Happy New Year!!!!

Yep, 4 exclamation marks and random capitals. That’s how Happy I wish Your New Year to be.

So… how are you?
Yes, you.
I do hope you’re well. I meant to visit you, but somehow never got round to it. I’m sorry. I will be a better blogfriend this year and visit you all regularly again and even write posts myself. Starting with this one:

Do you know that television show The Voice Of… ? The one with the revolting revolving chairs? In which the judges sit and listen to the voice of the person singing without seeing them, so as not to be dazzled by the incredible good looks of that person and think: ‘oh well, the singing is shit, but he/she looks good, so we’ll vote YES, because he/she will be very popular and every boy or girl will dream of being his/her boy/girlfriend and all that will make us a lot of money’.
That show.
Is there a version of it in your country? I do know there is one in the USA and one in Great Britain.

Well… that show is a Dutch invention. Did you know that? Sadly I haven’t invented it (I’d be filthy rich by now if I had), and neither have I performed nor judged in the competition. But… there is also a ‘The Voice of Holland Kids’ version of the show and I know a then 10-year old girl who entered the competition. She didn’t win, but we of course had to watch all the episodes and are since then a bit of a fan of the children’s version of the show. Not only the incredibly talented kids, but also the judges, Marco Borsato, Nick and Simon, and Angela Groothuizen, make the show fun to watch.

We missed the first episode of the series that is currently running, but did watch the second episode last Friday. One of the boys who entered the competition had a wonderful voice, and was a handsome little chap too by the way. Already proudly presenting his long-time girlfriend to us, so cute.
One of the presenters asked him how he started singing and the boy said: ‘I used to hyperventilate a lot so my mother put me in a children’s choir.’

‘My mother put me in a walking club. Had she put me in a children’s choir, I could have been an Angela Groothuizen. Another missed opportunity.’, I said to hubs.

‘First my mother tried putting me in a gymnastics club, but after one afternoon everyone involved knew that gymnastics wasn’t and would never be my forte. I had told my mother that I didn’t want to go to a gymnastics club, but she didn’t (and still doesn’t) listen to me. My not-so-happy-face and reluctance to come near any of the torturing appliances (rings, ropes, beams, bars and vaults) convinced the gymnastics teacher to tell my mother that she wouldn’t like to see me again.

So then my mother decided that I should join the walking club. A couple of kids from my class, I think I was about 8 years old, were in the walking club too. I remember a nice kid called Eddie Stickfish (I kid you not, that was his name. Or actually, his name was – and hope still is – Eddie Stokvis, but I literally translated it for you.) was in the club and that is about the only one of the other walkers who I can remember.’

Hubs said that since that story made him laugh, I should write it down and post it on my blog. Which made me think back to my walking club days to try and remember more details. Without much success though, I don’t remember very much about my childhood, but this is what I do remember about the walking club.

So… my chance of becoming an Olympic gold medallist winner in gymnastics was an incredibly tiny one. Not so much a missed opportunity there.  But walking isn’t even an Olympic event. We weren’t race walkers you know. Fortunately not, because how silly do those athletes look! But they are athletes.
We were just walkers.

Each Saturday we were dropped off in the Amsterdamse bos (a large wood/park in Amsterdam) where we did our training rounds under the inspirational guidance of our Chief Walker, who’s name I can’t remember. He was a large, elderly man (mind you, I was 8 and when you’re that young you consider everyone over the age of 30 elderly). But thinking back I’m convinced this man was in his fifties. Nowadays no parent in his/her right mind would dare to send their kid into the woods with a ‘strange man’, but those were different times.

In our walking club nothing out of the order happened.
We just walked.
About 10 kilometres (6 miles) each time. And when there was an official walking event somewhere not too far from Amsterdam we had to join in the collective walking ‘fun’. Since we were a club and Chief Walker decided we needed to be recognized as such, we did have to wear a uniform when we took part in those official events. Red shorts for the boys, red skirts for the girls. With white blouses, white socks and white trainers. Not the sophisticated trainers with air-filled, bouncy soles, but the simple linen ones with flat rubber soles that have no bounce action at all. Flapflapflap… they could hear us from far. I wonder why no-one wears these things anymore. I also wonder if the inevitable sore toes, sore and sweaty feet and huge blisters that developed where the edge of the heel of the linen trainers from hell rubbed against your Achilles tendon have something to do with that. Slopslopslop… the sound of our blood soaked trainers alarmed the first-aiders assembled at the finish line to get ready for action.
And we of course only were allowed to wear them when we were in our uniform. To keep them nice and white (apart from all the blood stains). For our training rounds I had to wear the almost opposite end of the shoe-spectrum. Ugly brown leather things that offered support on all sides of the feet. My mother insisted on me wearing ‘good shoes’ on all other occasions, except when I had to walk 6 miles for a medal. Sigh.

