We are doggie-stitting at the moment, LOL.

Goodafternoon everybody!

Not bad, our weather, yesterday it was real warm and sunny. Today cloudy, still not a bad temperature, we may get some rain or even thunderstorms this evening.

Update on Jan: He is doing a tiny whee bit better, but some walking moves still hurt badly, lucky it isn;t hrting when he sits or stands. Still I think the recovery is taking a long time. The rollator I bought for him already is worth every cent of it and payed itself back! Without it, it would have been almlst impossible for him to move around and I am not strong enough to hold him. I am already glad that he can go to the toilet and to the kitchen etc. it goes slow, but at least he can do some small things.

Nevertheless I think it will be wise to have a phonecall with the doctor, if only perhaps for some advice.

Tomorrow will not be a good day, because in the morning we will have another company visit for the windows.

We already had two offers, and the last one seems to be a good one.

Whichever we take, it will take a lot of money, that's for sure.

And we have my friend's dog now during their holiday. Tommy is a small dog and very quiet, just a sweet one. But it takes my time too, because I am the one who has to go walking with him 3 or 4 times a day.The last round is really near our house, and just possibility for him to do his necessary things before the night, hahaha.

But surely for two tours I want him to walk at least half an hour, he needs some exercise. Normally Jan and I would do each some of the rounds, but now it's has just to be me. I don;t really mind, it just breaks up the day a bit strangely, I will have to plan a bit different. Most difficult thing is the morning round, and why?

I am not just anymore to get up early morning!  I already have on and off kind of sleeping problems, so if I don;t sleep well during the night I might just have fallen asleep and two hours later it is time for Tommy's walk. But I will get used to it, I hope, because it doesn;t help  a lot going to bed somewhat earlier.

Oh well, I can try to take a nap every now and then.

So my days are kind of busy now, with Tommy to care for and also Jan, because I amd bringing him some things he wants, like something to drink, of at moments his medicins, or some fresh clothing. He can do some ofit himself and he tries to, but every now and then I just see it is difficult, so I get them. It all doesn;t seem t be much, but all together it fills the day apart from the ususal things I do.

It will get better, only not already next week.

Yes, I think I will finish this post now, I will relax a bit, and later on there is dinner to make and then after I washed the dishes the early evening walk with Tommy.

He is now lying beside me, g=flat on the floor, deep asleep, hahaa.

Wishing you all a real good week and stay safe!

Oh, how wonderful if we could have a year without misfortune!

Goodafternoon everybody!

After some days of not really great weather it is getting better again.

We have sunshine, most of the time, not much wind, temps aren;t the highest, aroud 20C in our area. I would like more something like 23C, but okay, it looks friendly enough through the windows and we can open the garden doors.

I told you last week Jan wasn't feeling really perky that weekend. Nothing bad, just annoying. Till it came to Sunday night. He had to go to the WC and wanted a drink or so from the kitchen. And suddenly he fell backwards. Still lucky he didn;t fell flat on the back, mor on the side of his bump and hip. And he didn;t hurt his head on anything. But........ the times I sleep I do so very tight and don;t hear anything!

It seems he tried to call out for me, but I didn't hear it.

So with a lot of trouble he half crawled, half stumbled back to bed.

I only heard about it next early morning. It still was a good time to be able to call the doctor so I did right away. Jan couldn;t go to the doctor himself, impossible almost to walk. So the doctor came at around 12.30 p.m. and ordered an ambulance for Jan to bring him to hospital to make a photo from the hip and pelvis. Good news, there was no fracture or ripture.

Back home again with the ambulance(that took all together may be just an hour).

