How to be HAPPY!, 2

Jay, over at the Depp Effect, started a new meme: How to be HAPPY!
It’s quite simple, so if you are one of those people who likes to share the little things in life that make/made you happy, and you want to spread the happiness (oh, ugh, that sounds far to sweet), join in. Here’s the brief:

‘How to be HAPPY!’ is a brand new meme. It’s about finding the little things in life which bring a smile or a glow of warmth to our hearts and souls during our daily lives. Why? Because it’s the way all these little things add up which truly determines if we are happy people, not the big stuff like a lottery win.

To enter, write a post about one thing which has made you happy in some small way recently – it could be birdsong, a favourite smell, a particularly good loaf of bread, a blue sky, anything! Then scroll to the bottom, click the Mr Linky graphic and add your blog post details to the Linky which will appear in a new window, and you’re in.

As you might have guessed, I’m in!

What made me happy recently? Well, there was this:

One particular morning in the beginning of December 2012, the light was rather beautiful. So I grabbed my camera and went outside to take some photographs and try to capture the golden sunlight that gave the fields and trees opposite our house a warm glow.

It was a Sunday morning and it was very quiet. Lovely. I took some photos of the field right opposite our house and decided to take some shots of the view a little bit further down the road. And as I walked along the field I noticed something odd.

There was a mug standing on one of the fence posts surrounding the field.

That was weird. I was pretty sure the mug didn’t belong to one of the cows, nor did it belong to me. And there was no other human being in sight. Yet… someone must have left it there. I’ll translate what it says on the mug, because that was what made me smile:

“You’re looking good and you’re getting more charming each year.”

Isn’t that nice? Someone left a very complimentary mug on a fence post. For me? Of course. Just for me (in my dreams). How very, very nice of that someone. How did he (must have been a he, and a very handsome he too) know that I’d be there, taking photos of the golden sunlight? It was quite puzzling.

I decided to take a photo of the mug. And then I took some more photos of the fields. And then one of the neighbours, who’d been walking his dog, approached. “Hi, it’s a beautiful morning isn’t it?’, he said. “Hmm, it is. And what made the morning even more beautiful’, I smiled, ‘is that someone left a very complimentary mug on one of the fence posts.’

‘Yep, that was me’, he said. ‘I often take a coffee with me when I’m walking the dog and when the mug is empty I just leave it here and pick it up on the way back. Actually, the mug belongs to my wife.’

Okay, so that did shatter my dream. But still, it did make me smile before I knew the true story of the mystery mug.

‘How to be HAPPY’

Jay, over at the Depp Effect, has started a brand new meme: ‘How to be HAPPY’.
Here’s the brief:

‘How to be HAPPY!’ is a brand new meme. It’s about finding the little things in life which bring a smile or a glow of warmth to our hearts and souls during our daily lives.  Why?  Because it’s the way all these little things add up which truly determines if we are happy people, not the big stuff like a lottery win.

To enter, write a post about one thing which has made you happy in some small way recently – it could be birdsong, a favourite smell, a particularly good loaf of bread, a blue sky, anything! Then scroll to the bottom, click the Mr Linky graphic and add your blog post details to the Linky which will appear in a new window, and you’re in.

I’m in!

Winning the lottery would probably make me happy, why not, but it isn’t very likely to happen as I never buy a lottery ticket. So my happiness is pretty much dependent on the smaller things in life that make me smile.

Here’s something that made me HAPPY:

At the funfair in Groningen last September I saw these ladies who were fanatically trying to win a cuddly toy. It was the unexpectedness of seeing the two middle-aged bums sticking out and seeing how focussed these girls were, that made me smile. I just had not expected two middle aged, practical types to really ‘go for’ something like this.
Notice the little bear, hanging above the ladies,showing us his bum too. So cute.

Well, it made me smile

And there I was…

… in the A&E department in hospital. Carefully holding my left wrist with my right hand, hoping the pain killers the GP had given me would kick in soon. I gave the ‘letter of recommendation’ the GP had also given me to the nurse behind the ‘Welcome To A&E, Make Yourself Comfortable, This May Take A While’ desk.
Actually, the sign above the desk just said ‘Reception’.

‘Please don’t drink or eat anything’, the nurse encouragingly said, ‘in case you’ll need an operation.’

