A Photo an Hour: 21 February 2015

Yesterday I took part in A Photo an Hour, hosted by Jane from Is That You Darling? and Louisa from Duck in a Dress. Here are the results of my efforts.

11 a.m. A late start to the morning (but in my defence, I’d had a looong day the day before… and a long week for that matter!). First things first: a cup of tea is needed!

12 noon Doing a bit of cross stitch (actually, at this point I was unpicking. Yes, I messed up right at the beginning and had to start over)

1 p.m. A spot of lunch (brunch?) while looking for even more flat adverts to respond to. Jan took the tablet while I was fetching my camera and then wouldn’t give it back to me, so instead of a real estate website, you get a photo of my empty plate.

2 p.m. Wrapping a new home gift for a friend ready to take it to the post office.

3 p.m. Showered and dressed… aren’t my spotty tights fab?

4 p.m. Post office done, now to head home via the supermarket. I happened to be passing St Stephen’s Church at 4, and its chimes reminded me to take a photo so I decided it deserved to be the subject of said photo.

5 p.m. Time to wash some dishes. I’m ashamed to say that I was washing dishes from Thursday!

6 p.m. Sorting out some of my crafting supplies… a task that desperately needs doing so I can pack up the spare room read for the move.

7 p.m. Cracking some eggs to make omelets for tea.

8 p.m. Carrot and apple salad (it’s a German thing…)

9 p.m. (actually 9:30… I got distracted!). Cross stitching while watching TV.

11 p.m. I forgot to take a photo at 10! Not that it would have made much difference… still cross stitching. Working on the dreaded French knots of dooooom!

And actually forgetting to take a photo at 10 turned out quite well because it means I get to keep my symmetry. I went to bed after the news, which finished at 11:35, so there was no midnight photo.

So, that was my Saturday. Pretty boring! How was yours?

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A photo an hour: 16 August 2014

On Saturday, I took part in the August edition of A Photo an Hour with Jane at Is That You Darling? I am being cheeky and also including this in Amanda’s Day in the Life linkup for August.

9 a.m. I was actually awake at 8:30 (thanks construction workers!), but somehow I find it easier to take my photos on the hour(ish), so I waited til 9 to take my first one. A nice cup of tea to start the day!

10 a.m. Doing a bit of cross stitch! I’m working on something for my kitchen as part of my 35 before 35. Can you guess what it is yet?

11 a.m. I noticed it had stopped raining, so I decided to head into town while I had the chance! (I promise I didn’t go out smelly – I showered and brushed my teeth between the last photo and this one!)

12 noon. Still in town. My dad paypalled me some money for my birthday, so I decided to pop in to Douglas and see if I could find a perfume I liked. (Is to paypal actually a verb? Never mind, it is now!) Am I the only one that would rather browse in peace than constantly be asked if I need help? After two shop assistants approached me, I decide to leave the shop and head elsewhere for my perfume… which turned out to be lucky because I found a special offer with a 30ml bottle of perfume and some shower gel for just €29.95. The perfume on its own would have been something like €45!

1 p.m. Time to head home for lunch. Pictured is the Natural History Museum, which I passed on my way home. (Also, note the grey clouds returning… definitely time to head home!)

2 p.m. Wrapping gifts for a few children whose birthdays are coming up. This one is for a friends son and I also wrapped stuff for my little brother and for my godson (although his won’t be posted til I return from Taiwan).

3 p.m.  Another tea? Don’t mind if I do! And back to my cross stitch while I drink it.

4 p.m. I finally managed to post the last of my Vienna posts. Hurrah! Next up is all the travelling I did with my brother (I’m sooo behind!).

5 p.m. Enough lounging around… time to make a start on tidying the kitchen! Here’s a photo of my hoover, plugged in and ready to go.

6 p.m. Dinner time! Ready-to-roast duck and boil-in-the bag potato dumplings. Also consumed but not pictured: peas and, of course, good old Bisto gravy!

7 p.m. Having made the (possibly insane?) decision to cross stitch all my Christmas cards this year, I got out all my cross stitch magazines and started going through them looking for ideas.

8 p.m. What Saturday evening alone could be complete without a classic film? 😉

10 p.m. (I missed 9 p.m.!). Still watching the film… nearly finished now!

11 p.m. Off to bed with the final book I need to finish for the summer reading challenge! I’m progressing through it… but verrrry slowly!

And that’s it. I turned the light out at 11:30 p.m. so I never made it as far as a midnight photo.

 

A Photo an Hour: 9 November 2013

Yesterday, I joined up with Jane from Is That You Darling to take one photo each hour. Here are the results.

10 AM ~ Waking up

Check out my starry PJs!

11 AM ~ A cup of tea and some cross stitch, while I wait for the washing machine to finish

12 Noon ~ Lunch time! The remaining bread was a bit stale, so I decided to make eggy bread. I had it with another cup of tea, of course!

