Hi!

 Hi! I'm back. Comments moderation is back to normal. See you all later;)

Short Personal Notice

 I'm sorry but I'm going away yet again, for a week;)

See you all next week. All comments will go into moderation until then.

The Wonders Of AI

 Some of my husband's creations, featuring us and our cats;)

P.S Sorry for the relative lack of posts but it's like the 5th heat wave over here...

I'm Back!

 Comment moderation is back to normal.

Short Personal Note

 I'm going on vacation. See you again in two weeks:) All comments will go into moderation till my return.

From The Home Front

 I'm sorry for the lack of posts. But it's been very warm and I have had a busy week. This weekend I'll be away from home again. I promise I'll write something next week. Hope you all are doing fine:)

Friday the 13th And The Valentine's Day

Are you superstitious? I'm usually not, but there were all sorts of strange things happening to me last Friday, including being accidentally locked in a store while its owner went away for several minutes.

And the next day was our wedding anniversary, so congratulations to me and my husband;) And my parents gave us a treadmill as a present. It just arrived today. I'm so excited, can't wait to try it!

Prayer Request

Please pray for a relative of mine who is very sick right now. Please pray that she gets better and can come back home. Thank you:)

I Know It Sounds Crazy

 but I think I've seen a wolf today in an empty building lot quite close to my house. I went back to look again and he disappeared. He was dark grey in colour, of about the same size as a German shepherd. We don't have stray dogs over here, mind you. But may be it was some kind of a shepherd dog who ran away. He had no collar on. I mean how do I know what it was? And should I keep my cat home at night? 

P.S. He looked a bit like a picture below but I thought timber wolf was an American sort.

Hi!

 Hi! I'm back! Comments moderation is switched off.

Short Personal Notice

Well, you have probably guessed it already. We are going away on another sort of vacation, for a week. I promise to post more when back;)

See you all later and God Bless

P.S. Comments moderation will be on till my return.

Vacation Adventures In Germany

 I'm finally feeling strong enough to write about it;)

The 1st week of our vacation we spent at the camping. The 2nd week, we were planning to go to Germany where we had booked a very nice (and expensive) apartment high in the mountains to escape a heat wave. That Sunday I woke up at 5a.m. feeling very cold. In short, I developed a fever. We had no medication with us so my husband drove to a supermarket and bought some paracetamol. So I took 2 pills and we drove off about midday. We decided to go via the Ardennes in the French part of Belgium, which my husband soon regretted as everything was in French and he didn't understand the road signs very well. 

We were driving on a highway and were half way through when the car started making strange noises and wouldn't drive properly. My husband set it aside and somehow managed to reach a parking place with a camping toilet. There we stopped and he discovered that the motor oil was very low. He thought the motor was damaged and didn't dare to drive further for fear to damage it more. It was about 30*C and I  wasn't feeling my best. He went along the road where the trucks stood parked (it being Sunday and all) asking for some oil when finally an Eastern European guy gave him a bit. He said there was a gas station 5 km further on. So we drove there to buy some oil.

The station had a sign OPEN24/7 and it was CLOSED. Because the Catholics take their Sunday rest seriously, I guess. We stood there like 30 minutes and dh was again asking for oil but nobody would help. Finally we decided to get off the road and try our luck in the village. The village had a garage. It was, you guessed it, closed. By this point we were already more than an hour late (luckily, you could check in the whole evening). It was just as far going back home and we were at the border with Germany which my husband far prefers above Belgium to drive. So we went on. 

The border was guarded and the policemen advised us to drive on the side of the road. Somehow we managed to reach our destination. By the time paracetamol stopped working and my fever was sky high again so I just collapsed on the couch. My husband had to make dinner but I hardly could eat. Next morning he had to look for a garage. There was one in the village but it was closed. Apparently, on Sunday they had a festival over there and the guy who owned it drank too much and decided to stay home. It was Monday, and Wednesday we had to drive back! So my husband phoned the Dutch road service (we pay insurance for it).

He was instructed by a computer to write his complaints down on their website. Like it does help. He next called the German road service. It took them some time to find someone who spoke English to explain our problem and she then connected us to a guy who didn't speak English at all. Luckily, dh can speak German a bit. The guy told him it would cost more than 200 euros for them just to get there and recommended to look for a garage nearby. There was a town close to our village. It had 2 garages. They both said they had NO TIME for us as they were full. 

The village we stayed in had no supermarket or stores of any kind, btw, and we didn't take enough food. So my husband decided to walk to the town and also try and buy some motor oil. And here, a wonder happened. As he was walking through the next village a nice old lady told him they had a garage there. And the owner said he would send someone to look at our car. So they drove my husband back, checked the car, said it was safe to drive back to them and they would start working on it immediately. 