That morning I’d fallen off my young horse. She didn’t mean to throw me off, she simply made a silly jump sideways, pretending to be startled by something and I simply forgot rule 1 of horse riding: keep one leg on each side of the horse, soles of your feet pointing towards the floor. Before I knew it, I had made a lovely butt-shaped indentation in the sand and the soles of my feet pointed towards the sky. All of me was fine, except my left wrist. That hurt a bit, but I remounted and rode for another 10 minutes or so. I then brought the horses to the field, gave coffee to a visiting friend, decided not to muck out the stables because of the sore wrist and took a book from the pile of books waiting to be read. It was a beautiful day, warm and sunny, so I tried to relax a bit. The wrist started to look alarmingly blue with strange swellings. I wrapped it in an elastic bandage and waited until hubs came home that evening.

He decided that I needed to ‘go see the doctor’. The doctor decided I needed to go to hospital, so hubs dropped me off there and went home to take care of the Brinkbeest-zoo and muck out the stables. ‘I’ll call you when I’m done here’, I said and there I was, in the A&E department in hospital.

It was the night of the semi-finals of the Eurovision Song Contest. For those of you who are not familiar with this annual event, each country that’s a member of the EBU-UER (don’t ask, I never heard of the EBU-UER, until I just tried to find out which countries can enter in the Eurovision Song Contest) chooses a singer or a band and a song to send to the contest, every country gets to vote and the one with the most votes wins (gosh, really?). Now, in recent years the country with the weirdest act has won, so almost all the other countries thought ‘we have to send weird acts too’, which made the whole event even weirder than it already was. And not weird in a good way. Just weird in a weird way.
The A&E waiting room has a television and someone had decided that we should watch the semi-finals of the Eurovision Song Contest. As if we weren’t suffering enough.

This was the Dutch entry in 2012. She didn’t go through to the final. I wonder why not (not).

And then there was the Irish act:

The Russian grannies came second in the final:

Actually, I believe Sweden won with a really decent song. So perhaps next year other countries will send decent singers to the contest too. Whatever. I don’t really care. If it had been an evening at home, I’d have never watched this. But I had to.

The other entertainment while waiting for my X-rays to be taken was provided by a loud woman who had brought a louder friend and four even louder kids to the A&E. The loud woman was in a wheelchair and the louder friend parked her in the waiting room and flipflopped (nice weather remember?) away to take care of the administrative side of things, while the kids flipflopped to the coffee and tea-corner and tried to get third-degree burns by making themselves tea (tea and coffee are free for the people waiting in A&E, but they serve hot water for tea and coffee in those large thermos flasks, under which you have to hold a plastic cup with one hand while pressing the top with the other hand, which even if I was allowed to drink something I couldn’t do because of the probably broken wrist. Still… a dry mouth wasn’t the worst of my problems.)

The loud woman sat in her wheelchair in the middle of the waiting room and grabbed her mobile. She started to call the first person on her list: ‘HI, IT’S ME, YOU’LL NEVER GUESS WHERE I AM. I’M IN HOSPITAL. H O S P I T A L!! YES. I KNOW!
I’LL TELL YOU. I WAS CYCLING HOME AND CAME PAST THAT POND, YOU KNOW THE ONE, NEAR MY HOUSE, AND THERE WAS A SWAN AND IT FLEW UP JUST AS I PASSED AND TO AVOID IT I HAD TO MAKE A STRANGE MANOUVRE AND I FELL. AND NOW I HAVE A REALLY SORE KNEE. IT’S IN A BANDAGE. I’M IN A WHEELCHAIR. YEAH. … (name of friend) BROUGHT ME TO THE A&E AND NOW THEY ARE GOING TO TAKE X-RAYS. YEAH.. OKAY… BYE

She put down her phone. A collective sigh of relief went through the waiting room.

Then she took up her phone again and phoned the second person on her list: ‘HI, IT’S ME, YOU’LL NEVER GUESS WHERE I AM….

And we all had to hear the whole story again.

By the time she called the third person to tell where she was, I and some of the other people waiting mumbled ‘swan, flew up, fell down, hurt knee, blablabla’ and we collectively sighed again. The mad woman telephoned at least 8 people and repeated the whole story VERY LOUDLY!!!!
I swear, if I had had the use of both of my hands, she’d no longer be alive. But then again, I wouldn’t have been in hospital either.

While mad woman was informing everyone where she was and why, her friend flipflopped into the waiting room again. ‘HERE!!!’, she shouted towards the kids, who had managed to survive the tea-making-adventure with only minor burns, ‘GO FIND SOMETHING TO PLAY WITH. THERE ARE TOYS IN THAT CORNER. WE’LL BE HERE FOR A WHILE!!!’

