Sunshine , Pink Tea and Runny Cheese

Now that I have a day to myself each week , the world's grown a bit and I can go to Groningen again  for a couple of hours .
Just long enough to wander past the museum and through  the town enjoying the sun , finding odd corners and  playing the 'what would it be like to live in this street ' game

Rummaging for second hand CDs in the recycling shop to play at least once ... the soundtrack from a French film about Seville

and Verdi's Il Trovatore with Leontyne Price this time  , both to be played again .

A 'Seventies relic which I bore off in triumph , much to the surprise of the junk shop's owner  ... "It doesn't go any more " he warned . Good , these always had a deafening tic and only a masochist would repair it  but I couldn't resist it for a Euro , could I ?

 Treating myself to a quarter of exceedingly fruity Apple and Hibiscus tea and a cheerful Father Christmas tin to keep it in , lest the whole flat smells of it .
Buying good bread , runny cheese and tiny sweet tomatoes  for supper and running to the train clutching a ham baguette . Putting my feet up in the evening with that morning's paper and a cup of gorgeously pink hibiscus tea .

 Nothing earth-shattering ... just fun .

Weekend Supplement Delusions

Workshops are the thing these days . You can try anything crafty ; felt making , jewellery , papier machè , screenprinting , upholstery ....  A few years ago , my great-aunts , then in their mid-eighties , started painting plates for their many relations after a workshop on pottery painting .... before they turned to ragdoll making after another .The trouble is I don't really want to do these things . Nor do I want to want to become an online fashion editor courtesy of a Guardian media course , 99 Pounds , book included ... I haven't got the clothes for it . 
But after reading the Volkskrant weekend supplement yesterday ,  I was entranced by a workshop offered by skibuilding.com . In the space of two days you learn enough to build your own wooden skis . Pepperblue , a German company , give weekend courses in Beieren or Innsbruk . It woke all my old Chalet School fantasies .
Actually I've never skied and if I really wanted to , I could buy a pair from Zai in Switzerland or Ronning in Norway ... but I've never fantasised about Norway ....

While I was Googling to find a vintage Chalet School cover with skis on ( YD having taken all hers with her when she moved out ) , I was astonished to find that there's a fanclub www.chaletschool.org.uk . Perhaps I'll just join this instead .

P.S. At Friday lunchtime a student , cycling past back from the college , was singing Queen's I Want To Break Free very , very loudly .  Whatever class he'd had hadn't gone well ...

Our Madonna With Cherries

There are hundreds of representations of The Madonna With Cherries , all of them beautiful . But today I stood admiring our local version and had to think that it was one of the best I've ever seen .

It used to stand , almost unnoticed , in a corner by the lift in the old hospital ... the one that was run by the nuns ,

and is still remembered with gratitude by generations of ailing Leeuwarders . The town now has a spiffy new hospital with dozens of lifts and every machine known to man and the old Bonnehûs   ( St Bonifatius hospital  ) has been demolished with exec. residences put up on the land instead .
But dotted about the splendid shiny new Medical Center  (I still think Bonnehûs sounds more comforting )   there are little reminders .
This statue is perfect and children , in particular , must have loved it . Symbolically , cherries represent sweetness of character derived from good works and cherries in the hand of The Christ Child suggest the delights of the blessed  .
And over his ears ?

Cindy , Jumbo And The Three Charlies

The couple next door have a dog . Tiny , completely round with a curly coat and silent , Cindy resembles nothing so much as a pom-pom on a lead . She and her owner ; a pleasant mild mannered man as silent as she is , stroll sedately round the park three times a day . A model of urban pet ownership .
But there's a new cat round the corner ... a gigantic ginger tom called , appropriately , Jumbo . He's already terrorised the man downstairs'  three  cats  ( all called Charlie for some reason ) and they've taken to hiding under the hedge and peering out nervously before crossing the road .
As I came home yesterday , neighbour and Cindy , wagging her tail politely in greeting , were off on their constitutional . Imagine my surprise when I heard her suddenly give a miniscule snuffly squeak   . Neighbour pulled her to heel briskly .
"Now , now Cindy . Don't bully the cat ! ".  Jumbo , who could disembowel us all , turned , smirked and swept off  .
The local vet might consider giving self-defence lessons , perhaps .

Autumn again .

It's that time of year again  . I never seem to have put the right coat on and am usually overheated or rainsoaked .

