Joepie de Poepie!!!

Sorry for letting you know a little late, but hubs is doing fine *collective sigh of relief*
The operation was yesterday morning. Keyhole surgery was successful and he doesn’t have a stoma. So everything went according to plan A.
And that’s why I’m yelling: JOEPIE DE POEPIE. For the very few Dutch readers perhaps a well-known yell from their childhood, made famous by children’s entertainer Ome Willem (Uncle Willem), and of course Mel knows all about Joepie de Poepie too, eh Mel?
Hans and I would like to thank all of you for thinking of us and praying, sending good vibes, caring, all your nice words. Very much appreciated and it really helps to have such a great bunch of people standing right behind you, wherever they are in the world. You are all very special people and I truly love you all. If only I could hug you for real, but I have to do it virtually ((((((you))))))
Yesterday was a bit of a mad day, hence my late post. Because, as if we didn’t have enough going on yet, we also have the builders in. Yup. A case of planning things before one knows one is ill. They started Wednesday a week ago and if all goes well, plan A again, they will finish the whole thing tomorrow.

This is our kitchen before the builders came (the kitchen isn’t on this crooked angle in real life. It’s just me again, incapable of taking a decent photo):






















Then the builders came:





















































This is the end result. Well, almost. The electrician has yet to install spotlights in the ceiling and above the windows in the coves. The plaster is still drying. The windows are Velux and can be opened, using a remote control, which also can be used to turn on and dim the lights in the window coves (eventually, when the electrician has been here and done his thing). We are amazed by the amount of light these windows have brought into our home. Should have done it years ago.
And the floor covers have yet to be removed. In case you were wondering what the hell these people have on their floor.


But this isn’t all the builders have been (and still are) doing.









This is the dining space before:








Again, Velux windows, but four of them. Unfortunately they weren’t spaced out correctly, so the outside blinds didn’t fit and the bottom two windows had to be lowered. But hey, when did building work ever go according to plan anyway. It has been resolved already. The windows are now in the correct place and today the plasterers are plastering this part, and the opposite part of the ceiling.





And then I can start cleaning. I’ve never looked forward to cleaning the house as much as now. But hopefully, when hubs returns home next week (still plan A), everything will be ready and clean and cosy again.
And now I’m off to muck out the stables, give the plasterers coffee, mow the lawn, visit hubs, ride the horses, send someone else to visit hubs, handle all the telephone calls and everything else that needs to be doing.
Love you all!

In Tandem with Jinksy

 

guerrilla gardeners
came in the night
and transformed the bit of wasteland between our houses
into a colourful delight
of purples, blues and greens
and tufts of white

it brightens up our neighbourhood
even on a darker day
we hear the humming of the bees
and see the children play
now hopefully the council will not regulate
our own Guerrilla Garden of Eden away

The Bloggy Brilliant Jinksy provided us with yet another piece of wonderful artwork for inspiration and this is what I came up with. But please follow the link and visit all the other inspired people who no doubt came up with something much more poetic and wonderful. Be sure to go here for a great story and a good laugh.

Very Interesting

But since I titled the previous post ‘Not Particularly Interesting’ and lots of you thought it was interesting and could relate to it, I can’t guarantee that this post is Very Interesting indeed.

Aaaanyway… hubs had ‘intake’ conversations with his surgeon and the anaesthesiologist (hey, typed that correctly in one go! At least Windows Live Writer doesn’t say that it doesn’t recognize the word, so it must be correct.) and they’ve drawn on a picture of what your inside looks like, what they will be removing from his inside. Man! I was shocked. About a quarter of his colon and lots of stuff around it. I thought they would just cut away the tumour and a little bit around it to make sure all the bad cells were gone, but no! They are going to have a ball with the knife in there.

And they will try to do it through laparoscopic surgery, also known as keyhole surgery. Which I thought was almost unbelievable, especially when you see what they want to remove. But in fact there will be multiple ‘keyholes’. Should however during this surgery become clear that multiple holes won’t be enough,  they will do a – what I call – CSI  on him. So cut him open from top to bottom, almost from the neck to where the male parts are. One big hole.