What now???? He had to go to the toilet and such things. Well, I found a temptorary solution(you might figure out for yourself) and next day I called around to find out if I could loan or so a rollator for him(I coud have gone for a wheelchair, but if anyway possible he had to move around a little bit, stay in move). Hmmm, difficult to get that for free, but for some payment it was possible, having it delivered the next day. It wasn't really the best option, so I went to a kind of thrift shop nearby, I knew they often had rollators and other things like that for a little money, I found one, that was looking still very good, sturdy, and I bought it for only € 25,00! Took it home right away, now at least Jan could try to walk a little bit. It still isn;t going really well, he can walk very slowly with it, still the movement of walking is difficult, turning is almost no option yet.

So tomorrow I will call the doctor again, to talk that through. May be Jan should have some physio therapy. Bad thing is, that almost no physio things are reimbursed by the health insurance. You will have to pay it yourself and it isn;t really cheap. Still, if necessary to get Jan on his feet again, walking without rollator and so, it has to be done. We'll see about it tomorrow after the conversation with the doctor. I hope Jan will be able to walk to the doctor's offcie, very , very close by, just the other side of the street.Hmmmm, i have no idea.

So I think we had our misfortune for this year more than enough. it will take for sure a while till he will be able to walk just by himself .

What else we had this week?

Oh yes we had another company over for our windows. It all depends on the offer the several companies will make and a bit also which company I feel more confident.

With all this going on I just forgot the birthday of my friend Heidi's husband!

I didn;t turn the page on the birthday calendar, so I noticed that last week and saw the name! Too late. Oh no, I felt sooooo very bad, right away I called her to admit my unthoughtfulness. I think this never happened to me before.

She could laugh about it, and said it was allright.

Still I felt very bad but it just happened. Hoepfully next year it will go better!

This morning something funny happened. I was siting in the living room watching some tv (Jan was still sleeping), garden doors were open, and uut of the corner of my eye I saw something moving on the right side of me. I looked and saw.................... a very curious grey-whote cat looking at me, ROFL.

I know the cat, it sometimes comes into our garden, it is from one of the neighbors around, very sweet cat by the way.

As I started to talk to the cat it quickly disappeared back into the garden and over a fence.

Gosh, it probably thought our house felt good for cats, or whatever, but it was funny. Of course I don;t want every cat of the neighborhood coming into our house, but ...... if can happen, as you see. At least it brough a smile to my face.

This Thursday we will have Tommy, Heidi;s little dog for about 2 1/2 weeks. Heidi and family will go on holiday and we will "dog-sit" on Tommy LOL.

It will be a bit busy time for me, cause with Jan out or working order, I will have to walk Tommy every day, at least 3 times, if possible may be four. Well, I'll just have to plan a day a bit different, most akward thing for me is that I have to get up rather early hahaha. I am not used to it anymore. But i will survive it and it is a really sweet and easy to handle dog, very greatefull for some extra attention. Yes, I always spoil him a bit.

Oh, whatever! It will keep me walking and busy and I will be okay.

Jan already feels himself very guilty he cannot help with it and that he can't do much anyway at the moment.

It is just what it is at the moment, we cannot change it a lot now, and we'll manage to cope with it.

Just hoping in a few weeks Jan will be a lot better again.

Good, that was the news from this week. More than enough, I think!

Wishing you all a very good week and safe one too!

Roller coaster weather isn't good for us.

Goodafternoon everybody!

Yeah, we have kind of rollercoaster weather at the moment. One or two days it is gret weather, thatn sudden drop of temperature by 8 degrees, rainfalls(too much at a time), annd the most annoying for me is that there is soo strong wind. Even if it isn;t so bad outside, that wind makes it feel colder and isn't nice to walk in and it avoids you to sit in the garden. I like to sit in a chair and not blown out of it LOL.

So all by all, the weather could be somwhat better and it seems that next week it will not be a lot better, temperature will let us down with around 18-19C, there should be less wind later on, and may be some more sunshine.

