey teams!

Download part 1 HERE

Sorry for the shoutbox, that isn;t working for a couple of day.s I sent a mail to the support section, hopefully all will be fixed soon.

Lots of rain at the moment.

Goodmorning everybody!
Last two days we had quite some rain, in some parts of the country they have to struggle to keep it dry!
Just saw on the news that 15 pony's have been saved last night from a meadow, where the water was terribly high. Poor souls, all so very wet and sad looking, but they all have been brought to a shelter and safe.
I got my part of the rain too yesterday, when I was shopping. I started dry, but about halfway rain poured down, so I arrived home dripping water. Oh, temperature was still nice enough, that already makes a difference, and a towel got me dry.
I am up very early this morning cause Jan had to go to hospital for an echography of his belly, he has one every year, then next week he has an appointment with his doctor again.

as we couldn;t do much in the garden these days, we worked a bit in the house. Jan was busy with the ceiling in our bedroom, where we had the last leak, and as he had to take all the bedding and matras off the bed to be able to put a ladder, I could vacuum clean everything well after he finished and then put on fresh bedsheets.
I also cleaned up two of the cupboards in the kitchen, somewhere this week I will try to tackle one or two more.

This afternoon I have to go to Heidi's house and take the doggies for a walk. she had to go somewhere today didn;t know when she would be home again. I don't mind doing it, I will just have to try to pick a dry period, between some rainshowers that are expected again today.

Almost every late evening I go looking for snails, LOL, I have to say that till now there aren;t as many as last year, but we have to keep an eye on them! It's quite a tricky business walking around in the garden with a flashlight, I have to light well the way I go first, otherwise I might step unto a toad or frog!
Every time it's a surprise walk, of how many of them I spot. Brodski often goes with me and always is interested when he sees a hopping frog, but most of the time he just looks and that's it.

In between all those things I am also still busy with the knitting and finished a new kit and already started one too. may be I will be able to work on it some more today, I think I will have a crafty day.
Probably Jan will take a good nap after he returned from the hospital, so all will be quiet for a while.
Today I have the add-on made by Arlene of the kit Where Dreams begin.
She did an awesome job, you get a lovely page border, beautiful quickpage and a frame cluster.

Have a marvellous day!

Download    HERE

Yeah, we have a new little pond!

Goodmorning everybody!

It was a lovely weekend, I must say.
Apart from the elections in the whole of europe for a new European Parliament of the European Union.
I will not ramble much about it, but it is kind if destressing we hardly know the representatives in that Parliament, and we have all our doubts about the use of it. In basic the start of an European Union was good.
Had to do with trade agreements, and such, but the Union has grown to big(as a lot of people think), also too quickly, and nobody knows or undderstands really what they do. Then lots of people think the European Union and parliament is messing too much in the national politics of the countries, froming the EU. It also is consuming lots of money(talking billions), and we could use that money for our own country at the moment, with still the crisis going on.
And it is often so that decisions are kind of dictated by the bigger countries, most richer part of that EU, so is there really a democracy going on? I wonder if all the representatives still know what that word really means.

But to stay a bit in a good mood, we drop the issue LOL and go on to our ususal life and little events/
Saturday Jan and I went to the market, it was a lovely day for it, and unfortunately a lot of people thought the same. It was real crowded. But even if it was kind of hard at times to find a way through the crowd we did find the things we wanted and best of all was we found a little plastic container that we could use as little pond in our garden, and now our frogs have a bit larger space to dwell in, yeah!
It still isn't completely the perfect one, but I am already so happy we found a bigge one so I placed it yesterday . First had to dig out a few plants to make room for it, then dug in the container a bit and placed the plants back, some of them around the new pond. I even bought a little cold water plant for it, that might give a bit of extra oxygen and also will give the frogs opportunity to hid under. Plants around it still will have to grow some to hid a bit more of the edge of the container, but a start has been made.

When I removed the old little pond 3 froggies jumped out of it, LOL, and found a hidigng place somewhere in the garden, but yesterday evening a froggy found the new pond and I will go and look today if more of them will be lodging there.
I've made you a few photos of some of the already flowering plants, like my cleamtis, which has never been so full of buds as this year.

Then an early rose bush started to flower with its small flowers, also full of buds and as it is standing a little bit more in the shade, it brightens up the space with the white flowering.

I am so happy with our nasturtium, I just love that orange color, so I will take seeds from it later this year, to plant them again, it's worth the effort.