‘HEY, GUYS, IT’S THE EUROVISION SONG CONTEST!’, loud woman shouted towards her friend and the kids. ‘PUT ME IN FRONT OF THE TELLY AND GET SOME CHAIRS. WE’LL WATCH IT TOGETHER. IT’S FUN!! OUR INDIAN HAS A CATCHY SONG! I KNOW ALL THE WORDS!!! I CAN’T HELP SINGING ALONG WHEN IT’S ON THE RADIO!!!’ And towards some other people in the waiting room: ‘DON’T YOU LOVE THE SONG CONTEST? I LOVE IT! I’M GOING TO SING ALONG!’ The people smiled and nodded. Rule 1 when dealing with idiots, try not to upset them. ‘CAN SOMEONE PUT THE VOLUME UP?!’

‘Oh God’, I moaned.
’Is your arm very painful?’, the man sitting next to me asked concerned.
’Yep, that too’, I smiled.
’Oh’, he understood, ‘They are rather loud aren’t they.’
We leaned back in our chairs and tried to not be there.

Finally it was my turn to get the arm X-rayed and to see a doctor and then the arm was put in plaster and then I phoned hubs and then he came to get me out of there. Hooray!

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

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.)

All I need to know in life I learned from my horses

 

The Lazy Bunch (Willem, Evie, Naloma)

 

I’ve stolen these words from Grey Horse Matters’ blog.

All I need to know in life I learned from my horses - Vol. 1

1. When in doubt, run far, far away.
2. You can never have too many treats.
3. Passing gas in public is nothing to be ashamed of.
4. New shoes are an absolute necessity every 6 weeks.
5. Ignore cues; they're just another prompt to do more work.
6. Everyone loves a good, wet, slobbery kiss.
7. Never run when you can trot.
8. Never trot when you can walk.
9. And never walk when you can stand still.
10. Heaven is eating at least 10 hours a day...and then sleeping the rest.

 

All I need to know in life I learned from my horses - Vol. 2

1. Eat plenty of roughage.
2. Great legs and a nice rear will get you anywhere in life. Big, brown eyes help too.
3. When you want your way, stomp hard on the nearest foot.
4. In times of crises, take a poop.
5. Act dumb when faced with a task you don't want to do.
6. Follow the herd, that way you can't be singled out to take the blame.
7. A swift kick in the butt will get anyone's attention.
8. Love those who love you back, especially if they have something good to eat.
9. Leather and chains can make anyone look studly.
10. Happiness is a warm, fuzzy blanket and someone to share it with.

The adventures of Stupid Woman

Last Saturday I had arranged with a friend to go to Groningen to do some really girly shopping. You know: buy clothes, try every perfume in the store, have lunch, giggle a lot, jog past chocolate selling shops, high fiving if we succeeded in doing that, those sort of things.

She lives in FarFarAwayLand (not that far away though, about half an hour in the car) and the plan was that she’d drive to our house and then I’d drive us into town with, and now you’re going to frown and think: “what a snob”, one of our cars. But I mention our assorted choice of cars for a reason.

You see, we have a Landrover Defender. Great car, joy to drive (if you like the occasional near-heart attack from loud bangs caused by stones that shoot out of the tires and bang against the wheel house, and enjoy feeling every bump in the road going from butt through spine to head), but it doesn’t fit particularly well in the average parking garage. Either the ceiling of the parking garage is too low, or Bob is too high.
So, as much as I like Bob, he’s not for going into town with.

Then there’s Gretl, our Range Rover. Incredibly comfortable, quite chic (if you ignore the fact that I often use it to get huge bags of carrots and other big bags of horse feed which inevitably leave a trail of… well, carrots and horse feed on the cream coloured carpet) and a great car for going shopping with. It can hold tons of bags, but it is wide and long and not a joy to drive around in in a crowded parking garage, looking for a space to squeeze the beast into.

Oh, and if you’re wondering why she’s called Gretl; there are two language options in her inbuilt GPS. German or English. We’ve tried English for a while, but she assumes that your driving on the wrong side of the road then and it became very confusing at times, so we changed to German and now we’re brushing up on German ‘verkehrsbezogene Begriffe’. Oder so etwas.