And even if the temperature isn;t really bad, yesterday it was raining almost all day and then at a moment it felt not comfortable in the house so I even put on the central heating for a while. Just a degree or so The more, because Jan felt not really perky, he complained of not getting warm(therefore mostly the heating a bit) and very early evening he went to bed, whihc was the wise thing to do I guess. Probably catched a cold when he was sitting in the garden I think on Friday, it was still sunny but lots of wind and moments of cloudy weather too. Late this morning he came out bed for a moment to drink something and have his medicin and it was a bit better, but now he's back there again, hopefully he can sleep some more.

He didn't have a fever, so that is already a good thing, but we'll keep an eye on him!

Last Monday it was a day of using up all energy for the week I guess, LOL.

I went to the apothecary to fetch some of Jan's medicins, Also changed the bedlinen, then did get me more info about windows, and also made two appointments for that. Think I also did some vacuum cleaning, prepared dinner, well then I thought it was enough for one day.

The other days of the week I did something every day, specially housekeeping things( I am very bad at that), and Thursday we had an appointment with a company for the windows. It was with a company I knew from earlier working day, it isn;t far from our address. It was an elderly man that came, very quiet and friendly person. We spoke about the kind of windwos and I also asked him to look at the kitchen door and little window there. He will make me an offer with and without the doorstuff. He also called at the neighbor to look there( the neighbor first was at our house too). I am curious what the price or the work will be!

I also discovered that we will need a municipal permit to change the windows at the front(if you do that at the back of the house, normally it isn;t necessary). It shouldn;t be a problem to h=get the permission, but it will take money, of course, and some time to get it. Very annoying when you want to settle a date with the company for the work, because you first have to be sure of the approval of the council. Pfffff, why cannot things go the easy way? It already is something to find a good company to do a good job for not a too big amount of money, make the appointment for placing the windows and new frames.

There was one company I called, and when I asked about delivery/placing time they asnwered that it couldn;t be earlier than somewhere in December! Well, I at once drew a line through that company's name, because I want to have it done before october. It must be ready before Autumn, and not done middle of the winter!

So tomorrow I will try to call the desk for building approvements of the municipality, see how I can get the approvements as easy and as fast possible.

Oh, some really good news about Séeverine(my friend Heidi's daughter). She is doing a speech thereapiste study(I think it will take her 3 years) and she passed her first year without much trouble. I am very proud of her. It never is easy to go to a kind of university after highschool and start something completely new and the more now with the trouble of the Covid-19. But she made all the tests and so and she can have now a holiday time and start the second year in September.

So that was about all. Next week we will have the visit from another company for the windows and there is planned still another one. Well, I think that having three different offers we should be able to pick one out. Yes, I know, all I talk about now is new windows LOL, but I am happy we have the financial possibility now to have it done.

Wishing you all a safe and lovely week, till next Sunday.

Windows have my attention at the moment!

Goodafyternoon everybody!

After a few days of really hot weather(temps of 28-30C), it has become a lot cooler today. Still not bad weather but temps have dropped to I think 20-21(if in sunshine). That will be for the coming week too.

It will be some sunshine,may be a little rainshower here and there. Although there were quite some heavy rainshowers the lst two days, specially in eaterns part of the country and some in the south too. So much rain that there was too much water at a time and people had trouble with it in their houses.

I saw on the news yesterday on one spot they had aso hail, and that were quite big stones!!! Glad we didn;t had it over here.

This week some of the time was filled with looking on internet for a good company for new windows at the front. As did our neighbor too and we have now one appointment for the 20th of July and i will try to make one with another company for the next day too. They will send someone to talk it through with us and then will make an offer. We'll see what that will bring.

Our nieghbor already found one company and had an apppointment made to go to their showroom on Friday afternoon. It wasn't easy to come there(and we couldn;t go with the neighbor he hasn;t a car)so he went alone with some measures of our windows too and a photo, just in case.

Well, he reported back to us in the evening and it was a great visit. He was in time there, and waited in the showroom for somehting more than half an hour and.................nobody showed up! And till now he hadn;t had a phonecall or email with ome excuses of explanation. Well, that isn't giving much confidene in the company, do you think???