And we also have some sweet peas that started flowering. Ididn;t know what color they were, (they were grown from seeds I got from Heidi) but they have a lovely dark red.

Oh, I even did some ironing, yesterday morning, before I got dirty in the garden LOL.
Later made us a potatoe salad, filled with of course potatoes, but also dices of cucumber, and apple in it, and capers and tiny bits of baked bacon, mixed with some olive oil and little bit of maynonnaise, pepper and salt. with that we had each half a roasted (small)chicken and then strawberries with some cream. Yummie!
I have still some left over of the salad and a bit of chicken too, so I will mix the chicken into the salad, but perhaps also give a little hamburger with it and tadaaa, our diner will be ready quickly today!
Have to do a laundry again, and after that is done I can change the bedsheets and give them a wash.
Also want to make the preview for a new kit I also finished this weekend and then upload it.

Gosh, almost forgot, Friday I went to the annual checkup to the hospital for my lungs. Well, good news, nothing has changed on the photo they took of it, and values of all kind of things stayed about the same, so I was a happy girl, when I left the hospital.
Well, I h=think it's about time to post the freebie,  It's the second download of the kit "Where Dreams Begin", and Wednesday I will have the lovely add on from Arlene again.
Have a wonderful day!

Download   part 2 HERE

Sudden storm and harsh rain.

Goodmorning everybody!

Must hurry today, cause have to go this morning to the hospital for annual check up with the lung doctor. I suppose nothing will have changed a lot, so probably it will take more time to get there and wait than the time I will be in his room.

Gosh, last Wednesday evening we suddenly had bad weather! First it started to rain, ojay, we can deal with that, but late evening we suddenly heard a "bang"and another one coming from the garden So Jan and went looking and we saw two containers lying on their side. There were a couple of very strong blasts of wind that did the trick.
We don;t have a lot of light in the garden so in almost dark, Jan and I replaced the rather big pots back, but one of them lost half of the plants. We couldn;t put them back at that time, too much wind, not enough light and lots of rain. We were out for may be 10 minutes, but were almost soaked already.
Next morning all was quiet again and wun was shining, so I took a look at the damage. We were still lucky, the container that lost some plants, dust missed a rose bush and a finaly growing seedling of sunflower, LOL. I could put back the container and found the missing plants(anemones that just started to bloom), put it all in good order again, and I think they will survuve.
The other container had big lilies, nothing happened to them.
So all together, not great dammage.
And yesterday all was quiet again and we another lovely day, as we will have today too. May be only temperature will drop a bit, but we certainly can still live with it.

During the day I did a bit of housework, cause of the appointment today and perhaps later a visit to the market, for some needed things. Have to finish now, I am still in my pyamas and it would be funny to go like this to the doctor, hmmm?
I have a picture to share I made the other of our cat Brodski. He actually has his own chair on the terras. It's and old one, we found along the street, somebody didn;t need it anymore.
Look how comfy and lazy he is sunbathing!

Today a first part of a kit named "Where Dreams begin".
Wishing you all a terrific weekend,

Download    part 1 HERE

More photos of Japanese garden

Good morning everybody!

It is looking a bit cloudy at the moment, but later on I think we will have sun again. The last few days we had absolutely gorgeaous weather. Up to yesterday evening, then we had some thunder, along with some lightning and afterwards a nice rainshower. Oh my, all the plants were dancing around of happiness LOL.
I didn;t do too much these days, just a bit of on and off gardening(picking dead flowerheads, re-placing a few plants, etc) some reading in the sun, some shopping, a laundry but most spectacular was my visit to the hairdresser, FINALLY!
I waited so long to do so, but my hair reached a point I couldn;t do anything anymore with it, so yesterday I had a haircut. And oh my, it felt and still feels so great again.
I'll try to do some ironing today and may be I will have a quick visit to towns centre, Jan is running out a bit of his Chinese noodle soup, good excuse to go to the centre and perhaps do some window shopping( and may be I will have a great find of something LOL).

Slowly I am progressing on my knitting, I tried a few different lace patterns, none of them really so complicated, but somehow it didn;t work, I ended up with a mistake and had to pull it out again.
But now I started one that I will be able to finish and then I'll try again one of other ones again.
 Today and the next couple of days we still will have lovely weather, but with some more clouds, even some rainshwoers perhaps, and later this week the temperatures will drop some, so best to profit from the really nice weather today.
With all that sunshine and now a bit of rain and sun again, you actually can see the plants grow day by day. My clematis has already several flowers open, a sweet pea started to flower, mt beans are climbing up rather fast, lilies have buts, little anemones will start to bloom perhaps already today, out frog population is growing, LOL, even the toad seems to have a little one, crawling through the garden.
Can you tell we love our little garden???

