June 2021 recap

Hello lovely readers! Normally I would posted my monthly recap before now but either WordPress or my internet browser (or more than likely some combination of the two) is being a massive pain and refusing to load the post editor – I just get a blank white screen. Blogging from my phone is ridiculously annoying and yet here I am. Yay?!

Anyway, I’m not sure I have a great deal to say about June. It was hot – almost too hot – for approximately 2 weeks. So naturally I decided to bake scones on a day with temperatures over 30ºC. On one of the hot days we drove to a village called Linn to go for a walk. I read that there was a waterfall, and indeed there is… but it’s tiny. Apparently the biggest waterfall in the canton of Aargau though. Bless. There’s also a giant lime tree right outside the village that’s supposedly famous – I think pretty much solely for being huge, which it is to be fair.

• 

• 

The rest of the month I continued going for walks locally – often in between rain showers. After those two hot weeks we got lots and lots of rain. I think at one point we had thunder every day for a week! I love a good thunder storm but it started to get a tiny bit ridiculous.

Jan actually got to perform with one of his choirs – I went to watch since it was outdoors. Luckily the rain held off until the end!

We continued watching Richard Osman’s House of Games – until the series ended and it was replaced by tennis, which we did not watch. Did we watch football in June? I can’t remember if it had already started then. Jan watched more group phase matches than me – I only really bothered with “my” teams (England, Scotland, Wales, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Ukraine if you’re interested – and I only watched some of their matches).

I read 10 books in June, including the entire To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before trilogy (years after everyone else!). I will bring you my reviews on Tuesday even if it means having to post on my phone again.

I can’t think of anything else to tell you and typing on the tiny screen is annoying me so I’m going to stop here. Have a great weekend everyone! (Or a great whatever day it is when you read this.)

A couple’s day in lockdown, April 2020

I saw a few people doing “my day in quarantine” on their Instagram stories and I thought it would be fun to do something like that here, but a couple’s version. Also, I don’t call mine “quarantine” because people in quarantine don’t get to leave the house. My uncle was in quarantine for potential exposure because he had been in Tirol and he had to stay in his flat for 14 days and his daughter wasn’t allowed to come home from her mum’s for that entire time. If you can do your own shopping and see family members you’re not in quarantine! Anyway… rant about semantics over. This was Easter Saturday – I’ve just been too lazy to sort out the photos until now.

10 a.m.

Jan: Sleeping. (I took a photo of our bed the night before specifically for this purpose!)

Me: Making a cuppa, because that’s how I always start my day.

11 a.m.

Jan: Still sleeping.

Me: Getting some reading in before Jan emerges and the TV goes on.

12 noon.

Jan: In bed. Where else?

Me: Thought it was about time I actually ate something!

1 p.m.

Jan: No change 😂

Me: Time for a shower.

2 p.m.

Jan: Apparently got up while I was in the shower. No watching TV and eating breakfast.

Me: Reading is out, so now I’m colouring.

3 p.m.

Jan: Watching the news while playing a game on his phone.

Me: Watching the news and continuing to colour.

4 p.m.

Jan: Even when all live sport is cancelled, my boyfriend manages to find football!

Me: Finished my picture.

(Immediately after I took those photos Jan went for a shower and I hoovered the flat, but at photo time the above is what we were doing)

5 p.m.

Both: Our for a walk. Hello ducks!

6 p.m.

Both: Still walking. Said hi to some goats.

At 7 p.m. we were still out, walking towards home, but I forgot to take photos. It wouldn’t have been very interesting anyway since we came back along a busier road.

8 p.m.

Jan: Ordering food for us (and then he went and emptied the dishwasher).

Me: Getting started on my blog post for April’s Show Us Your Books.

9 p.m.

Both: Food came – and we also ordered some Italian soft drink things (that is actually not Coke!)

10 p.m.

Both: Watching Indiana Jones, apparently?! I had never seen it before. It was terrible! (He made me watch the next film the following night. It was even more terrible!)