Anyway, the car of choice was therefore our smaller car. It’s a hard top convertible. Fast, good-looking and more importantly, it easily fits in a parking garage. This car is nice to drive in in the summer, with the top open (it does this incredibly neat magic trick in which it lets its roof disappear in the boot. That is almost the best part of this car, the roof/no roof magic trick. It never fails to amaze me.) and nice to drive in the winter, with the top closed.

 

The only problem was that we hadn’t driven it for a week or so, and as you know it was freezing cold here in the Netherlands and we don’t have a garage so it had been outside in the cold and the door on the passenger’s side was frozen shut.
Fortunately I had expected that that might be the case, so about an hour before friend was supposed to arrive here I put on a coat and thick, warm gloves and went outside to clear the windscreen and the other windows of ice, tried the doors, discovered that the one on the passenger’s side didn’t open and phoned hubs’ mobile (he was mucking the stables) with my mobile (I didn’t feel like walking to the stables to tell him) that I was going for a drive to see if the door-in-ice would thaw. It was either that or rolling out a couple of patch cables and attack the door with my hair/blow dryer. I chose the driving around option.

So there I went. It still was bitterly cold outside, but I was comfortably warm in my winter coat with the nice, thick gloves protecting my hands from the arctic temperatures. So I drove through a neighbouring village where another friend lives, waved as I passed their house and took a scenic route back home again. Meanwhile the car was warming up nicely. Heated seat doing its job to keep the posterior at a nice temperature, windows ice free inside and outside. I had good hope that the other door would be freed from the layer of ice that kept it firmly shut.

I parked the car in front of the house. And when I wanted to get out, I couldn’t open my door! I mean, w h a t ? Had ‘my’ door somehow been frozen shut too while I was driving around? But could that be possible? I tried again. No. Didn’t open. I tried the door on the passenger’s side. No. Didn’t open either. What in the name of Elvis caused these doors to stay closed? I pressed the distant control a couple of times to close and open the locks, but that didn’t help. Both doors stayed shut. I was baffled. And puzzled. Dumbfounded even.

And then I remembered that I had my mobile with me.
So I phoned hubs. “Yes?”
”Hi.”
”Hi?”
”I have a tiny problem.”
”Oh?”
”I can’t get out of the car.”
”You can’t get out of the car.”
”No.”
”Oh.”
”So…”
”Why can you not get out of the car?”
”The door won’t open.”
”Oh?”
”Hmm.”
”Where are you?”
”In our drive.”
*sigh* “Okay, I’m coming.”
”Don’t sigh.”
”I didn’t sigh.”
”I definitely heard… okay.”

He apparently wasn’t in a hurry to free me from my car-prison, because it took ages before he appeared. He had a vicious smile on his face I thought.
He opened the door from the outside.
”What do you mean, I can’t get out of the car.”
”No really. I couldn’t open the door from the inside.”
I got out of the car and he got in.
I closed the door, thinking that it would be really funny if he would be locked inside now.
But no, of course he wasn’t, because he knew that there is a tiny switch just in front of the door handle on the inside of the car, that locks or unlocks it independently from the distant control. Why? I don’t know why it has that switch. I never even knew of its existence. And I had unintentionally pressed it into the ‘lock’ setting when I tried to open the door with my hands comfortably nestled in my very thick gloves.

You learn something every day.

And the short drive had indeed unfrozen the other door, so when friend arrived we could both get in (and out) of our pretty little convertible with the not idiot proof lock/unlock switch.

Gawd.

Hubs thought it was all incredibly funny.
I don’t get his sense of humour.
It is totally wrong!

WHAT?

Hubs’ hearing isn’t what it used to be. Although he keeps insisting that his ears are in perfect working order and that my voice is just too soft and I don’t speak loud and clearly enough. Well, other people have no problems hearing what I’m saying, but hey… I’m not going to argue.

So, when we came back from shopping and he parked the car on the driveway and I went to get the mail and found a leaflet that said in big letters ‘INVITATION FOR A FREE HEARING TEST!’, I did a cruel thing.

He was collecting stuff from the car and while he had his head buried in the trunk, I said, not particularly looking in his direction: “Hey, you’ve got an invitation for a free hearing test”.
I knew he wouldn’t hear me correctly.

His head appeared again (it sounds like it was detached from his body, but I assure you, it was still firmly attached) and he said: “What? What about earrings?”