Good we found already two other oned, that look good.

May be we can find a third party too, to have good comparison for the offers.

Hmmmm, it is kind of exciting to have the old windows replaced and it will cost some money, but it is something we really need to do now.

And if the prize isn't that high, I might ask for an offer that includes placing a new kitchendoor and little side window in the kitchen, of course.

That door is very bad, and it would be great if we could have that done too.

It's money absorbing, but it will bring back slowly some money too, because it will help to cut a bit on the energy, I hope.

I didn;t do much more this week, it was really too warm to do a lot, specially because the temperature suddenly had a rise from around 19 to in two days the 30C. If all should go a bit more graduately, I think our body would adapt much better. Still we shoud be happy that we had some fantastic days, and some more will come.

Life isn't still the same as it was before March, all to do with that Covid-19.

slowly the lockdown is opening again for a lot of things, but it will be still a strange thing to go to a restaurant or the beach with that distancing. Soon we can go in bigger numbers in the trams, trains and busses, however a facemask is obgligated when travelling in them.

In The Netherlands it is really in good control, let us hope it will stay that way.

People take care, but slowly get also irritated by the restrictions, so hopefully most of them still pay attention to the advices giving by the doctors and the government.

Yet someday we should be able to live life as we did before the Covid. But then I think we need a vaccin to help us with it.

Today I have an easy job for our dinner LOL!

Yesterday I bought us a fried chicken for dinner, we both could have half of it, but this time it was such a big one that there is still a lot leftover. So.... today fried chicken again, perhaps at around 4.00 p.m. a small cup of coup and then at dinner time the chicken with some salad and some strawerries as dessert.

It leaves me with some more "free time"(and I dont mind that), so i can have a moment in the garden and I can search a bit around on internet, or play a game, watch some tv, do some knitting, you see, lots of things to do.

Tomorrow will be much more a working day for me. I plan to do some ironing, also have to pick up some medicins at the apothecary for Jan, if there is some time left, perhaps get some groceries. If not I can do that the next day.

Not so much to tell is there? It is a quiet life we live, and with that Covid around the corner even more, but is that a bad thing? If no bad things happen that give you stress and raised heart beatings, I think we have to be grateful that we can live a rather pleasant life. Just let's try to have an as good as possible health, and some humor every day. It keeps a person going.

Okay, Now I will finish this and wish you all a lovely week to come and stay safe!

A bit of strange week.

Goodafternoon everybody!

Let's start with the weather. Last week it wasn;t all too bad weather, although at the first 2-3 days there were sometimes rather heavy rainshowers. Temperature still okay.

Later in the week more and more sunshine, bit of raise of temperature, and next week we could have really hot days, or 25-30C. It's okay for me, although.... 30C is a bit very high. Still, better so than cold and rain etc in the summer.

So Tuesday Jan went for his catherezation, all alone early in the morning.

Nothing came out of my hands, couldn;t do mucch, as waiting for a telephonecall from the hospital that I could pick him up.

At around 3.00 p.m. I still hadn;t hear something, so I called myself. He was just having a pressure bandage and I could come within ahlf an hour. All went well.

I was in no-time there(just 10minutes with the tram and short walk) and of course asked what they did. Well, it was a short answer, they just had a look and didn;t do anything because they found it wasn't necessary. Gosh, that was a surprise after the talking with the doctor and so on.

I guess he will have may be an evaluation appointment after some time with the doctor.

Well, I think we should consider this as good news. As soon as Jan had his bandage, he could dress himself and we went home. (and we just had pouring rain, lucky I brought an umbrella).

Jan was so tired, of not sleeping the night before and the kind of stress, that he first took something to drink, we had an early dinner and after that he took a looong nap on the couch. I think he slept for about 4 hours(and that is a long nap for him LOL). He felt already much better.

We left the bandage for a few days longer and took it off on Friday. It was healed lovely, and we only put on a little bandage to protect the spot for a bit longer and as reminder that he couldn;t use the arm for a bit longer(meaning not lifting anything heavy and so).