I will show you now some more pictures of our walk to the Japanese garden,
then Friday I will have some new pictures of the garden, I guess.
Guess what, I even started a new kit, hahaha, and I hope to do some work on it this morning, I only have one paper done, but it's a start. I think it will be a rather bright and colorful one.
Okay, time to end this post, but after the photos there is of course a freebie, this time the add-on by Arlene, made with the Breathless kit. Again lovely work, specially the quickpage.
Poor thing is dealing with a messy house at the moment, a room had to be renovated, first plastering then painting and new carpet, and then she will have a fantastic room again, where she can play on the computer and make all those beautiful things!
Have a fantastic day and see you on Friday!

Just love that row of primula's!

and what about a more shady part, ground covered with all sorts of moss, and the sunlight playing through the trees, photo isn;t too bad, but doesn;t do complete justice to it. Seeing it with your own eyes, is even more beautiful.

Just loved that reflection in the water.

Visitor in the parc around the Japanese Garden.

Just loved that house. Almost looks a bit like the house of Hans and Gretel, but it's much larger!
Should be fantastic to live there, waking up every morning with the birds chirping, surrounded bu those wonderful trees, well, it specially looks good in spring and summer, but it looks lovely!

Download    HERE

Japanese garden pictures.

Goodmorning everybody!

We are having some gorgeous days and that started already end of last week.
And what about some good news first before we start talking about the Japanese garden?
Saturday often we get some bills in the mail( looks if companies and such just LOVE to spoil our weekends with it, hahaha), but this time it was rather a nice one. It was the annual settlement of the energy(gas and electricity), and yes. we get some money back from the monthly contribution we payed last year. Yeah, I can dig that kind of bills. And also they reuced the sum of the monthly amount. Now let's just hope it will not end up next year into paying extra again when we will receive the annual settlement.
But for the moment it brough a smile to my face.

Back to Friday then.
We got up rather early, because we had planned to go to the park with the Japanese section in it and gosh, we really acted as we had planned!
We first took the tram to town centre, and decided we as well could walk to the park then take a bus. We always could take it along the way But the weather was so nice, and the route to it also so why not take advantage of that beautiful weather?
I think it took us about half an hour to arrive at the parc. It was so nice and relaxing to walk there, with all tress coevered in fresh green leaves, birds chirping, just wonderful.
After perhaps 15 minutes we arrived at the lane leading to the Japanese garden. And already that was a treat. Along both sides there were so much different Rhododendron bushes, all flowering in all kind of colors.
( I am always a bit confused about the difference between Rhododendrons and Azaleas, so I looked it up, again, and here a little explanation.
The diffenece between rhododendron and azalea:
All azaleas are rhododendrons but not all rhododendrons are azaleas. Azaleas have been reclassified and are now in the genus Rhododendron. There are no clear cut lines for distinguishing all azaleas from all rhododendrons but here are a few characteristics to look for.

True rhododendrons have 10 or more stamens which is 2 per lobe. Azaleas usually have 5 stamens or 1 per lobe. Azaleas have 5 lobes in a flower.

Azaleas tend to have appressed hairs which is hair parallel to the surface of the leaf. This is particularly true along the midrib on the underside of the leaf. It is easily seen in "evergreen" azaleas. True rhododendrons instead of hair are often scaly or have small dots on the under side of the leaf. Azalea leaves are never dotted with scales and are frequently pubescent.

Many azaleas are deciduous. True rhodi's are usually evergreen with the exceptions of R. mucronulatum and R. dauricum.Azaleas have tubular funnel or funnel shaped flowers. Rhodi flowers tend to be bell-shaped.)
------------------------------

Then a little bit of the history of this particular garden:

The magnificent Japanese Garden in Clingendael Park is open to the public twice a year, in the spring and autumn. Admission is free.

History

The Japanese Garden was created in the beginning of the 20th century by the former owner of the country estate of Clingendael, Marguérite M. Baroness van Brienen (1871-1939), also called Lady Daisy. Lady Daisy sailed off a number of times by ship to Japan and brought back to the Netherlands a number of lanterns, a water cask, sculptures, the pavilion, the little bridges and several plants.
The original design with the serene pond, meandering brook and the winding pathways has remained intact all these years.
The Municipality of The Hague has always taken great care of the Japanese Garden because of its uniqueness and tremendous historical value. The garden was placed on the list of national historical monuments in 2001. Due to its fragility, the garden can be visited only during a short period of the year.
--------------------------
I made quite some photos so I will show a some today and will save some for next post.