I gestured ‘look at me’ and with exaggerated articulation said: “here, read this”, and held the leaflet up before his eyes. ‘INVITATION FOR A FREE HEARING TEST!’, the leaflet screamed at him.
“Huh?”, he said. “But I don’t need…”

Unfortunately I then burst out in laughter and spoiled the whole cunning plan by owning up that I had deliberately waited until I just knew he couldn’t hear what I said.

Now he’s still convinced that his ears are doing a perfect job.

Ah well…

I’ll just have to keep whispering in the other direction.

And no, the robin has nothing to do with this story. But I thought it was a nice photo.
Certainly if you take into consideration that I was holding the camera in one hand, while closing a gate with the other hand, with which hand I had to adjust the focus too and, for reasons too difficult to explain, I could only do that while balancing on one leg. On second thoughts: it’s not a nice photo. It’s a brilliant photo!

Honey! What’s our dog called?

An email exchange with Janice from Jabblog brought back a memory that I thought I’d share with you.

First some very elaborate background information:

When you get a pet, you probably want to give it a name. Most people do. (Although, I’ve sometimes thought I shouldn’t have bothered thinking of lovely, fitting names for our dogs. We could have just called them all Cookie. They’re back with you in no time when you shout ‘cooookie’ in a high pitched voice.)

This story is about dogs and their names. People who breed dogs, sometimes have their own rules for naming their pups. Sometimes they name their pups after flowers, or for every litter the name should start with a particular letter, or every pup should be named after a Greek god(dess). And then of course sometimes they have a kennel name, either to be placed in front of or behind the name of the pup.

For instance: our Phoebe is officially called: Kim’s News Look Elegant Phoebe. Kim’s News Look = kennel name, Elegant is the collective litter name, Phoebe is the dog’s name.

Holle is officially called: Bonbon of Clay Diggers. Of Clay Diggers is the kennel name and Holle’s name should start with a B. We thought of Bonbon, because she’s from Belgium and they are famous for their delicious chocolate bonbons. But we had already decided that her name would be Holle.

And then there is Biggles. He’s called Boy O Boy Biggles of Towns Channel. Of Towns Channel is the kennel name. He had to be named after a rose, Boy O Boy, and we wanted to call him Biggles.

So far the elaborate background information.

This is the story:

We have labrador retrievers and used to train them for the hunt. Not that we ever planned to take them on a hunt, but they are retrievers, so we thought we’d let them do what they are bred for. And the training turned out to be a lot of fun for the dogs as well as for us humans. I even entered my dogs (our first labrador retriever Cosy (Cosy Karthuizer Valley) and Holle) in a couple of hunting competitions and we didn’t do too bad. Even won some prizes.

One year our club organized one of those competitions and they asked me to be the one to welcome the competitors and their dogs and tick their names off the list of competitors I’d been given. The list had the names of the dogs in alphabetical order and then the name of the handler.

I’d been given a wonky table and a chair, the list, the numbers the handlers had to wear on their outfit (so the judges knew who it was) and some other stuff, like a pen and a cup of coffee.
Welcoming and registering the competitors went something like this:

Man and very enthusiastic labrador approach the table. Labrador immediately jumps up, puts muddy front paws on wonky table, coffee falls over, pen rolls off, I dive under table to rescue pen, dog dives under table too and licks my face. I pop up again from under the table, wipe face, sit on chair, breathe, rescue list from muddy paws of dog that tries to get onto the table, and with a friendly smile say: “Welcome to this competition. Can I have the name of your dog please?”
Man: “Huh, yeah, thanks. Sorry about that. The dog’s name is Tommy.”
I go through the list of alphabetically ordered dog names until I reach the T: Tabatha’s Turd Turning Harry, Terrible Stinky of the Bean Farm, Twister of the Windy Willows….
“There’s no Tommy on the list, sir.”
”No Tommy?”
”No Tommy. But perhaps his ‘real’ name is different? The name on Tommy’s papers I mean.”
”Oh. Yeah. It is. I dunno. Uhm…” Turning around, looking for his wife who’s patiently waiting somewhere well out of the way of the growing row of people with happy labradors: “Honey! HONEY! What’s the name of our dog?!”
”What?”, woman shouts back.
”What’s our dog called?”
”Tommy!”
”Yeah. I know. But what’s his official name!”
”Uhh, I dunno. Something like Flippy Floppy something something.”

