A Photo An Hour: 18 March 2017

I almost missed the photo an hour link up this month! Luckily I went on Twitter and saw that Sharon was doing it. As a result, my first photo was not taken when I got up, but half an hour later… and I ended up doing photos on the half hour instead of the hour. I took part on Twitter this time, but I also wanted to record it on my blog.

Jan had to go into work for a special project/organisation meeting thing, so I was alone all day! Here’s what I got up to:

10:30 a.m. Starting late means my first photo is not tea! Shower time.

11:30 a.m. It looks grey and miserable outside, but I need to go to the post office and food shopping, so out I go.

12:30 p.m. Shopping done, heading home through the park. But where are all the children? It might have been grey, but it wasn’t raining or all that cold! DO people here take the midday quiet time that seriously?

1:30 p.m. Aaah, there’s the tea that no photo an hour would be complete without! (Well, a cup that once contained tea anyway.) Lunch done, cuppa drank. Now what?

2:30 p.m. Thought I’d better actually do a bit of my OU course while I didn’t have any other commitments. Discovering Wales and Welsh for those that were interested. It’s a not for credit short course that you have 6 months to complete. I want to do a proper Level 1 course, but the Europe price is way too expensive!

3:30 p.m. Enough studying for a Saturday! Another cuppa while I leaf through cross stitch magazines for card inspiration.

4:30 p.m. Suppose I’d better do something useful! Emptying the dishwasher.

5:30 p.m. Writing to a pen pal. Spring paper seemed appropriate 🙂

6:30 p.m. Watching Come Dine With Me – my guilty pleasure TV show. It’s total trash, but I love it. The narrator makes it for me!

7:30 p.m. Another episode of Come Dine With Me. (And an awful picture! I forgot to take one with my camera and the computer refuses to acknowledge my phone so I had to re-download this one from Twitter!)

8:30 p.m. I had been waiting for Jan to let me know whether he wanted tea, but he apparently got stuck talking and forgot to message me. By 8:30 I was starving so I decided to just cook anyway!

9:30 p.m. Pyjamas time! Also note the confetti that is somehow still in my flat even though I’ve hoovered several times since Fasnacht!

10:30 p.m. In bed with a book. Once I’ve read this I’ll have completed the bonus round for Erin‘s reading challenge!

11:30 p.m. I’m off to sleep! There’s just time for one more photo of the view from my bed… purely to preserve symmetry, obviously 😉

And that’s it for this month. How was your Saturday? Did you do anything interesting?

Linking up with Jane and Louisa, as always.

 

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Science and Sunday dinner

I made a sort of Sunday dinner yesterday. Why “sort of” you ask? Well, there werre no Yorkshire puddings and the meat (pork steaks) was fried rather than roasted because I don’t trust my oven at all (there’s something wrong with the thermostat – no matter how high a setting you put it on it always claims to be at most 150°C. And I really don’t want to risk putting meat in an oven that I don’t actually know the temperature of…). We did have both roast and mashed potatoes though. And after my recent trip to England I have actual proper gravy granules. German “Bratensosse” is just not the same. Sure, it goes well enough with wild boar or Schnitzel but for a proper Sunday dinner you’ve gotta have English gravy!
We had a starter as well. I’m currently doing an Open University short course called Science Starts Here and this weekend I had to do an experiment which involved putting sliced potatoes in the oven and weighing them every hour to find out what percentage of a potato is water. The end result was something that looked a lot like those potato skins you get as a starter in restaurants so we covered them in salt and pepper and ate them. I also dipped mine in allioli (garlic sauce) which was dee-licious. While we were waiting for the main course to finish cooking I happened to mention to Jan what a shame it was I had no dessert to offer him. You see, one of the things on my 101 things list is to cook a three course meal for my boyfriend (3 times!) and as I had done all the work with dinner I thought if I had dessert I could let this count (even if the starter was originally a science experiment). Having had the thought I naturally couldn’t rest until I’d at least tried to carry it out, so I got onto Google and started looking up recipes that only use ingredients I actually had in the house. It being a Sunday in German I would have had no chance of getting anything that was missing – only the petrol stations and the tiny little shop at the train station are open. Luckily I found a recipe for golden syrup dumplings, so I made that. Mine looked nothing like the picture on the website but they tasted good and that’s all that matters, right?

We were going to go to the cinema after dinner to see the German film Der Weisse Band (The White Ribbon – read about it here) but Jan decided he was too tired, so we stayed home and watched two episodes of ER instead. We’re up to season 3 now. I love the old ones – Noah Wyle (Carter) looks so young!

I can’t even think of a title never mind write a decent post…

I know, my blog has been terrible lately. I’m even boring myself, and that takes some doing. I’m sorry people! But I haven’t managed to make it home before 8pm once this week, and once I do get in there’s still food to be made and everything. It’s kind of difficult to be interesting in these circumstances. I’m sure I’ll manage to write something that’s worth reading soon though. Just give me a week… or three.

So today the course materials arrived for my next Open University course. I’m doing to the October presentation of “Science Starts Here”. Don’t ask me how I think I’m going to manage to work full time, write a dissertation and complete an OU course all at the same time.  I’m still in hands over ears, lalala I’m not listening mode on that one at the moment. I’m sure I’ll work something out though…

Umm, I’m sure I should have more to say. I just can’t remember what it is…

The A to Z of me

Somone sent me this as an email. You’re supposed to complete the sentences that apply to you then send it back to whoever you received it from plus a bunch of people you think should do it too. Instead of emailing it I thought it would be a fun thing to blog about, so I’m going to do it here. I also think it would be great if my blogging friends did it too, so I hereby tag Katyboo, Welsh Girl and Hails over at Coffee Helps. Only if you want to of course. If anyone else reading this would like to do it too please feel free – just leave me a comment with a link to your post so I can pop over and have a read.