Yummy!

1 PM ~ Getting dressed after my shower. Yes, so late. Don’t judge! 😉

2:30 PM ~ Cheating slightly because I had no hands to take photos in the supermarket. Coming home with the weekly shop.

3 PM ~ Wrapping a birthday gift that I bought while in town.

4 PM ~ Repainting my nails… silver this time.

5 PM ~ Waiting for Jan to finish getting ready so we could go out! I wasn’t actully doing anything at this point, so I resorted to a selfie…

6 PM ~ Time for whisk(e)y tasting at my favourite Irish pub. Here’s my sheet for writing down what I could smell and taste in each whisk(e)y

7 PM ~ Roughly an hour into the tasting. On our third whiskey… so far, I only liked the first one!

8 PM ~ Still at the Irish pub. Running out of ideas for photos. Here’s a random ship that was hanging above our table…

9 PM ~ Still at the Irish pub! Here’s a photo of a candle…

10 PM ~ The whiskey tasting included a three course meal. Here’s dessert:

11 PM ~ Still at the Irish pub! Mind now blank! I took a photo of a beer mat…

12:20 AM ~ Cheating again because I didn’t want to take yet another photo at the pub! So I waited til we left and took one on our way home.

1 AM ~ After all that whiskey, a large glass of water was in order before bed.

And there you have it. Apart from the whiskey tasting, that was a pretty normal Saturday for me. Waiting for the washing machine… shopping. The only thing missing was a photo of the hoover (because I didn’t bother with cleaning yesterday!).

Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter

We seem to have gone through every one of the seasons this week. There’s been baking hot sun, light drizzles, chucking it down while still being unbearably hot, fog and even thunder storms – three evenings in a row. And on Saturday (which isn’t part of this week I know) we had 10 minutes of hailstones the size of small pebbles. The only thing missing is snow (better not say that too loudly though – the weather Gods might hear me!). It’s most annoying. What exactly do you wear when it’s 2 degrees and chucking it down outside in the morning but may well be 17 degrees and thundering or 22 degrees and cloudless by the time you leave work? And while we’re on the subject, how on Earth are you supposed to hold an umbrella while carrying two heavy bags full of food shopping? Answers on a postcard please.

By the way, the boyfriend has now been away over a week (he left last Wednesday) and I’ve heard from exactly once… when he landed. He has to let me know when he lands somewhere otherwise I worry! But other than that… not a peep out of him. I know calling/texting me from LA might be a leetle bit expensive and it’s probably unreasonable of me to expect him to text when I haven’t but that doesn’t mean I have to like it, does it? I never thought I would live to utter (or rather write) these words but… roll on Monday!

It’s Saturday, hip hip hooray

Actually Saturday is pretty much over at this point but the title was too good not to use. (OK, it wasn’t actually that good but I couldn’t think of a better one).

A friend of mine who used to be a language assistant with me has come back to Germany to do a second assistantship. This time she’s living in another town roughly 45 minutes away from Karlsruhe, but today she came into town so Jan and I went to see her. We went to Cafe Emaille for lunch then to Gelbe Seiten Cafe so that we could have coffee and I could pick up some books. I needed new ones to read on my daily journey to work and they have a bookcrossing zone there. Hooray for free books!

After coffee we headed to C&A so that Jan could buy me some clothes. (And before you start thinking I’m one of those girlfriends I should point out that normally I buy my own clothes, but this particular shopping trip was part of my birthday present. He doesn’t like to surprise me with clothes in case a) I don’t like them or b) they don’t fit, so instead I got a birthday card promising me a shopping trip at a later date).

Currently Jan is at his flat where he has to pick up a few things. But soon he’ll be coming over again so we can have dinner. Then we plan to spend the rest of the evening eating Ben & Jerry’s icecream and watching films. Not a bad Saturday I’m sure you’ll agree.

Trapped

So it’s 2 o’clock on a Saturday afternoon and I appear to be trapped in my building. My room smells like a brewery, even though the window has been open for the past 2 hours. My boyfriend, the source of the brewery smells, is tucked up in bed with a hangover. I need to go shopping, but I put some washing on and have an appointment to put on another loud when that’s finished. When I asked the drunken boyfriend when he thought he might be able to get up all I got in response was a few moans. I tried the more direct line: “If I go shopping do you think you’ll be able to get out of bed in about an hour, go downstairs, take the clean clothes out of the machine, put the dirty clothes in, set the washing machine away and then hang up the clean stuff to dry?” Answer: a couple more moans then, in a very weak voice, “maybe if I have some paracetamol or something.” Guess I’m staying here til the second load of washing finishes at 4pm.

Suddenly I really admire people who are married to alcoholics. How do they put up with stuff like this every single day? I’d go crazy within about a week!

Oh well, time to sort out my next load of washing…