I can’t remember if I enjoyed the walking or the walking club. I simply went and walked. It probably wasn’t too bad. I did get lots of medals. And we always got ‘roze koeken’ (pink cakes) and chocolate milk at the finish line. Also… our parents were instructed by Chief Walker to hand us each a bunch of flowers before we reached the finish line, and we got strict instructions about how to carry those flowers. That I do remember. You carry them in your left arm, stems clasped between your ring- and middle finger (oh shoot, suddenly I’m not so sure about which fingers anymore, could also be between your pink and ring finger) so that the flower heads rest in your bent left elbow. See… I’m a fountain of half-knowledge.

I’m still a good walker.

Just a random photo that I shot in the Dutch town Zwolle, on a day out with fellow photography-fanatics:

Merry Christmas...

...and a very Happy & Healthy New Year to all of you.

It seems I've taken sort of a sabbatical from blogging, without meaning to. It's just... life is what happens while you're making other plans (was it John Lennon who said that? He was right. In his case it was sadly death that happened while he was making other plans, but I don't want to dampen your Holiday spirits, so forget I even mentioned that.).

But I will be back. I had not even visited my own blog for ages and when I opened it just now and read the last two posts, I honestly thought "who wrote this, this isn't too bad" and then I realised that I was the one who wrote those posts and how much I miss blogging.
So my dears, have a wonderful Christmas and I'll 'see' you in January!

Lots of love,
Carolina

So…

…here I am and here you are. And they say coincidence doesn’t exist .

I promised some of you a story about a concert we went to, which was about the only blogworthy thing that happened in the past few months. Apart from me breaking my wrist that is of course. Perhaps I’ll tell you all the fun things surrounding that event later.

First the story about the concert. Not an exciting story mind you. I just want to share that wonderful evening with you.

One Friday evening a friend telephoned: ‘we’re going to a concert on the lake tomorrow. We’re sailing the boat to the lake tomorrow morning, will moor it in the harbour near the yacht club and then at around 6 in the evening we’re sailing towards the podium they’ve built on the other side of the lake. Like to join us?’

‘Yeaheah, of course we’re joining you. Thanks for inviting us. Who else is coming?’ She mentioned a couple of people we (hubs and I) knew too. It promised to be an evening to remember.

So well before 6 o’clock that Saturday evening we were at the harbour, found the boat and were greeted by our friends. Everybody had brought a couple of bottles of wine, except for one guy who had brought 4 cases of 6 bottles; 2 cases of red and 2 cases of white wine. He must have been thirsty. It promised to be an evening we wouldn’t remember.

So we set off to the other side of the lake, where a floating podium had been built on the lake and where the Haydn Youth Orchestra would give a concert with guest appearances of students of the local conservatory and singer Izaline Calister (she sings a jazzy kind of South American style of music).

Can’t tell you how lovely that evening was. We drank wine (not the entire shipload mind you), ate quiches, French cheeses and bread, Turkish bread and hummus, salads…

I hadn’t brought my camera because of my physical incapability to shoot photos anyway, but fortunately hubs has an i-Phone (research has been done to find out what people use their phones for and amazingly actually phoning someone was only 5th on the list) and he took some photos I can show you. 

The podium was built on a part of the lake that is surrounded on three sides by apartment buildings and some of the balconies had small groups of conservatory students on them who gave their own mini-concerts, woven into the main musical event.

 

All kinds of small boats (big ones don’t have access to this lake) were still arriving…

The concert was wonderful, the youth orchestra played some really beautiful classical pieces, Izaline sang and had everyone dancing (who knew Dutch hips could swing like that), a really fat bloke who had one drink too many fell from the boat next to us (not in one of the photos sadly) into the fortunately shallow water and kept swinging, hands in the air, up to his armpits in the lake, as if nothing had happened.