In fact, we had friends staying over this weekend, and she’s a veterinarian. When hubs told her about the laparoscopic plan, she couldn’t believe it either. “We just cut open the belly, take out the intestines, lay them out on the table and are very careful that the inside of the belly stays clean”, she explained. “But hey, I’m talking about fourleggers of course and I’m sure your surgeons know what they are doing”, she tried to reassure us.

We are hopeful the surgeons know what they are doing. They have mentioned that he could wake up with a stoma, temporarily or not. Small chance, but still something to consider. Oh, and if you are squeamish, look away now; they will remove a large part of his colon and have to make a new connection to his rectum, which they will do by inserting a stapler via – I don’t know another way to explain it – his backside and stapling the colon to the rectum again.
I know!
I will never look at a stapler in the same way again.

I’m not sure if hubs appreciates me telling you all these intimate details, but hey… just look at it as educational information.

Surgery will be next Wednesday.

Not particularly interesting

 

FUNNY

In the Netherlands we have our own version of The Antiques Road Show, called ‘Tussen Kunst & Kitsch’, or between Art & Kitsch. It is presented by Nelleke van der Krogt. We, hubs and I, like Nelleke. Okay, so the program can be jocular and waggish and Nelleke is a bit corny (all words I found when looking for the translation for ‘oubollig’), but she does make the program more lively and fun to watch. For instance: yesterday someone brought an ivory picture frame, intrinsically carved with lots of putti, to be valued. The expert was in awe. He’d never seen such a beautifully carved picture frame before. Especially the faces of the little putti. Beautifully carved and all looking so happy, apart from one he pointed out: “he looks a bit grumpy”.

And Nelleke said: “If I’d be butt naked, clinging on to a picture frame all day long, I’d be grumpy too.”

 

NOT SO FUNNY

Much less fun is the weather forecast. In their wisdom, the ‘weather people’ have decided that each summer it is much more important for us to know what the weather in the rest of Europe is like than what the weather is like in the Netherlands. Now, we (hubs and I again)  have concluded long ago that the ‘weather people’ are just guessing what the weather will be like anyway. Their forecast doesn’t seem to be based on any knowledge whatsoever. Still, for some reason we are hopeful that one day they will be right, so we do watch the weather forecast that is given to us in TV news bulletins. And this is what they show us. (No, we have not yet reached the stage of moving satellite images on Dutch TV. Too expensive.)

“Mostly rain and not warm enough”, the presenter says, waving in the direction of the image, and then quickly moves on to what the weather will be like in Spain, France, Turkey, Greece and all other countries in Europe where I am not.

Why would I want to know what the weather is like in Greece? It is only mildly interesting if people I know are in Greece and they have cold weather and rain and the weather in the Netherlands is warm and sunny. But that is because I’m slightly cruel and enjoy other people’s misery. If it is the other way around, I do not want to know!
And if I’m going to Greece and want to know what the weather is like, I can find out on the internet. Do not bother me with useless information. Concentrate on what is important for us in the Netherlands to know and try to give us a decent forecast with places where it will rain and times when it will rain. Thàt is what I want to know. And thàt is why I often watch BBC Breakfast, where they do have a decent weather forecast and where I’m able to see if and when it will rain where I live, because they do have satellite images and include the Netherlands in those images. And if even they are not right, I forgive them. They do at least try!

I do feel much better now, thank you.

Sunday Selections

 

♥ ♥ a love story ♥ ♥

 

Biggles and Holle are watching something very interesting. What could it be?

 

Well…

these two lovebirds ladybirds were doing it

one of them must have been a manbird

in the heat of the moment they fell off the wood rail

but they just carried on (sand everywhere)

and carried on

and carried on

If you’re interested:

he wiggles about a lot (assuming the one on top is the ‘he’) and she just patiently undergoes it all.
And it takes a while.