His both arms have lots of hematomes of the needles they uses( for blood, infuse on the other arm trying to get into his vain for the catherezation etc.), so poor soul, he is blue and purple on both underarms ROFL).

Good that was done, Hopefully no more of it.

In between I was kind of supporting my friend Heidi on the phone. Just before last weekend she told me that her favourite auntie  was desceased( died of cancer and wasn;t yet verry old, just 68). Heidi was very touched by it, she loved her dearly, so I had several phonecalls with her, so she could tell about it, and get it off her chest. I felt so sorry I couldn;t really be with her and take her in my arms to comfort her, you know. But with the corona situation it is still a bit risky.

I hope I could be of some help for her. Last wednesday was the funeral, it was a good thing she could attend that. It gave Heidi so peace of mind.

Yesterday I was rather energetic, and did a lot of small jobs, but things that needed to be done and I felt good about it. Also did some gardening, which is a good thing to relax body and soul. Not great things, but deadheading all the plants(which takes some time at the moment), it however is very rewarding, because they blossom much longer and are full of new buds all the time.

Today it is funny weather as I look out of the window. It isn;t cold at all, but mostly cloudy, at times some wind comes up, may be there are some rainshowers in the area of even some small thunderstorms? I hope soon the sun will pop through the clouds again and we can take a seat for a while in the garden.

Next week I must get myself to do some real research for the new windows we want to install on the front of the house(double glazed and such). It will take some money, but it is really something necessary to do. Now we have the possibility and it will bring some saving in the energy bill too, I hope.

Our neighbor is planning to have new windows too, may be we can make a deal with an installer, because it will be a larger job for him(there even might be a 3rd neighbor too). We'll see what al will bring. First we will need to ask for a quotation, and I like to speak face to face to the man of the company that finally might do the job. I can do most of it online, but I like it if possible in the "old fashioned"way, ROFL.

Good, that is the plan for next week. Let's see if it comes together, because I know myself and my plans, hahaha.

Enough rambling now for this week. Hope you keep tigh and be safe.

Have a wonderful week to come.

Sometimes things happen at the wrong time.

Goodafternoon everybody!

Rather cloudy at the moment, but not bad temperatures. We also had rain, the garden and fields of the farmers were grateful for it.

Last two days we had real warm weather, and it felt great. Next week will be a bit coller, around 21-22C with some sun, bit clouds, may be some rainshowers.

Friday I had bad luck. I was walking in a shop and suddenly....... pang...... something was strained in my back. It should be a muscle or may vbe a little nerve,  I had this already one or two times, and it isn;t nice at all! It really hurts with some moves you normally do without thinking about it.

D.........d!!!! And just now! I cannot use it at all(well, it is never good), now that I must be in good shape. Why?  Well, on Tuesday Jan will have the catherezation and hoepfully they will place a stent right away. That isn;t completely sure yet, they will take a look in the vains and when it is on one place the narrowing, I think they will do the stent.

If they think there is more, it could be in the worst of cases even an operation to make a bypass. That was the message he got last week at the take in appointment(by phone). Hmmmmm, the doctor never mentioned that before, funny.

But it wasn;t the doctor himself who had the conversation, it was a nurse or his assistant. So we will wait and see what happens on Tuesday. He will have to be there very early morning, already at 7.30 a.m!!!!! It is almost sadistic to do that to older people LOL!

But when he comes home, he probably will have one arm in a sling or something and he must not use that arm for about 3 days. So I must be in good physical shape to help himwith some things, like perhaps putting on his sock, or trousers or a sweater or whatever. And I cannot have a a back that will not cooperate, can we???

So tomorrow morning I will have to make an appointment with the doctor, may be he can do something about it. Last time he had some pills( think there were muscle relaxants) and that helped very good).

