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Tuesday, August 28th

Holiday to Ukraine

mood: Good

Hi everyone,

Sorry, it has been some time since there was a post.
However, we only came back from holiday last Friday so be patient with us!

The holiday was absolutely FANTASTIC! We saw our little darling godchild again. She's already six (time flies) and we communicated with her in German. Playing games and things like that. It was absolutely wonderful.
We also took about 4 hours of video, some of which will end up on the net but you might have to wait for that a bit. Once I get myself up and running, and in between learning Russian/work/my facility services course , I will get some video and pictures online.

I just can't believe it's already over and I have been working for 2 days... time goes too fast!

Another update soon, hopefully!

Jacqueline

[Karma: 1 (+/-)] Angelasgf on 08.28.07 @ 09:44 PM CST [link] [No Comments]

Monday, July 23rd

England flooded

mood: sad

Wow, I can't believe what is happening.
Big parts of England have been flooded... some of our friends have been affected too.
The house we lived in while in England apparently flooded within 15 minutes from nothing to knee-heighth.

Now Gloucester and Kewsbury are more on the map then Thatcham or Newbury but still, those were the ones that hit the most home.
We will have to see how this develops over the next few days.

Strength to everyone involved.

Jacqueline
[Karma: 1 (+/-)] Angelasgf on 07.23.07 @ 09:14 PM CST [link] [No Comments]

Monday, May 7th

All kinds, including some news that has hit me

music: Talking with a friend on Skype
mood: OK, philosophical

Hi all,

Finally some rain fell yesterday and today again. The garden really needs it, but it's so strange as it's such a change suddenly. It has been sunny and dry for at least 6 weeks and that, for the Netherlands, is really unusual!
The poor birds though... that must be quite a shock to the system... from one day to the next from summer to spring/autumn temperatures. The Blue-Tits were still out and about finding food for their little ones. Poor bird this morning, totally wet and disgruntled. But the young ones keep on demanding food, even in this weather...

Talking about this: Angela and I have watched the movie 'An Inconvenient Truth' from Al Gore. It's a film about climate change and it's quite hard hitting. Even if you only believe 5% of it we should become worried.
It is true that lately (past couple of years) there has been really strange weather phenomena. I mean...in March/April 6 weeks no rain in The Netherlands proves the point.
But also the more powerful storms in the USA and around the world, drought in other parts of the globe, first heavy sunshine and then pouring rain. You can't tell me that the world isn't changing...

Something else that I am following at the moment:
- Journalist Alan Johnston has been kidnapped in the Gaza Strip 8 weeks ago now and nothing has been heard of him since. Journalists around the world are worried about increasing violence against journalists and thus increasing pressure on freedom of speech. Alan Johnston was the only outside 'British' journalist reporting from Gaza, but of course there are other journalists there too who are now increasingly worried. One claim was made a couple of weeks ago by a group saying they had killed him, but this has not been verified and nothing has been heard of him or the group who has kidnapped him since.
- A three year old girl has been abducted from the holiday apartment in the Algarve on Thursday evening. Just snatched from in between her twin brother and sister. It doesn't seem like they are any closer to catching the person who did it or finding the girl. The British parents are obviously distraught. I am hoping the girl will be found alive but it seems increasingly likely...

Well, enough of my 'new style' journal at the moment. Let me know what you think of the ideas/news stories raised in my blog.

Jacqueline
[Karma: 3 (+/-)] Angelasgf on 05.07.07 @ 10:15 PM CST [link] [No Comments]

Tuesday, April 24th

Garden and some more holiday stuff (a bit late but hey)

music: Angela cooking food & the birdies making noise
mood: OK

It's been a while again and as Angela and I were discussing one of my earlier entries I decided to update. Yes, I told you I would try and better myself but I didn't actually put a date on that... ;-)

Anyway, I need to rectify part of my earlier entry.
I told you about the birds we have in the garden... well, i called one of them a house sparrow... actually, they are Dunnocks and not house sparrows.
Talk about garden birds: We have got a family to feed and boy do we feel it... Mummy and Daddy Blackbird with their 5 chicks. Next to these we also have 4 Dunnocks visiting on a daily basis and the Blue Tits keeping the bird house occupied... So nowadays I do tell people that we have pets!