 

Still , it definitely isn't this windswept and bleak  , either . This is the cover of a 1947 pamphlet , advertising the Friese Agricultural Fair in September when , by the look of it , you'd have been advised to put on winter woolies and a hat , complete with hatpin . Proof of climate warming , if we still need it  .
But , it prompted me to think about knitting again . Nothing complicated ... until the other cataract is removed , I have no depth perception  , making sewing impossible , knitting interesting and cycling alarming . Well , I say nothing complicated , but led astray by Friend who'd discovered a new
 woolshop , I found myself taking home rainbow wool and circular needles ... which I've never tried before . I'm a great fan of YouTube though , and  always believe that there's the perfect video that will show me exactly How To ....

and there was . Or would have done  had I paid attention  .  It turns out that when Miss Kaufman says ,  "make sure the cast on row isn't twisted " ,

 she means just that . So I've now started again . Properly  . This time it'll look less weird . I love the way it feels  .

Friend had found a new cafè , too , that does delicious steak sandwiches . No photo since we ate them all up the second they hit the table so I'll show you their menu instead ... the bit where they explain their policy . Good food , responsibly sourced and served with a smile , preferably to smiling customers . So we smiled widely .

 

I saw today that the cafè in our local library has a more take-it-or-leave-it policy , judging by their sign outside ... 'geen' meaning no , in this case .  They do have very nice coffee , though . 

 

 

And , finally , a photo my colour therapy lunch today . Remarkably cheering . I even smiled .

A Splendid Girls' Day Out

On Tuesday , YD and I had a Girls' Day Out . After a hideously early start ... when did you last voluntarily get up at five in the morning ? ... it included taxi rides , endless coffees and the latest glossy magazines , a special hat for me , small displays of beautifully arranged antiques and excellent , friendly personal service with a smile .  
Where did we go ? The local hospital's eye department and their cataract removal clinic . I'd been terrified ... scalpels ? stitches in my eyeball ?  what would I see ? ... so it was perhaps just as well that YD kept a firm grip on my elbow while we went in but , once we were there , everyone was so welcoming that it would have been churlish to turn and run back whimpering  into the dawn light .
And now it's done and I can see everything clearly again with my left eye , I only have one slight complaint . I've got to wait seven more weeks for the right eye to be done . Why can't I go back tomorrow ?

            Me in my nifty new eye cap ... fortunately only to be worn at night . It keeps on sliding
            down to my chin .

Before she left YD pointed out that I'd wrongly attributed the Henry VIII and his wives drawing to her . Apparently it was by Smitonius . "I couldn't have done anything so good . Besides I'd have given them mouse ears ".  And , it's true . She'd have made dancing mice of them all . My abject apologies , meanwhile , to my eldest daughter

Hoarder Or Archivist ?

 I've spent most of the last week rummaging , looking for an old photo for Middle Daughter . Elder Grandson is at the gappy stage , when teeth suddenly fall out , usually at inconvenient moments resulting in reverently wrapping tooth in a paper napkin and Not Losing It Till They Get Home . He's now keen to see how his parents looked when they were losing their front teeth ...
 "If he just waits a few more years , he can see for himself . We'll be doing it again  " , said his mother , obviously feeling her age .
 Meanwhile , I'm hunting for a snap of a seven year-old MD in a poncho and toothless . Needless to say , I've found everything but . He'll have to content himself with images of toothless aunts , great aunts , grandmother , second cousins once removed ... even a dentally challenged , much younger Opa .
 Which has made me wonder why I've still got all this stuff . How many generations of photos does one keep ? The one of a great uncle , aged one , propped in a chair playing a large drum is rather sweet , for instance and must be guarded . But a fuzzy-ish black and white shot of  great grandmother's anonymous cousin's small son in full Highland dress , while equally sweet , seems less necessary , somehow . But I religiously put them all back in boxes , which will eventually be left to my daughters to store in their turn .
In the same case , I was amused to find a stash of drawings which I'd kept from their early school years

 This one caught my eye , since I'm reading an historical novel , at the moment , about Henry II * . YD  must have been doing English History at the time . I'm particularly intrigued by her depiction of Anne Boleyn ... the eyes ! ... The sheer brazen tilt of the hussy's head ! . Still YD's  teacher was , after all , a Spanish nun so La Boleyna wasn't going to be kindly viewed , I suppose . One day I must organise it all and hand them on but I'm too fond of them to do it yet .

* Elizabeth Chadwick's "The Time Of Singing ."