Catching Up ...

I know , we faded from view ...  My laptop felt peaky , WiFi vanished and I rediscovered Outside .
Since when , a lot has been done and thoroughly enjoyed ....

 There's been very old buildings ... with  stairs  , spiral and endless ... and not such old ones . Surprises . I discovered that , on hot days ,  Selfridges staff enjoy a roof terrace with bean bags , deck chairs and Astroturf

 

and that our local mayor has a hard hat and clogs handy by the fireplace in his office .

There were museums and a talk on interior architecture in Leeuwarden during the Golden Age . Ancient wallpaper

 

 and not such ancient three-piece suites .

 

 And unexpected details .

Animals , herb gardens and city farms .

 

 And, best of all ,  grandchildren . Air guitar and chocolate buttons . Fearless holding of falcons , and having to hunt for a suddenly lost front tooth till we agreed that it must have been swallowed ...  and the ensuing discussions about the Tooth Fairy's job description as laid down in her work contract . Books and songs , swings and all manner of furry elephants  . And loving presents of squashed bananas and beaming smiles ...
 Trains , buses ( you have no idea just how long ten hours can be till you go from Amsterdam to London on a Eurolines bus ) and boats . Sunsets and stained glass

 

And food , lots and lots of delicious food ... which , sensibly,  I just ate without taking a single photo .

Back To Earth With A Bump

Sonata :
 After a busy week of , sometimes almost hedonistic , delights ranging from cafe-crawling and tapas in Amsterdam to celebrate YD's birthday and a delectably fishy dinner in Leeuwarden to celebrate friend's ditto ,  to a plateless Book Fair all-in Special in Deventer

 ( though this , to be honest , did belong more to the Food As Fuel school of mass catering ... but was served with speed and a smile ) , I was beginning to see myself in a whole new light . No , I'm not a medium-sized , white-haired , nosy older woman in sensible shoes at all . That's just a disguise . Really , I look like this :

 Or at least I did , until I picked up my new glasses yesterday . I'm obviously now being re-cast as an elderly gent .

So , I'm back on the sofa with the most sensible of my Book Fair finds , Daughter of Persia by Sattereh Farman Farmaian and Donna Munker ... plus a couple of elderly Italian cooker magazines .
Oh yes , and there's Always the Swiss Gospel Choir's concert on Friday in a nearby village ....

Retail Therapy ... Of A Modest Nature

Sonata:
 By this weekend I'd recovered sufficiently to have a Nice Day Out .... Smitonius' idea .... and , as always , she was quite right .
I always enjoy a trip to Groningen and yesterday , with the sun blazing , it was particularly lively . The cafè on the corner of the market square , where you'd only sit if you had all the time in the world and no desire to eat anything till tomorrow , had a terrace full of comatose clients and no visible staff but did have a very nice black upright piano outside , which a young man was playing Thirties show tunes on . Very tempting , but I decided to save time and  chose a cafè a bit further along , which served coffee so strong it gave me palpitations . Perfect ! I had a lot to do .
So off to  Cook&Co for a handy gadget to add to YD's ever-growing collection of toys for her kitchen and yet another cookery book ... they might console her for being even more ancient than she was last week . The Italian deli for Lomo Adobado and vinegar . A browse through the C.D.s in a little shop that specialises in harder to find recordings .
 Then on to little places with lovely soaps , French stationery , pretty scarves or vintage china  . Past a tiny place where you can order a bespoke table or bookshelves , whose owner sat playing the clarinet . Cyclists wove in and out , a child bounced past on a Skippy Ball ( they must be in again . That's the second I''ve seen this week ) . People strolled along with ice creams or bags of cherries from the market .
Then suddenly the sky went black , it poured weirdly warm rain and I discovered I'd brought the umbrella that only opens half way up so nipped into the second-hand bookshop that stocks English paperbacks for a Euro and found six , including Armistead Maupin's Babycakes .
And finally the North African shop for the best dried apricots ever and lots of herby olives . All in all , great fun and not at all an extravagant day out .
 No , the real , rather disastrous,  loss of control was a few days earlier ... My unbending resolve to disembarrass myself of clutter and Not Buy Any More collapsed in the face of a snail . Meet Stanley ...