I go back through the list to the F’s. Fast Ada of the Furry Bunch, Fast Eddie of the Furry Bunch, Fast Freddie* of the Furry Bunch (a couple of brothers and sisters had been entered in the competition), Ferocious Brutus of the Nippy Teeth (not a typical labrador name), Foreseeing Trouble in the Woods… “No Flippy Floppies here, sir.”
“No Flippy Floppies?”
”No.”
Man looking back down the line of waiting people, busy untwisting their dog’s leash from other dogs’ leashes: “Hey Harry, what’s your dog called?”
”My dog?”
”Yeah.”
”Willy!”
”Yes, I know, but what’s his official name?”
”Uhm… Stormy Weather’s Weird William!”
”Oh yeah”, and turning to me again: “Tommy is called Stormy Weather’s Wonderful Wilfred.”
Me: “Of course.”

And so I wrestled through the list of dog names, because this wasn’t the only guy who didn’t know what his dog’s official name was. I suggested to the organizers to use a different list next time. One that stated the names of the handlers in alphabetical order. I think it’s safe to assume that most people do know their own names.

When I came home, I asked hubs: “Do you know the official names of our dogs?” Blank face: “Uhhh… no idea.”

 

* All the names of dogs in this post, apart from those of our own dogs, are fictitious. At least I hope so. I made them up. I had to, because this all happened years ago and I certainly don’t remember the names of these dogs.
Fast Freddie was inspired by one of Suldog’s teammates. I hope he doesn’t mind. Wouldn’t it be eerie if he turns out to have a brother called Eddie and a sister called Ada?

Sunday Selections: the love edition

Our Sunday Selections host Kim’s daughter got married yesterday. She has some lovely photos and a memorable wedding story on her blog Frogpondsrock.

So I thought it would be nice to choose my Sunday Selections for this day, based on LOVE.

 

Sarah (the cat, sadly no longer with us) loved Phoebe (now 14 years old).

Lovedoves.

Hubs loves his horse Willem.

They all love each other.

It’s getting a bit crowded with so much love going on.

Cute love.

I loved this little cat, Lapje, but sadly she’s one of the fourleggers who’s no longer with us.

Well, who wouldn’t love Nufnuf’s smiling face.

Or that of his non-related brother Tumtum, who isn’t as smiley, but definitely very loveable.

There is so much love going on in our house, that I have enough photos for several Sunday Selections. More of the same will be in next week’s Sunday Selections.

This Could Be Useful Advice

Went shopping with a friend who has two cute little daughters, one of whom had a birthday coming up. Her third one actually. And friend still had to buy the birthday presents so we went into a large toy shop. Overwhelmed by the huge amount of plastic rubbish toys, we didn’t have a clue where to look first.

“What does she want for her birthday?”, I asked the obvious question.
”She wants the complete contents of the toy catalogue”, friend sighed. “But she definitely wants a Dora-doll.”
”A Dora-doll.”
”Yep. A Dora-doll. Some kind of cartoon figure. Dora the Explorer. She loves Dora.”
”So, we have to find the doll section I guess.”
We looked around and saw a pink glow coming from the back of the shop. That seemed to be little girlie heaven. So we headed for the pink glowing corner. On our way down there we passed all sorts of baskets filled with cheap shit toys and I just couldn’t walk past one of those baskets without picking up one of the items it was filled with and squeezing it. “PFFRRRT”, it did and immediately made me giggle. Friend, who wasn’t distracted by all the tempting junk we were surrounded with, because she had a goal – a Dora-doll for birthday girl – was already halfway down the store, so I ran after her and squeezed the thing again.  “PFFRRRT”, it did and I couldn’t help giggling again. Friend looked around to see what made the sound. “Ah! A whoopee cushion. Other daughter would love that.” (Other daughter is four-and-a-very-important-half and apparently she and I share a great sense of humour. No, we don’t share a mental age, should the thought have crossed your mind. I’m definitely older than that. Mentally not very much older, I’ll give you that, but still…)

“Okay. So I’m buying a whoopee cushion for your other daughter then.”

We finally found a Dora-doll that we could both resist puking all over and a cute plush doggie that did “woofwoof” and a salto got assigned to be grandparents’ present and we saw a pink car with a doll in it, towing a pink trailer with a small dog on a cart and a slide on it. All smallish doll size of course. We thought that the whole thing promised hours of fun, so it was added to the birthday presents. I bought a game (with Dora in the leading role) and a cheap bubble blowing device for birthday girl and for her sister very real looking (with a bit of imagination) diamond and ruby stickers to do something creative with and of course the whoopee-cushion. (I gave the presents to friend so she could give them to both her girls, since hubs and I wouldn’t be there on the important day, or in the very near future, to give the presents ourselves.)