It was such a pleasant evening and when the concert ended late that night it was still exceptionally warm and we sailed back to the harbour, looking back to where the concert was…

Kicking!

And alive too. Sorry for being a bad blogger. I blame it on the broken wrist which made typing difficult. And also nothing blogworthy happened. Anyway… that’s my excuse. I’m no longer plastered (haha) now, but the hand and wrist aren’t working properly yet, so I have to visit a physiotherapist regularly. Sigh.

To make it up to you, I’ll post some photos (I can finally hold the camera again) that I took with the macro lens. As soon as I can find the time to read up on you all, I will. And I do hope all of you, my dear blogfriends, are fine. I’ve missed you all, but it’s my own fault. I know.

The creatures below visit my garden. They are a hoverfly, damselfly and very small grasshopper.

i laughed

 

a friend came to visit the poor patient with the broken wrist (me) and brought her two eldest daughters (8 and 4) and the, also 8 year old, boyfriend of the eldest with her. the boyfriend introduced himself to hubs: ‘hello, i’m connor.’
’hi connor’, said hubs. ‘so you are amy’s boyfriend?’
’yes’, connor nodded, ‘and i’m very good at it!’

 

mozes and biggles are friends too

Broken

my wrist that is. can’t be bothered with capitals since i’m typing with 2 fingers of my right hand now. the other hand is neatly wrapped up in plaster. only a plaster splint for now to allow space for swelling and then next week they’ll fit me with a nice coloured plaster (i’m thinking orange because of the olympics which i like watching and it will also make me very popular with people who love football/soccer, which i don’t care about at all, but that information will be purely given out on a need-to-know-basis). i will have to wear that for 6 weeks and if not all is well by then i can choose another (or the same) colour for another 6 weeks. apparently i broke a tiny bone with a long name that has a reputation for being a bad healer. fingers crossed it will behave in my wrist.

so. that is why i will have one white and one brown arm at the end of summer.

will have to do what petje does best, just relax and enjoy the sun.

Something blogworthy happened…

…and now I can only type with one hand and don’t have the patience to type the entire short story. So I’ll make it even shorter. I made a lovely butt shaped indentation in the sand again (2nd time involuntary descent from young and incredibly-quick-turn-around Evie) and also a lovely hand shaped one. Must have done, because my wrist hurts like hell. Can’t really remember how I landed. The rest of me is fine, I did climb up and rode her further for a while. Went well. But now ouch.

So… i’ll just keep posting photos here and on my photoblog (see link at bottom of this page).

Something blogworthy turned out to be something shit. Sorry if you’re offended by my language.

I’ll make it up to you with this photo of Biggles and Mozes. Best friends.

Sunday Selections #70: The incredibly creepy edition

Sunday Selections is hosted by Kim from Frogpondsrock and is thé place to post those photos that have been hanging around on your computer for far too long and need to be seen by other bloggers. Or something like that. Hop over to Kim’s rocking frog ponds and join in if you like.

I’m not always really following the rules to the letter, but Kim doesn’t mind. To make it up to her I’ll post some photos of Lovebirds or Ladybirds or whatever you call them in your country. We call them Lieveheersbeestjes. They are not incredibly creepy of course. BUT… I just thought I’d warn you. There’s also a photo of a spider. Just so you know. I’ll start with the cute ones:

This is a 14-dotted one. Not to be confused of course with the 14-spotted one, which is a much rarer kind of ‘lieveheersbeestje’. I’m not kidding.

Back end. The entire creature, not only its back end, is tinier than the ‘normal’ red/black ones. About two millimetres head-to-tail at the most.

 

Don’t worry, he made it.

 

And he’s saying ‘Hi Kim!’. Or ‘look mama, no hands!’.

 

I’m glad I’m not the mother of this daredevil.

And now a really scary, but also rather beautiful photo, if I may say so myself, of a spider. So don’t look if you’re suffering from even a mild case of arachnophobia. Do not be curious. Just look away. 

 

 

 

Don’t say I didn’t warn you…

 

 

It caught a fly, beheaded the poor victim and is probably saving that best part for last. When I checked this photo on my computer and saw that eye looking back at me it did send shivers down my spine. And I’m not even scared of spiders.