Here some pics of the lane leading towards the garden.

Amazing how big some of them are. But some of the rhodo's are already there for decades.

That;s all for now, but next post there will be more.
We took our time in the rather small garden, because if you really want to enjoy it, you just have to pay attention to the details too.
When done there, we took a walk through the parc around it, which is lovely too.
After we spent a nice time there, it was about time to go home. Ahhhh, decision to make. Take the bus or walk first to centre of town?
Well, we both were still rather fit, so we said"let;s walk". Very nice walk, because it is an area ofthe town, we don;t visit too often, beautiful houses there(expenxive too, oh yes!), with some beautiful gardens around it, so an agreable walk to do.
Naturally we overrated a bit our condition, LOL, so finally in centre of town, we first treated ourselves to a portion of french fries with mayonnaise, yummie. We found a bench to sit, so our legs could have a pause too. Then we "dragged"ourselves to the tram and went home. By that time I was kind of pooped out, but had such a satisfied feeling about the day, it didn;t matter. Wow. the couch felt good, probably too good, because I soon took a nap and a bit later Jan too and we didn;t wake up till around 18/30 a.m.!!! Who cares, we just needed that nap, and nobody was waiting for us in the evening.

I do have to go out to get me some groceries, but that will be done quick, it looks to be another gorgeous day, so I want to take a bit of time to just sit in the garden, swallow in some sun, enjoying the little walk to see if there is a new bud opening , and how much some plants have grown in a day(yes, you actualle can see of some the difference in a day, believe it or not!).
Perhaps later in the afternoon I will do some ironing of laundry, it should be done, but..............
Then here the second part of the kit Breathless, of which I will have Arlene's clusters in the next post too. Oh and Linda already made a lovely quickpage too.
Have a wonderful day !

Download    part 2  HERE

Long walk ahead today!

Goodmorning everybody!

I will have to keep it rather short today, because Jan and I will go actually to the Japanese Garden in a beautiful park. The "Japanese garden isn;t really very big, but I just know it will be beautiful. And if we still have energy we can take a bit of time walking in the park around it.
Pity it is rather far away,so we first will take a part of the way the tram, (ours isn;t riding all the way to that area), and then we will walk the rest of the way. That will take about half an hour, or.......we could take a bus that stops not far from the parc. Depends  a bit on how we feel I guess LOL.
Best will be I think, to take the walk and then when we want to return home, we can take the bus and tram.
Weather looks gorgeous for this walk, it is sunny with not too much wind, and temperatures should go up during the day to about 66 F ( 19 C). Lovely!

Yesterdaymorning I had a quick visit from my friend Heidi, who brought me some Aquilegia, I had before but lost somehow. We had, of course, a quick look at my garden but then she had to leave for an appointment.
This Aquilegia is such a beautiful one, it has a double flower head, is about 80 cm hiegh full grown and in flowering, likes a place lightly shadowed(although they also do well in sunny spots).
Found a picture on the net of it:

Wednesday, when i was shopping groceries I passed a flowershop that has a lot of garden plants and you know that always is dangerous! Most ot the times I can stay strong, also because they are selling for a bit higher prices than in a garden centre, but that day I saw they had small plants of the Japanese maple, of different variaties. I wanted to have for such a long time one of them, specially one that doesnt; grow into a tree but stays a bush. And there it was, calling out to me, and most lovely thing was that the price was real good!
So yes, I took it home. It is variaty named Acer Palmatum Orange Dream, I found you a pic of it on the net, first is the spring colors and second colors in fall. Isn;t it gorgeous???
So in the afternoon I was busy first digging out a big fern to make place for this beauty, (gosh, the fern was heavy, but I managed and found another good place for it) and then could plant the acer. I placed it not far from the little chair with the Buddha, thought it was fitting nice. Now it only will take some time, before it will reach a decent height and width.

Now I must finish the post, and get into some clothes, put my camera on the table(otherwise I might forget it at the last moment) then wake up Jan, have something to eat and then I hoe we can leave.

Freebie for today is a kit named Breathless, I splitted it into 2 downloads, so now you will have part one, next week second part and also beauties from Arlene!
Have a wonderful day and weekend!

Download    part 1 HERE