It's great though...gives you so much enjoyment although it is not good if you want to actually do something. Saturday we had plans to do all kinds of things in the house... We have watched 'our' birds for most of the day. Nice and relaxing but all the plans went out of the window.... smile

Following on from my last entry... The rest of our holiday to England was fantastic! We have been to Weymouth for a couple of days as our friends have a caravan there. Nice to see a different part of the country! Good weather as well so that was marvellous.
I miss 'our' pub already. We had so much fun seeing our friends again and going to the pub. I will miss that again now that we are back in the Netherlands. We do have the pictures and I have got a couple od sound bites though...so hopefully that will help me cope.

Something else that helps: we bought a lot of things. Most of the money we spend in England was just one big shopping spree... ;-)
Mostly things for our house in the Netherlands. We had been looking for these items in the Netherlands but just couldn't find something that we liked. Now in England we did...and the fact that it's from England makes it extra special. A lot of (cheap) clothes as well both for Angela and me so that is brilliant! And we bought a couple of bird books and 2 gardening books.

Anyway, dinner is almost ready and otherwise you are going to get overkill so I'll stop now. I guess I will have to see whether I can post some bird photo's and or some photo's of the holiday in my gallery. Bear with me though... smile

See you next time,

Jacqueline

[Karma: -1 (+/-)] Angelasgf on 04.24.07 @ 07:03 PM CST [link] [No Comments]

Thursday, March 22nd

England trip

mood: Very good smile

Hi everyone,

Already a couple of days gone from our 16 day holiday.
However, what a holiday it already has been!

Yesterday was a brilliant, fantastic marvelous day.
We got up at 5:30 to go to London. As we did have a lot planned!

First we went to the BBC Television Centre for a tour around the place. Obviously I just had to go there as a self confessed BBC Geek ;-)
It was really interesting, what a huge building! Unfortunately didn't meet any of my favourite presenters but it was still good fun and entertaining. It lasted too short though...I know it was about 2 hours but I could have spent a lot longer there.

After this we went made our way in the direction of the London Eye (or Millenium Wheel). We first ate something and then showed up at the Wheel quite somewhat earlier than we actually had tickets for. However, luckily that didn't matter and we could actually access the eye at the time we wanted.
Which we quickly did as at that point it was still dry but we didn't know whether that would last or not.
I have to say: it was worth the money as the view was spectacular! I thought I might get scared (it is 130 metres high) but nothing of the like. It was just really great.
No rain, snow, hail or fog that prevented us from seeing anyting. It was cloudy but that wasn't really a problem.

After we were safely back on the ground we decided to walk toward the theatre with a couple of detours straight through London. It was great as we saw quite a lot.... being near the House of Parliament on budget day was certainly an experience. At the end my feet really hurt though so obviously we also had a couple of sit downs and a nice cup of tea.

In the evening we went to the London Palladium theatre to see the new production of the Sound of Music. I had been really looking forward to this and so was afraid it would not stand up to my expectations. However, no problems there it was AMAZING! smile
We were lucky to see both Connie (winner of 'How do you solve a problem like Maria) as Maria and Lesley Garrett as the Mother Abbess. Connie was so warm and fragile as Maria and Lesley Garrett...what a voice!!! I have to say sometimes there was a tear running down my face because it was quite emotional but so fantastic...word every single pound spend!

At the end we decided to go the stage door to get a glimpse of Connie or one of the other big names of the production. Unfortunately, because Connie had been ill, she didn't show up there. But after some time of waiting Lesley Garrett came out and we talked a bit. She signed some autographs and we had our picture taken with her. After this finish we headed back to the car and to Newbury where we arrive at about 2.
A long long day, our feet and legs hurting but with a huge smile on our faces.
It was a day to remember for a long long time and fantastically uplifting!

Obviously the rest of our holiday is great too! Seeing our friends, going to the pub, buying things for the house...all great stuff!