 

This smouldering love story was brought to you courtesy of Kim at Frogpondsrock, who gives us the opportunity to post those photos that have been hanging around on our computers, waiting for an opportunity to be seen. These particular shots have been hanging around on my laptop since June last year. So we should all be very grateful to Kim, for who knows if I would ever have come around to posting them otherwise.
Hop over to the rocking frog ponds if you want to see more interesting photos or if you want to join in.

In order to achieve the magic number of 100 followers (which list magically disappears from and reappears at the top of my blog without any reason known to me; Blogger’s ways are mysterious) I need only two more people to sign up.

I’m just saying… no pressure…

Two in a tandem #9

 

the cool morning breeze
played with the curtains

made them dance
in summer’s sunrise colours

promising another golden day
to spend at the beach

she lay in her bed
just for one more minute

or maybe two

thinking
that the windows needed cleaning

 

The ever brilliant Jinksy provided yet another work of art to inspire us.

Good News deserves a Fat Bastard

Today was Result Day of hubs’ colon cancer examinations. And the news is good. They found nothing else, except for the rather large tumour we already knew is there in his colon. The tumour is on the border of his colon and his rectum. But fortunately they have decided it can be treated as colon cancer. If they would have decided that the tumour was situated too low, hubs would have had to undergo chemo- and radiotherapy first. So, since they have decided it is in his colon, an operation only will do. And, unless they discover something scary about the tumour when it is removed, that will be it.

It must have been all the positive energy and thoughts and your prayers, don’t you think?

When hubs’ doctor delivered the good news and we talked about what the next steps in his treatment will be, I said: “Good! And now we’re going to buy some ‘Moorkoppen’ to celebrate.” (‘Moorkoppen’ are hubs’ favourite pastry (and ‘rijstevlaai met slagroom’ too actually)). So on our way home we stopped at a bakery and bought some ‘Moorkoppen’.

One could consider the name Moorkop to be politically incorrect if one is very sensitive about these things. It means something like Moorish Head, probably referring to the delicious chocolate topping on the choux pastry? But I’m sure the Moorkop doesn’t mean to insult anyone. Their sole purpose in life is to be delicious. Choux pastry, lots and lots of whipped cream and chocolate and for the healthy touch a piece of sliced pineapple.

In fact, I googled ‘moorkop’  after I wrote the above and found this: The origin of the name moorkop lies in Den Bosch. There was a house named ‘de Moriaan’, and the residents were well-known for their cooking. They specialised in delicious patisseries. At some point in time a pastry made by the cooks became a popular delicacy and someone shouted: 'it looks like a morenkop' (a ‘morenkop’ is a stone head of a moor, or black man, that hung above many pharmacies). Our moorkop came from the name 'morenkop'.

And if one eats too many of these, one becomes a…

… fat bastard. That’s right.

I saw this Rose (haven’t found out how to get the ‘accent aigu’ above the a or e; the combination ‘e or ‘a doesn’t work on this laptop, so if someone knows the trick, please let me know) in a supermarket and I couldn’t resist it. Look how cute the hippo is. And I mean; Fat bastard. Does that not bring a smile to your face? It does to mine. And it doesn’t taste bad either.

We might open a bottle tonight with a couple of friends who want to celebrate the good news with us.

Now we have to wait for hubs’ operation, which will take place later this month. They gave him a book full of information about the examinations he’s had and about the operation and apparently they will let him go home after the operation ‘if the patient can pass wind’. WELL… what can I say. To me that seems to be a wise decision from the hospital’s point of view. I hope he doesn’t pass too much wind when he gets home though. I could do without another flatulent guy in this home. Biggles passes enough wind for the entire population of our village me thinks.

Petje (the cat) is extremely brave to pick this spot to have a nap. I’m happy to say that she did survive the gas attacks and that she didn’t get squashed either. They were both really comfortable actually. It’s amazing. I know.