Dh still had to go to town to buy food, mind you. After he walked like 5 km he had luck again as he found a local bus going the same direction. He came to town, found an Aldi, bought some food and had to walk back. At this point he was tired as he had to go up the mountain and he tried to get a lift. No one would stop except (again) some Eastern European guy who lived there and he even went out of his way to bring my husband to the door of our guest apartment. Still, poor dh had walked 16 km that day. And then he still had to cook dinner. Luckily, I could eat and we even went out for half an hour. But I did get fever that morning and the next one.

They phoned us from the garage and we learned that a gearbox sensor broke off. The sensor itself wasn't that important but it left a hole and the gearbox oil all dripped away and as a result, it got damaged. They couldn't say how bad it was but they ordered a new sensor and promised us to fix the car on Tuesday. So next day my husband went to collect it and then we went for a walk and then he started getting fever. And now it was him who couldn't eat and was feeling horrible. And next day, he had to drive us home in a damaged car on the autobahn where people drive 200km per hour (he absolutely refused to drive through Belgium again). 

Well, we tried to get some sleep. Half past midnight, I woke up because he was throwing up in the bathroom. My fever broke and I was sweating and could hardly stand. We finally fell asleep after 3 a.m. and we had less than 5 hours sleep because on Wednesday we had to leave the house before 10 a.m. My parents were all in hysterics when they heard it and kept telling me it was unsafe to go back so it didn't improve my mood in the slightest, as you understand. The gearbox was singing, too, but...somehow we drove back to the camping. We spent half of that day sleeping. And next day we had a customer coming early who wanted to buy our caravan (we are replacing it with a new one).

And we had to clean it. But, of course, we didn't because we couldn't so we had to do it Thursday morning while hardly standing on our feet. It all went fine and then I noticed I couldn't smell anything so it was corona, again. I had had my suspicions before because of that persistent high fever. This new corona attacks your ears so that I was dizzy all the time. Then the heat wave came, a week later than the forecast promised. We didn't really do much at all, just sitting outside and going here and there (went to a medieval festival but it was + 34*C and I was whacked out after an hour walking in the sun.

Sunday we drove home. Another 200 km, the car was behaving decently. We still had a week vacation and by the end of it we were so much better that we decided to attend another festival, about 1 hour driving from home. It all went fine. And then, just as we were 5 minutes from home the car simply quit, more or less. It was the clutch, which also got damaged from driving without oil. And so next day, my husband had to buy another car and he took the 1st one he could find. He still managed to drive ours to the garage but it was total loss and they wouldn't give us anything for it. Luckily, his salary came that day and we could borrow from my parents. So it was Friday and Monday he had to go back to work and it took me another week to restore my health and my nerves.

I'm still easily tired, btw, but it is going better. So we had a great vacation that time! 

I'm Back!!!

 Hi everyone I'm back and will post more tomorrow. Comments moderation is back to normal;)

A Short Personal Note

 We are leaving on vacation this weekend. See you all in 2 weeks time! Comments moderation is on temporarily. I haven't done much with this blog lately, chiefly because I was disgusted with things happening in the world, but I'll write more when I'm back:)

Hi Everyone

 So that you don't forget how I look like:

 

 Here is me celebrating Summer Solstice by running around the May Pole. It was 8 p.m. and 32*C so I didn't keep it up for a long time;)

I'll try to post more soon. See you later

Summer Solstice 2025

 I woke up at 5 a.m. today. The sun was already up and shining. The last several days it didn't get completely dark till after 11.30 p.m. We've had a lot of sun so far this year. It's warm all the time and today it's going to be around 32*C and the summer has just started. I did go back to sleep later though, but there are actually people, including foreigners, who come to Stonehenge every year to celebrate. Us, we are going to a Midsummer festival this afternoon.

I'm Off Twitter

 Just deactivated my Twitter account. Too much drama, propaganda, clickbait tweets and general unpleasantness. Oh yes, and censorship. Gab is better, imo.

Christmas Eve

 Merry Christmas everyone!

Here are some of my Christmas decorations:

Winter Solstice

 It's Winter Solstice today. Not that we have seen much of the sun at all. It became light at 10 a.m. and 4.30 p.m. it was night again. And it's been raining pretty much the whole day.

So here are some nice vacation pictures to remind you all that summer will come again:)

An Important Personal Note

 I changed my email address. I mostly used to get spam at my old address, plus emails from the admin that they are going to block my account. I'm not sure you could even contact me through it any more.

My new address is 

SanneWt@proton.me 

You can also find it in my profile

Looking forward to hearing from you soon:)