Anyway… wishing you all a nice week and I promise that when something blogworthy happens, I’ll tell you all about it. Life has been incredibly boring, but also quite relaxed. As far as working my ass off in the garden can be considered to be ‘relaxed’.

Sunday Selections #69: The bench edition

Sunday Selections, hosted by Kim from Frogpondsrock, is the place to post those photos that have been hanging around on your computer for far too long and that need to be seen and enjoyed by fellow bloggers.

So, here’s my selection for this Sunday: I’m trying to make a series of photos of people who use the bench opposite our house to give their bums a much needed rest from cycling through the countryside. I’ve managed to take four shots on a sunny Sunday in April and it is far more interesting to look at them than I first thought it would be. I mean… they are just people sitting on a bench. How interesting can it be? And yet… they speak to me:

He’s soooo relaxed, but she wants to know and see everything that’s going on.

 

 

They are prepared for everything! And she leads.

 

 

Now, you have to understand that I don’t want them to see me taking their photo, so I sneak out of the garden gate, take a shot and quickly disappear again. But this woman, she just didn’t park her posterior on that bench. She just stood there, looking at our house. And there I was, hiding behind the ivy that surrounds our garden gate, waiting until she finally would turn around and just sit! After ages, I just gave up and went inside. Of course at that point she turned around an sat down. So I quickly took this shot through the window next to our front door. Which is why it is a rather poor quality shot.

He clearly needed this rest, his posture says ‘phew’. She can’t wait to stand up again. And look at his glasses. What’s with those?

 

Now, they are cute. Notice the non-existing space between them and compare that to the other photos. Sweet. And they clearly love blue. Aww…

 

And just for fun I though I’d add some macro shots. Have I mentioned I love my macro lens (I know I have. Lots of times. But hey… I do.)

Sunday Selections #68: The miscellaneous edition

Sunday Selections is hosted by Kim from Frogpondsrock and is the place to post those photos that have been hanging around on your computer for far too long. Why not join in?

This is my Selection for this Sunday:

Willem just simply can’t bear the sight of hubs’ behind.

 

This bee definitely needs a napkin.

 

This is the fringe of the leaf of a tulip (did I mention I’m so happy with my macro lens?).

 

Petje is trying to stare fish out of the pond.

Inspirational and weird

So, remember I said that nothing blogworthy happened here? Well… still nothing blogworthy actually happened here. But! Karen posted something very blogworthy and truly amazing and that reminded me of a story our farrier told. But first you have to hop over to Karen to see what she posted. I’ll wait patiently until you’re back here… pom pom pom… pom de pom de pom pom pom…

So… what did you think of that then? Weird non?

Now, here’s the story our farrier told me yesterday. I’ll tell you the story using his voice. Imagine a deep manly voice here: “Last week I was driving to a client. The sky was heavily overcast. At one point the clouds opened up to let the sun shine through and that hole in the clouds… that hole… it had exactly the shape of a shark! (*)

(I have to tell you something first. Our farrier often experiences things that later explain themselves. For instance: he and a couple of his friends went on a short vacation to Portugal. They had rented an apartment, but there weren’t enough bedrooms. He didn’t want to share a bed with one of his friends so he volunteered to sleep on the couch for those couple of nights. And while he lay on that couch, trying to get some sleep, he got to intimately know the rough stones the living room wall was made of. And one of those stones had the shape of the back of the head of a guy with a band of hair above his ears but the top of his head was bald (are you imagining that picture?). So he thought that it was weird that one of these stones so clearly had this very recognizable shadowy shape in it. And the incredibly stunning end of that story was that on the flight back to the Netherlands, a guy in the seat in front of him was the spitting image of the shape in the wall of the living room in the apartment! And every time farrier visits us, he tells a similar story. So I knew that an explanation of the shark-shaped hole in the clouds would follow. Either one day in the future, or perhaps it had explained itself already.)

“Wow!”, I said. “A shark shaped hole! Weird. And are you expecting an explanation for this weird occurrence?”

”That’s what I thought. We were going out for dinner that evening, so I thought that there would be fried shark on the menu, or something like that. But no! In fact, at that point I was on my way to Dr. Sharky (*). Hehehehehe (he giggles like a girl).