I stopped taking photos after that. I took my book to bed and read until it was finished. Jan stayed up watching TV until I don’t know when.

And that is a snapshot of how each of us coped on one specific day in lockdown (or semi-lockdown really, since we’re still allowed out to buy food and go for long walks).

I also have an “official” photo an hour post still to come. That one will just be what I was doing. This couple’s was just something I thought would be fun.

I hope everyone is doing okay out there. Keep staying home. It will be worth it in the end!

A Photo an Hour: 18 January 2020

Hello friends! As you can see by the fact that I’m posting this over two weeks after photo an hour day, reality has my firmly back in its grip. The time between finishing work and having to go to bed seems to go by in a flash, and honestly I just don’t want to go straight from working on the computer all day to typing up blog posts in the evening. I actually intended to post this on Sunday but the computer decided to be a pain. So I’m doing it now. Better late than never, right?

As always, Photo an Hour was hosted by Louisa and Jane.

10 a.m. It might be a new decade, but some things never change. Starting the day with tea as usual. And since Jana and Steph were hosting a SUYB readathon, also with a book.

11 a.m. Breakfast. Note the sultanas on the side… totally counts towards my fruit or veg with every meal goal!

12 noon. Getting dressed.

1 p.m. In town, where the sky can’t decide what it wants (it looks friendy-ish here, but right at the back you can see where the really threatening clouds start!). Also, construction.

2 p.m. Still in town. Next stop Aldi.

3 p.m. Home and eating a late lunch.

4 p.m. Back to my book… it *is* a readathon after all!

5 p.m. A break to boil the kettle.

6 p.m. Jan came home from choir practice so I got started with cooking tea.

7 p.m. So many pans all wanting my attention at once. Help!

8 p.m. Finally starting Good Omens. YESSSSS!

9 p.m. And back to reading.

That was the last photo I took, although I stayed up reading a while longer.

If you’re interested in taking part in a photo an hour, the next one will be on 15th February. Simply take a photo every hour and upload it to Twitter or Instagram… or save them all and use them to write a blog post later. Or do all three!

Recent doings #32

I haven’t done one of these for a while… not since I stopped using this format for the What’s New With You link up. Now seemed like a good time for one. Most people call these kinds of post “Currently” and I think maybe there’s a link up with specific prompts? I don’t know. I just grabbed these ones off the top of my head. Anyway, here are a few things I’ve been doing recently. Enjoy!

Eating. I’ve become weirdly obsessed with dried apricots. At least it’s something healthy, I guess? They make a good snack and it means I’m actually getting fruit into me without having to eat like six plums at once because everything always starts to go bad within a couple of days.

Reading. I’m technically currently reading Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl but I haven’t picked it up for a week. The last book I finished was Eeny Meeny by M.J. Arlidge.

Watching. I pretty much only watch TV when Jan’s home – I don’t feel compelled to switch it on the minute I sit down like he does. Lately he’s been flicking to The Repair Shop (but we always miss the beginning) and it’s such heart warming, wholesome TV. Soon I want to start a re-watch of Buffy the Vampire Slayer – I got the entire box set for my birthday.

Listening to. Jan and I started listening to the Good Omens radio play. It was on BBC Radio 4 Extra, so we listened to the first two episodes there, but then it became unavailable so we found episode three elsewhere. We need to listen to the rest, but for that Jan would need to have time… (By the way, episode one has a cameo from Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, which I thought was awesome.)

Making. Halloween cards for Post Pals. I have about 10, I need 41 (last year I think I made 50, so it’s a little less crazy at least).

Buying. Way too many books, as always. If you’re wondering, I mostly get them from Better World Books (used – I very rarely buy new books for myself).

Wondering. How and where we acquired so much stuff! Clutter… clutter everywhere. Sometimes I’m tempted to just start ruthlessly culling things.

I can’t think of anything else, so I’ll leave it here. What have you been up to lately? Care to share some recent doings in the comments?
By the way, the photo at the top has nothing to do with anything in this post, I just wanted to put something there. You’re welcome.