He did  only cost a Euro ....

It's Probably Too Early To Claim A Miracle Cure But ...

 

Sonata: I've been getting more and more weary , lately  . By last week , I thought if it got any worse , I'd be clinging onto the furniture to get round the flat and having to climb a flight of stairs was enough to put me off going to the library .

Today , while I'm not running the four-minute mile or auditioning for the Cambuur cheerleaders , I do look a lot less like Dracula's latest victim . Almost perky , in fact . I've started taking iron tablets and feel as though I've risen from the dead .

It's just a pity that I still can't do high kicks .... Next week , perhaps .

 

 

 

Oma's Erupting Spiced Apple Cake

Sonata:

 You're not to laugh , it's not funny .

 Note to self : When recipe  makes a startling amount of cake batter , don't just pour it all into the loaf tin as instructed , till you think it's going to overflow . Use your common sense and  stop . You won't regret it .
 And no , you're not going to see a luscious slice of Oma's Actually Rather Nice Spiced Apple Cake sitting on a pretty plate . Having been sniggered at , it's gone all shy .

Nearly as shy as me , when the house painters swooped early this morning to do next door's windows . 

Not Totally Predictable , No .

Sonata:
  Friko , in her latest post , talks about the predictability ... or otherwise ... of  life  and , unlike others ,  feels that day-to-day control lies within one's grasp . I'd like to think it's true  I suppose it depends on whether you're  a glass half full or glass half empty person , certainly once you reach your sixties .

*But much as I'd  love to live a life of wild spontaneity , treats and new experiences , I don't . The occasional Day Out to somewhere unfamiliar apart , days tend to follow one another , rather like a procession of cowled monks .
 Still , it doesn't have to be dull .  There's always one's fellow man to provide entertainment , even on routine trips to the supermarket ... Yesterday  a couple ahead of me were rushing about with their trolley stacked  with an odd assortiment of groceries . "How about a magazine ? ", he asked  , sounding slightly desperate,  handing her one about cars .
 "No ! I've  explained this already  ! I said I only want blue and white things " .
 " Look , they've got blue Durex . Will that do ? "
"Perfect!... now a gift token and we can give it to him when we get there ".
 I think they were putting together a care package for their son who'd moved out and was a new flat-sharer . I went off trying to imagine previous generations of parents tossing condoms in among the instant mash and tins of soup , let alone colour co-ordinate it .

* P.S. No , Husband and I aren't  quite like this ... I don't really have whiskers  fortunately .. .but , when Y.D . packed up her things the other day to take them down to Amsterdam ,  I rescued  the contents  of  her doll's house and have put them in our storeroom . Yes , I know , I'm not very good at de-cluttering , but suppose there's ever a granddaughter ?

Hang on , I'll Just Google it ....

A few of the things Googled this week ....
How to open an old Cable Turtle  ( you can't if it's really old and not bendy , I gather ) , which leads me onto How to Cable Stitch Crochet , bypassing the unattractive sounding Cable Gland , which two pages later segues into How to clean a turtle tank ( no , you can't just hand them each a dish mop )

Tashkent ..

How to cook Red Camargue Rice .... again ..... it's my recurring Senior Moment . I can never remember how much water to use .

Victor Mature .

Lotus Eating .

How much cholesterol in liver ( too much if you're on a low cholesterol diet . You'd be safer just eating the bacon ) .

Springing hedgehogs .... don't panic ! Macrocranion Tupaiodon lived thousands of years ago and was  wooly rather than spikey , anyway . There's a very nice  fossil in our local Nature museum , if you're passing .

Junket .

This year''s Top Names For Babies .But somehow I can't see Will and Kate choosing  Atticus , Magnus or Hank if it's a boy , while neither Juno nor Lizzie seem quite right if it's a girl . We'll just have to wait and see .

Encyclopaedia Britannica .
See , hours of fun !