We both giggled like a girl in fact. Because it was a weird coincidence and I thought it was funny too. But now Karen posted her shape in the sky and it makes me think. I’m going to keep a good eye on the sky tomorrow and my camera within reach. Because this coincidence will explain itself. I’m sure. Pretty sure at least.

(*) I had to translate the name of Dr. Sharky who is actually called Dr. Haaier, because a shark is ‘haai’ in Dutch. So the farrier saw a hole in the shape of a ‘haai’ and he was on his way to Dr. Haaier. Confused? You will be, after the next episode of SOAP. (Remember SOAP? Loved that show. Not that it has anything to do with the above story.)

Photos

Until something blogworthy happens, or until I can write something blogworthy, I’ll be posting a photo each day on my photoblog. Well, that’s my intention anyway, but I think I can manage that. I’ve just posted a really cute one, so if you like… you can hop over there and have a chuckle.

Sunday Selections #67: A bad case of neglect

I’m so sorry for having neglected you all over the past month. Or perhaps even longer? Gosh, time flies when you’re not having fun. First my Lyme played up (it does that from time to time), then I had the flu (bad case), meanwhile nothing blogworthy happened here and also I’ve joined a Dutch photography site, where all kinds of photographers, from professionals to novices, showcase their work and give each other tips and advice. That took up a lot of my time too. It still does in fact. I’ve learned so much already since I’ve joined. And I bought a macro lens. Man! A whole new world opens up when you look through a lens like that. So now my head is almost free from snot and I’m able to think again, I thought I’d return to blogworld and let you see some of the beauty I see through my macro lens.

So, for today’s Sunday Selections, hosted by Kim from Frogpondsrock, I’ve chosen some photos of different mosses that grow on stone waterelements that we have in our garden.

Sunday Selections #63: the bee’s knees edition

It’s Sunday again. Time for the Sunday Selections, hosted by Kim from Frogpondsrock. They do, you know.
Anyway, if you have tons of photos hanging around in your computer somewhere, waiting for a reason to be shown to the blogging world, hop over to the rocking frog ponds and follow the almost non-existent rules for joining in.

This Sunday Selections being my bee’s knees edition; Kim is Queen of the Bee’s Knees! She participated in ‘the worlds greatest shave’ to raise money for a leukaemia foundation. Not only Kim’s frog ponds rock, she does too! Follow the above links to her blog and see the evidence for yourself.

And Kim… you look really good with short hair!

 

So, back to the Sunday Selections; I did take some photographs of buzzing bees this week that I thought you might like:

Sunday Selections #62: the ‘if this doesn’t bring a smile to your face’ edition

It’s Sunday again. Time for the Sunday Selections, hosted by Kim from Frogpondsrock. They do, you know.
Anyway, if you have tons of photos hanging around in your computer somewhere, waiting for a reason to be shown to the blogging world, hop over to the rocking frog ponds and follow the almost non-existent rules for joining in.

Sorry for not being here last week, but I’ve been busy with all sorts of other things and also the Lyme is playing up, making me extremely tired. So tired, that I have difficulty even talking, let alone translating my words into English *sigh*. It’s an on-and-off thing, the Lyme. Sometimes it’s here, most of the time it isn’t.

This week I’m posting some photos that will hopefully bring a smile to your face. I took them at the first birthday party of three young friends of mine. Cute guys they are. Even though one of them was still recovering from a really bad case of chicken-pox, he still had his happy face on.

These two boys (yes, you’re right, they are twins) are a hilarious double-act.  

In full admiration for their sister who is doing the ‘farting-dance’ that comes with lots of butt-wiggling and raspberry blowing sound effects. She’s almost a double-act all by herself.

Ah… young love… (they are not brother and sister, before you think that weird things are normal in the Netherlands)

The cake tasted good!

Goings on

Hi guys and girls, sorry for being a bad blogger; not visiting you and not letting you know what’s happening here. So, I thought I’d give you a quick update:

Spring has definitely sprung over here, which means lots of time has to be spent, mainly working, in the garden. Yesterday I’ve had the patio doors open all afternoon. It was lovely, sunny and warm and I’ve even sat on a bench in the sunshine and flipped through a gardening magazine while getting a much needed dose of vitamin D. Today it is much colder again, but hey… we’re definitely going to right way.