Recent doings #29

Good morning! It’s that time of the month again where I link up with Kristen to tell you what’s new with me. June was a weird month – at the time it didn’t feel like it was going fast, but looking back I can’t believe it’s actually over already. Work has also been pretty busy recently, which is why I haven’t been around much on the blogosphere. I’m so sorry if yours is one of the blogs I never got around to commenting on! Anyway, let’s have a look at what I got up to last month…

Reading. The month started off relatively slow and I didn’t think I was going to read many books, but I actually ended up completing 18 again! One of those was started in May and I only read the last few pages in June, so I read 17 entire books in June. I also started two others, which I’ve now abandoned for Erin’s challenge because of course I have. Actually finishing what I started is overrated 😉

Watching. We’re still recording Young Sheldon each week and then watching it on a different day. And I’ve been watching football… way more than I would have chosen to watch if I’d been in charge of the remote 😉

Eating. Salad. Lots and lots of salad. We’ve also made use of the barbecue, so there have been quite a few sausages as well. Oh, and ice cream. It’s okay though… I kept breakfast/lunch really low calorie so I managed to fit it into my plan and even get the scales moving in the right direction. Although I put on half a kilogram when we went away for the weekend and it’s taken until today for the scales to finally be back where they were on Friday. *Sigh*

Going to. Like I said, we went away for the weekend. Jan hired a car and we drove to Vitznau on Lake Lucerne, where we spent one night. We went on 30 June and didn’t get there until early evening so most of what we did will be covered in my summary for July 😉 But here’s a picture taken from the car ferry that brought us across the lake

The weekend before, we took a day trip to Wasserfallen, which is a short drive from us. We took a cable car up a mountain, walked around and saw some people returning from llama trekking. It looked so cool and now I want to take a llama for a walk!

Cross stitching. I stitched a smiley card for a Post Pals sibling and started a card for my friend’s son’s birthday. Need to start Christmas stitching soon!

Celebrating. A school/university friend’s wedding… the one we travelled to England for in May. Also a colleague of Jan’s birthday. Here, have a look at what I wore for the wedding:

Baking. Biscuits, as you saw, for the aforementioned birthday celebration and then to use up the leftover butter cream icing.

Seeing/hearing. Jan had another performance – this time a project set up by someone from one of his other choirs – so of course I went along to see it.

Attending. A meeting with our housing association and some architects. Our building is being renovated next year and all the flats are getting new windows and new kitchens/bathrooms. It will mean a lot of disruption and a temporary shower for everyone on the ground floor, but we have the most annoying toilets so I can’t wait for them to be replaced. We will also be getting individual washing machines, so no more making appointments for the communal one only for people to steal them. Can. Not. Wait!

Buying. Umm… books, of course. Including two at the airport on the way back from England. I actually can’t think of anything else I bought in June, other than groceries, stamps… things that don’t count.

I think that’s everything that happened in June that I can actually talk about (so vague. So cryptic. So sorry). I hope you all had a great month. Tell me what you got up to… or come link up with the rest of us!

Recent doings #28

Another month has been and gone… does anyone else feel like life is passing by too quickly for them to have a chance to do anything? Please say it’s not just me! Anyway, it’s link up day with Kristen so I’m here to tell you what I did in April.

Eating. I think I actually managed to eat fish twice a week in April, so yay for that! At the beginning of the month I ate way too much ice cream, then I made the mistake of getting the tape measure out so for the last week of the month I got back on My Fitness Pal and started trying to eat healthily again. There have been a lot of salads…

Drinking. Still too much black tea. At the beginning of the month I tried to cut down, limiting myself to one cup of black tea in the morning and drinking strawberry cheesecake tea (which is really an infusion) in the afternoon, but that only lasted maybe a week. Since then it’s been all normal tea all the time.

Reading. Show us your books is coming up so I’ll tell you all of them then, but a book I started reading in April was The Godfather. I’ve actually finished it now, but it was already May so it will be recapped in next month’s round up.