I guess, that Jan is getting a little bit nervous about the catherezation, he never will admitt it, but I somehow know. And I understand, because the last few years he had some rough times and that doesn;t help.

So now I will end this rather short post(with almost only moaning around, fogive me!

Jan is taking a shower now and afterwards I will give him a quick haircut, so he will have a nice head when going to hospital LOL.

Hopefully next week I will have some good news about Jan, that all is done and without complications etc.

Wishing you all a lovely week, and stay safe!

And another week passed by

Goodafternoon everybody!

Last couple of days the weather is really sad. We have had some rain, a day also very strong winds, just a bit of sunshine, but the worst was that the temperatures have dropped about or even 10 degrees! Oops that is quite a difference with the week before and last weekend. My body cannot cope very well with these sudden and for all drastic temperatures changes, most when they drop.

I don;t mind some rain, it is necessary, because we had some very dry periods, and there will come more, but why does also the temperatures have to change to almost cold?????

Some good news there is, may be around next weekend temperatures will rise again and could go to 20C and later even more! I will hold on to that thought LOL.

It was a week as already many before, real quiet,  apart from the usual things I do.

Must say I had two days of a kind of energy burst again, those days I did as much as I could on the housekeeping and some small jobs that waited for me in the house LOL.

Life isn;t still yet the same as before that Covid 19 stuff, we might think soon it will be again going okay and we can go back to that, but I am afraid it will have still a big impact on our lives for a while longer. But we can do again some things more and that's already something.

Yesterday my friend Heidi had her birthday so I gave her a call, of course to wish her a happy birthday. If we really wanted we could have payed her a short visit, with restrictions, but we thought it better to stay home and keep as safe as possible. Specially for Jan, also bearing in mind his upcoming catheterization. We cannot take a risk now for him to suddenly catch the virus, can we?

You know what sometimes is hard to do? To come up every day of the week with a dinner. Yeah, you could do it easy and eat 3 times the same and perhaps take some junkfood etc. But although I don;t want to spend too much time cooking(at least not every day, hahaha) I try to have something different every day and if possible a little bit healthy too.

I catch myself, that often enoigh I end up with the same meals, or almost the same hahaha. Best is if I've made something that will last us for two days! Like some kind of stew. just like this week, I've made mashed potatoes with fresh spinach( or as we call it a stew). Half of the quantity of the spinach I kept as it was and half of it I fried quickly in a pan with lots of onions and a bit of garlic. Then all that stirred together in the mashed potatoes. Some seasoning with salt, pepper, bit of mustard and with it we had one day a little hamburger and the other day a piece of smoed sausage. And as almost every day this time of the year we had some strawberries with bit of cream as dessert.

Another day I cooked some rice and looked in the fridge what I had and came up with some bell paprika, onions, (onions go well with a LOT of things hahaha), bit of mushrooms. I let the rice cool down and when it was dinner time I only had to fry the rice in a pan, after first I first fried the veggies a bit. That was a nice ish mash and with some seasoning tasted very well, oh and i also diced up a chicken filet, fried that too and stirred into the rice stuff.

Next day, let me think....................oh yes, I made cannelloni, stuffed with minced meat,( the cannelloni were  ready to use ones), made myself a bechamel-sauce, poured that over the stuffed cannelloni with a bit of tomatoe sauce, and covered it up with a thick layer of grated cheese. That in the oven on ca. 200C for half an hour and ready! Had some salad with little tomatoes and green salad with it.

Another idea perhaps for you is the Saturday meal.

I bought some spareribs, marinated and well and only made myself a potatoe salad to go with it. Easy, quick and simple, but also tasty. Okay, not completely the most healthy meal, but hey, the potatoe salad conatined not only diced potatoes but also diced cucumber, some peas, some fresh chives and parsley, oh, and some capers and some diced apple.

May be I've inspired you with these meals for a meal next week???

It all isn't very difficult and most of it rather quickly done, so perhaps worth a try.

I wish you now a wonderful week, stay safe please!

Till next week.