A couple of weeks ago Mara (from Weightymatters) spent a night here when she had to be in Groningen for Norwegian language lessons. I did meet Mara once before over at her place, and that was quite a hilarious event involving curtains and gardening. If you want a laugh you can read about that here. If you want to know what she thought about spending the night in our house, you can read about that here. She’s a lovely, fun person, who loves to talk, so hubs and I needed a day or so to recover from her visit, haha.

Uhm, let’s see, what else happened in those couple of weeks…

Ah yes, we’re carefully ‘breaking’ Evie. Riding her only for about ten minutes a time. She hasn’t put a foot wrong yet. So sweet. Still, I did manage to make a lovely butt-shaped indentation in the sand last Tuesday.
Since I don’t have any experience in riding/training a young horse, our trainer/friend who’s helping us with Evie, suggested we’d let a girl he knows and who often ‘breaks’ (if that is the correct term, because it sounds a bit harsh) young horses take the first couple of rides to see how Evie would react. So, with trainer lunging/longing and very nice girl carefully mounting and riding her the first four times, and Evie being very stoic and not reacting to all the weird things happening, we thought I could safely take over. And so I rode her twice, still ‘on the lunge’ with trainer in control, and it went very well. Walk, trot, canter even. She has a very nice, strong canter. The third time however, Evie did a sudden semi-turn, because something – who-knows-what – startled her, which caused me to completely lose my balance. I was well past the point of being able to hoist myself up again, so I just had to drop my butt in the sand. No harm was done to either horse or rider I’m glad to say. And yes, I know I said she hasn’t put a foot wrong yet, and she really hasn’t. She didn’t throw me off. And even when I was hanging by her side (too silly for words) she didn’t panic and try to get rid of me. But I was very disappointed that I left the saddle so easily. Naloma, Evie’s mother, does sudden semi-turns all the time, but I'm used to those and know how to deal with them. According to trainer I’m just too careful with Evie, not wanting to touch her mouth at all. So yesterday I mounted Evie again, still on the lunge mind you, and at one point she got a bit tense, but this time I knew what to do and I kept more pressure on the reigns, riding her more forward. She’s such a young horse still, but she has a strong, well-balanced body and she seems to enjoy the work. I’m going to ride her a couple of times again and then perhaps give her part of the summer off to grow and gain more strength. We’re not in a hurry. But since she’s such a strong (and strong-willed) horse, it does feel good to let her get used to what is expected from her in the future.

On a somewhat sadder note: Willem, hubs’ horse, the big grey one, has arthritis in both his knees. So we’re trying to find out what will help him, apart from regular light exercise, preferably in straight lines. The vet suggested we’d give him vitamin A and B12 to help him with his coordination. So we’re doing that. And I asked him if a supplement with chondroitin and/or glucosamine would help, but vet was doubtful. “No scientific proof it actually helps with horses”, he said. Even though he does prescribe it for our dogs who suffer from arthritic joints too. But then farrier visited and I discussed Willem’s problem with him, and he suggested Arthriaid. “I’ve seen miraculous improvement in horses who were given Arthriaid”, he said, so we ordered a bottle which came in the post yesterday. I hope it will work miracles with Willem too. He seems to be doing better already, now the weather has improved and he’s getting his vitamins and regular exercise. Tonight he’ll get his first dose of Arthriaid.

So… that’s what’s been happening here. I’ll try to be in blogworld at least once a week, weather, garden and horses permitting.

Now I’m off to see what’s been happening at your end of blogworld.

Sunday Selections #60: The ‘longing for spring’ edition

It’s Sunday again. Time for the Sunday Selections, hosted by Kim from Frogpondsrock. They do, you know.
Anyway, if you have tons of photos hanging around in your computer somewhere, waiting for a reason to be shown to the blogging world, hop over to the rocking frog ponds and follow the almost non-existent rules for joining in.

This Sunday I thought I’d get into spring-mood again and just randomly pick some photos from a folder dated May 2009. Our first foal was born in April 2009 and she, her mom and our other horse stayed for about 6 weeks with the horses and foals of friends in luscious green meadows nearby. The first two photos I shot there. The last three are of our garden and are mainly there to remind me that it will look like that again soon, for it is now in a sorry, muddy state.
Each winter I lose faith and cannot believe that it will ever look pretty, green and flowery again. And each spring I’m proved wrong.
So, this year I’m keeping the faith! And my fingers crossed.