Watching. We’re still keeping up with Young Sheldon. I tune in to Pointless and Eggheads occasionally. And Jan has started putting CBBC on for Dragon Riders of Berk (I think that’s what it’s called), so slightly randomly I’ve been watching that. Toothless is the cutest!

Making. Many more birthday cards for Post Pals children.

Cross stitching. I stated a wedding card for a friend, but I didn’t have all the colours so I will be finishing it in May when the new threads I’ve ordered arrive. And while I’m on the subject…

Booking. Flights to England for the wedding of the aforementioned friend.

Buying. All the books, all the time. Also, a dress (I couldn’t resist – it has butterflies on!). Also, three-quarter length leggings to go under skirts in summer. I spent too much in April and have now put myself on a spending ban for May. *sigh*

Receiving. Don’t you love it when things come in the post that you don’t even remember ordering? That was the case with these Super Mario themed fridge magnets. I love them!

Seeing/hearing. Jan performing with a choir… a different one to the one I saw in March.

Walking. On Easter Monday (which was just about in April) I went to a nearby town and walked up to a castle ruin on the hillside. I’ve also walked into town and along the river a few times (about an hour of walking). And, as evidenced by Saturday’s photo an hour, I walked half an hour through the woods (uphill!) to St. Chrischona, then we walked some more in the woods at the top of the hill. And that has basically been my exercise in April… my poor yoga mat has yet to justify its existence by being used!

Listening to. Yeah I actually remembered the existence of the music player on my phone… Anna Nalick’s Wreck of the Day album. Billy Joel’s greatest hits. The Eagles.

Playing. Mini golf. I started off okay but Jan still ended up beating me by loads. I will achieve my 40 before 40 goal though!

I can’t think of anything else I did in April so I’ll stop here. What have you been doing recently?

Check out the link up to see how everyone else spent April.

Recent doings #27

Hello friends! I am writing this introduction before work (I did the rest of the post yesterday so it was almost ready to go). In a few minutes, the washing machine will be finished and I can go and get my clothes… I finally managed to do laundry after getting up extra early yesterday only to find the machine in use. I have no idea which neighbour had stolen it since clearly my name was on the sign-up sheet. (Well, technically Jan’s but same thing). Roll on the day that I have my own washing machine! So now I’ve been up extra early two days in a row, and tomorrow I have to be up even earlier since it’s my Friday to be in the office. Whinge, whine, complain, etc. Anyway, it’s the first Thursday of another month and that means it’s time to link up with Kristen and Gretch for What’s New With You? Here’s what I got up to in March.

Eating. All the bad things. Honestly, you don’t even want to know how much sugar I consumed! Other than that, I was trying to eat fish twice a week in March but I only actually succeeded on two weeks of the month.

Drinking. Way too much (normal, i.e. black) tea. I really need to cut down on my caffeine consumption!

Reading. I will tell you all the books I read next week, but I feel like I can’t mention often enough that I actually finished Anna Karenina!

Watching. We actually watched a lot in March… way more than usual. Jan kept wanting to watch films, so we ended up watching A League of Their Own (one of my favourites but he had never seen it!), In Bruges, The Imitation Game… I feel like we watched another film but I don’t remember what it was. We’ve also been watching Young Sheldon. We still have last week’s to watch though, since Jan was away. Hopefully it recorded… I forgot to check.

Celebrating. Jan’s birthday. Well, he never wants to celebrate properly but I have him gifts and bought a little cake for us to eat after dinner.

Making. Birthday cards for Post Pals children, as always. Side note: the balloon dies I used for the card below may just turn out to be my best purchase of the year. So useful!

Cross stitching. A card for a Post Pals child.

Buying. What did I buy, apart from books, which is too obvious to mention? Stickers. Washi tape. Oh, I bought a yoga mat. Not that I plan to take up yoga, but Jillian Michaels’ DVD has parts where you have to lie on the floor and I’m hoping the mat will be more comfortable than our living room rug. I’ve had the thing for 2 weeks and haven’t actually tried it out yet.