Speak again soon....

hugs,
Jacqueline

[Karma: 1 (+/-)] Angelasgf on 03.22.07 @ 05:49 PM CST [link] [No Comments]

Saturday, February 17th

Just a quick entry

mood: Good

Hi all,

It's quite a nice day today. I've been relaxing now until I woke up this morning. Mostly surfing the web a bit and looking out in the garden.
This morning it was a real reunion for birds there, we had 2 blue tits, 2 house sparrows, and a blackbird male and female couple in the garden all at the same time.
All are long term visitors already but it was brilliant to see them together!

Because I can't enjoy this during the week I make a point of it during the weekend, just enjoying nature so close by basically. And at the moment we didn't evgen do that much to attract birds, other than putting food down. It's so relaxing to watch: brilliant! smile

We are gonna go on holiday to the England in a month! YAHOO! Am so looking forward to seeing our friends, going to the pub and just general being in England again.
What I'm also looking forward to a lot is going to The Sound Of Music at the London Palladium!!! We've got our tickets already, they were sent to us in the Netherlands without extra cost... now I hope that Connie willl be performing, you never know, she might be sick just that day. Even though it will then still be brilliant I want to see Connie!

Anyway, going to get dressed because Angela and I need to go to my work today, some physical work that needs to be done...

Later,

Jacqueline

[Karma: 3 (+/-)] Angelasgf on 02.17.07 @ 11:43 AM CST [link] [No Comments]

Sunday, November 5th

Weekend of laziness

music: Meatballs sizzling in the pan
mood: Pretty decent

Hi all,

This was again a weekend of not doing much. The intend was there but we didn't really follow up on it. Have been looking for shoes in the shops here but there wasn't much in the way of real stock.
Unfortunately now I only have my new boots I bought last week as my other shoes gave up the fight. I really need a decent pair of walking shoes next to it to dash around at work.
The only shoes I could have bought here were either not fitting at all or were ridiculously priced. Also the shopkeepers didn't seem at all bothered.
Just asking: "which shoes would you like to try" is not a lot of service as far as I'm concerned.
No, then I'd rather next week go to Stravers Shoes in Amsterdam. They advise you and make you feel welcome as well as trying to sell you a pair of shoes.

I guess the weekend wasn't totally wasted. We got the bird's house off the wall to clean it out before winter really arrives. There was a decaying dead bird in there so it was good we looked at it.
The thing is: we still need to do a lot in and around the house and one of those things is create a nice garden which also welcomes birds and butterflies and the like.
To at least start off with this idea we put up food for the birds. One of those hanging nets and the great tits have already found it. At least one of them comes back for more every day. Unfortunately I only see it at the weekend but it's so great to be a part of that. I just stop dead in my tracks every day. It's just special! We are going to put the bird's house up tomorrow again after it has dried a bit. Hopefully the great tits will use it as a winter hide-away as well!

I also did something today again that I hadn't done in ages any more...
I baked a boterkoek (butter cake lit. translation). We have yet to taste it but I tried a small piece and it seemed al right... Hopefully Angela's dad can be proud of me. He was confectioner for a short part of his life but he did have the feeling for it. So I found recipes all over the house and I decided to finish some pastry stuff we still had.
Talk about coming into the spirit of it... Angela is now really working on cooking nice meals for me. Dutch food complete with cooked potatoes, vegetables and a nice piece of meat.
At the moment she is baking meat balls as we haven't really eaten a proper dinner yet. I am looking forward to eating these with bread. There's already this gorgeous smell coming out of the kitchen.

Tomorrow it's no work for me but the second day of the prevention course. However I almost have not done any of the homework as it has been so unbelievably busy at work. I might be able to still do something on the train tomorrow.

I am so looking forward to Christmas. Granted we still need to do quite a lot but we should be able to have a half proper Christmas at least. With a tree and good food... Nowadays I almost every evening light candles already and I LOVE it. It just makes it even more cosy and homely even though there is still a lot of mess to be sorted and dealt with.

Anyway, I'm going to check whether those balls are ready yet.
See you next time!

Jacqueline

[Karma: 0 (+/-)] Angelasgf on 11.05.06 @ 08:42 PM CST [link] [No Comments]

August 2007
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