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Another day in Paradise?

February 2, 2005 at 1:55 PM

by Ashleigh

Its Wednesday and its grey. Although watching the skyscape out of the window of the study it is pretty interesting. One of those days where the sky seems so low that you can almost touch it. I know Holland and associated countries were called the 'Low Countries' because they were flat and almost underwater but the sky seems to think it also has to follow suit! There's an advertisement on tv for air traffic controllers which shows the sky in various incarnations from different paintings by the Great Masters and then shows the sky currently with loads of aeroplanes criss crossing it. Since we have lived here I must say I've noticed the sky a lot more - maybe the Dutch spend a lot of time looking up and that's why they are so tall?

Took the kids to school today on the bike. Joe howled because he didn't want to go on the front seat but settled down. He was happy to be left at school too and I had a chat with the teacher about possibly getting the school photos in time to send to my brother to take home to Mom. It is so much easier to communicate with the teachers at the preschool now that I speak Dutch.

Trying to work out some house renovation things ...

I've been looking in the Ikea catalogue to try and work something out for our bathroom. Other than the major changes - like a shower cabin for one - it needs storage space badly. I've decided that the Vattern range from Ikea is the way to go and what I think we will do is install it ourselves and get the builder to come and do the plumbing, sealing around the worktop edges. I can't think of a more cost effective way to do it. I ordered the granite edging strips for the kitchen and they will apparently take two weeks to come, so we can expect that and the tiling and electical sockets in the kitchen to be done in oh, say a month and a half's time?? No sarcasm here, it will really take that long. We then need to sort out some kind of blind for the kitchen as the sun is going to stream in there in the mornings in summer and a shade for the balcony. The bathroom can only be sorted out after all that is done. In the meantime we have painting to do still, but right now we're recovering ...

Picked up the kids from school and the photos were ready! Yay!

Stitching ...

I finished the stems and leaves on the Heart Sampler and now I've put it away again to concentrate on finishing my model.

I've also been reading up on the lectures being offered by Joke Visser at the Handwerkbeurs here in Zwolle. I will be attending, probably on the Sunday and I'm keen to hear her lecture. I translated the title from the Dutch 'Waarom zijn merklappen zo Nederlands en zo boeiende' to mean 'Why are Dutch samplers so distinctively Dutch' but Brad says 'boiende' means 'gripping' so I guess a more accurate translation would be 'Why are samplers so Dutch and so fascinating' although I'm not sure that's entirely correct either. Oh well. I intend to ask Ms Visser for a transcript of her lecture in order to translate it for the ladies from With My Needle and Pen. I hope she will give her assistance for me to do this. I also believe that Ms Visser is selling antique needlework supplies at the Beurs. I am looking forward to seeing what she has for sale and hoping that she will have her books on sale too so that I can purchase them.

I need to find a good Fish Florentine recipe for supper as I found some fresh spinach at the store and bought some frozen cod. Yum. We had a great fish dish the other day from Delia. It was surprisingly quick and tasty! I didn't use the called for parmesan as we had run out, but we had some fairly sharp tasting oude kaas so I used that instead. Here's the recipe.

I wonder if Brad will let us watch Dalziel and Pascoe tonight or not ... One can hope.


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