Booking. My first ever Airbnb. I mean, I’ve stayed in Airbnbs before, but it was never me organising them. This one is for us to stay in when we go to my cousin’s confirmation near Munich in May.

Burning. A candle called Rainy Day Reads. The scent is supposed to be Fresh rain, ginger, lavender. I have no idea what fresh rain is supposed to smell like. I mean, it’s basically water so doesn’t it depend on where it falls/what’s in the air at the time? (The candle smells good though.)

Seeing/hearing. Jan perform with one of his choirs… the same one he is currently on a trip with. It was an interesting program and they performed one of the songs I like best. Plus I got to go for pizza with them all afterwards, so that was cool.

That’s it. If I did anything else this month I don’t remember it. And the part of Easter weekend that was in March I pretty much spent spring cleaning my flat. So… what did you get up to in March? I hope you had a good one. Go check out the link up to see what everyone else got up to in March (and add your link, if you feel that way inclined).

Friday letters

Hooray for Friday! I have been so, so tired all week so now I’m looking forward to just chilling for a while But first I have a whole day of work ahead of me. Aaah.

Here are some letters.

 

Dear BBC Entertainment. It is very annoying that you neither show up in the TV Guide nor have any information available when I press the “Info” button. I never know when anything is on you, so I just have to keep flicking over to make sure I’m not missing something good. (Currently loving “The Coroner” but I keep forgetting what time it starts and missing the beginning. Grrr.)

Dear sunflower. We did not plant you, but somehow you have grown in one of our pots. Luckily I like sunflowers, so you were an unexpected treat.

Dear ice cream. Whyyy must you be so tasty? Luckily it’s also been too hot to cook recently so I’ve been balancing you out with salad. It seems to be working – the number on the scales is only fluctuating slightly (but refusing to go down any further, ever. Which is totally your fault, ice cream). Speaking of which…

Dear scales. I was entirely unimpressed with the number you showed me this morning. I ate fruit for breakfast yesterday. Fruit! Surely that should result in instant weight loss? 😉

Dear bookshelves. You appear to be overflowing again. I’m really not sure how that could have happened… 😉

Well, that’s all from me for today. Have a great weekend everyone!

 

 

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.

 

Recent doings #5

It’s time for another What’s New With You? linkup with Gretchen and Kristen, which means it has also been a whole month since the last one. I’m not entirely sure how that happened. The year is one third over already, guys! What?! How?!

I scheduled this post to publish yesterday, while Jan and I were out hiking, so it would appear on actual link-up day, but apparently WordPress chose to ignore me?! So instead you’re getting it in place of Friday letters…

 

Reading. I picked up Possession by A.S Byatt again (and fiinally finished it on the train home from work yesterday. Another Big Read book down!). I aso read I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith on the flight back from New Zealand. It was interesting, and so different to 101 Dalmatians! There were some other quick reads in between as well, but those two are the main ones.

Watching. I was going to say we didn’t watch anything in April (except for like breakfast TV, which Jan puts on every morning!), but then I remembered that we started watching Mr. Robot again on 30th April so it totally counts 😉

Going. (That seems like an odd descriptor, but it was too close to really be called travelling). To Allschwil for April’s destination for Take 12 Trips (in case you missed it, I’m taking the challenge again).

Houses in Allschwil

Eating. Camel’s milk chocolate! We bought it in Dubai. Honestly, it didn’t taste particularly different to normal chocolate – and it wasn’t even all that great. I’m not really sure what I was expecting though.

Cross stitching. A new home card for a pen pal. I’ve also been working on something bigger, but I can’t tell you about that yet (you never know who reads here…)

Looking. For furniture. We actually managed to order a wardrobe, which will be delivered in June (why so long?!), but balcony furniture is proving more of a challenge. It’s surprisingly difficult to find stuff that a) we both like b) actually fits on our smallish balcony and c) isn’t either ridiculously expensive or terribly cheap (in terms of quality; cheap price wouldn’t be a problem if it wasn’t already scratched from being stored badly!).

What did you do in April? Check out the linkup to see how everyone else spent the month.