Did I by any chance just make my very first meme?
OK, here it is.

The A-Z of Me

A is for Ann. That’s my middle name.

B is for books. I like those a lot. In fact, I’m slightly obsessed with them. I would hate to live in a world eithout books. B is also for blogging, which I feel deserves a mention as it seems to be developing into my new obsession.

C is for Canada, somewhere I have never been but would like to go. Visit Canada is on my list of things to do before I die.

D is for dolphin. My favourite animal. I swam with dolphins at Zoo Marine in Portugal. It was a present from my mum and sister for my 24th birthday. D is also for dog. I am definitely a dog person. Cats are mostly either evil or stupid. Sometimes both.

E is for exercise, something I really need to start doing more of. The ten minute walk to the tram stop just isn’t enough…

F is for friends and family. My friends are the most important thing in my life. I don’t have many and find it hard to make new ones, which makes me appreciate the ones I do have even more. It’s just a shame most of them live so far away. My family come a close second in the important things stakes. We don’t always get along but when i need them I know they’ll be there for me.

G is for Germany, the country I’ve lived in for the last two years. I first came over at the end of 2003 for my compulsory year abroad. Jan and I got together in February 2004 then six months later I had to retrun to England. After spending a year there completing my degree followed by a year as a language assistant in Austria I decided it would be nice to actually live in the same country as my boyfriend again. It also didn’t hurt that I actually like Germany and still had a few friends here.

H is for homeless. I have no real home any more. Here I have a room in a student residence. In England I have a room at my dad’s place. Nowhere do I have a real home to call my own.

I is for icecream. I like icecream, especially posh icecream or the kind that comes in interesting flavours, such as those made by Häagen Dazs or Ben & Jerry’s. I is also for igloo. Wouldn’t it be cool to go inside a real one, built by actual eskimos?

J is for Jan, aka “the boyfriend”. We’ve been together 4 and a half years now and I can’t quite belive he’s managed to put up with me for so long. Mind you, for 2 years it was long distance so really we’ve only been in a regular relationship for 2 and a half years. Not actually living together probably helps too.

K is for kitchen. I love to cook, but not for myself. It’s much more fun when someone else is going to be tasting the result. I also love baking but unfortunately don’t often find the time for it.

L is for languages. I currently a speaktwo – English, as my native language, and German. I would like to learn a lot more, including Spanish, Ukranian and Italian.

M is for mother. I hope to be one some day. Ideally I would like three kids, but that’s looking less and less likely as the years go by.

N is for names. I’m fascinated by names – the meanings behind them, the fact that a name that’s definitely female in one country may be male in another. It’s all very interesting… honest!

O is for orangutan, just because they’re cool. When I was little I thought the word was “orangutang”.

P is for potatoes, my favourite food. I could live on potatoes. Baked, roast, fried… anything goes. Except boiled – boiled potatoes are just boring! Mashed potatoes on the other hand are the ultimate comfort food and fantastic on a cold, miserable day.

Q is for quiz. I used to go to pub quizzes with my dad. Occasionally my team even worn. I like the pub quiz at Flynn’s here in Karlsruhe – you can win a special prize for putting down an answer that they think is funny or clever. Usually the special prize (a bag full of crisps, sweets and maybe a random alcopop) is better than the real prize (whiskey, which I hate).

R is for red, my favourite colour. I wore a red dress at my 21st birthday party. It cost me 150 pounds, the most money I have ever spent on one item of clothing.

S is for Shirley, my future daughter’s middle name. My step mum was called Shirley. She died when I was 12. My first daughter is having Shirley as a middle name in her honour. Any man that can’t understand that isn’t worthy of being the father of my children.
S is also for siblings, of which I have three. A sister, who is two and half years younger than I am, and two half brothers one from each side of the family. The brother on my mum’s side is almost 18 (how did that happen? He was just a kid a few years ago!). The brother on my dad’s side has just turned two.

T is for translator, what I will hopefully be in a few years time. Right now I’m a trainee translator. The ideal job for me would be translating children’s books, but there’s not much money in it so it would have to be on the side.
T is also for travel. There are so many places to see, so many cultures to learn about. Why stay in one place all your life?

U is for university. I’m currently studying part time for my Master’s in Translation, via distance learning. U also happens to be for the name of my university, UWE, the University of the West of England.

V is for variety, the spice of life. The old saying is definitely true for me – I would get so bored if I was forced to do the same thing all the time!

W is for writing. For a long time I wanted to be an author. I still haven’t entirely given up on that dream, although now I don’t think I have the talent. I did do an OU fiction writing course last year though so you never know.

X is for x-ray, because it almost always is. I’ve never had one though – no broken bones here!

Y is for yellow flowers, something else I like. My favourite is daffodils, but I also love sun flowers. Yellow roses are pretty too.

Z is for zzz, as in sleep. I’m good at sleeping and tend to get irritable when I don’t get enough. Sometimes, when I’m really tired, I’ll just cry for no reason.

OK, that’s me done. Now it’s your turn…