We had made a bit of a planning mistake, because we still had to shop for clothes and were now carrying a huge bag filled with birthday presents around that we kept referring to as ‘half the toy store’. “Don’t forget half the toy store”, when leaving a trendy boutique where she had bought a great cardigan and I had bought a nice pair of jeans. More bags to carry around. In another store she bought a dress. So we then had to carry half the toy store, a great cardigan, nice pair of jeans and a dress. Does it remind you of a certain game too? I found the perfect winter coat and a great belt. What did we have to carry around? Half the toy store, a great cardigan, nice pair of jeans, a dress,…. You get the point. We also bought some clothes for her kids. And then she needed to buy shoes for the kids. But we couldn’t be bothered anymore and dragged ourselves, half the toy store, a great cardigan… etc. back to the car.

A couple of days later she had the party for birthday girl and her little friends. That afternoon my mobile rang. It was friend. “Do you want to hear the sound of a whoopee cushion and five little girls? Hold on.”
“PFFRRRT!”
”Weeheeheeheeheee hahahahaha hoohooohooohaha”, little girls hysterically laughed on the other end of the phone. “Weehehehehe have a whoopee-cushion”, the oldest daughter on the other side of the phone cried with laughter. “PFFRRRT!” the cushion farted in the background again. I had to hold the phone half a metre from my ear to cope with the sound of five girls laughing their little heads off. Friend took over the phone at her end again. “Well. Forget all the other presents we dragged around with us. Your whoopee-cushion is a huge success. As you heard hehehe.”

So… should you need to buy a tasteful and sensible birthday present for a small boy or girl, forget the tasteful and sensible and go for the whoopee-cushion. Success guaranteed. And ‘it doesn’t cost a turd’ as we say in the Netherlands.

Moos thinks he's one of the dogs

Walking in a straight line is pretty difficult when Moos is around...




(Perseverance and Patience make Progress!)

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.

To pee or not to pee. That is the question.

Something I read in Blogworld stirred up the memory of when I had to take one of our cats to the vet. He seemed to have kidney problems. Not the vet, the cat. The vet said we had to catch some of his pee; the cat’s, not the vet’s (that would have been even weirder) and bring it to him so he could analyse it. I asked the vet if he could give any tips as to how exactly I could catch the cat’s pee and he said that I could follow the cat to the litter box and hold a shallow dish underneath the cat’s bottom.

I felt there were a couple of problems in his plan:

1. our litter boxes have lids so I would have insert my arm, holding the shallow dish, carefully into the opening in the lid and manoeuvre the dish in the right spot to catch the pee without being able to see what I was doing,

2. the cat would no doubt be highly surprised to see an arm, holding a dish, appear in this normally so private litter box and would probably close his urinal ways until further notice,

3. I’d have to follow the cat’s every move until he’d be going to the litter box. That could take a while.

So I asked the vet if he had a better idea.

“You can bring the cat to the surgery, so we can keep an eye on him and catch his pee ourselves”, vet said optimistically.

So I brought the cat to the surgery, where he got his own comfortable cage with a nice, soft bed and his own private litter box. Without litter. So the pee would stay clean.

That afternoon I telephoned the vet. “And?”, I asked. “Did Fleetwood (the cat) pee?”

“No, not yet”, vet said. “But you can collect him tonight. He must have done something by then.”

But Fleetwood saw the litter box without the litter and without the lid and thought: “I’m not going to pee into that thing. I’ll just wait till I get home again and pee in my own litter box.”

So when I came to collect Fleetwood that night, the vet saw me sitting in the waiting room, amongst some other people with their poorly pets, and said: “Oh, wait, he hasn’t peed yet, but I’ll try and massage something out of him. I’ll be just a moment.” And he disappeared into his surgery again to perform the delicate procedure of pee-massaging.

The other people in the waiting room looked at me, eyebrows raised in question marks. What kind of animal was this about, they seemed to wonder. And what was this intriguing story about pee-massaging?

“It’s a cat”, I said. “They need to catch some pee.”

“Ahh”, the other people said, collectively nodding. They understood.

Then we heard the hair raising sound of a cat screaming and growling, coming from the surgery.

The other people in the waiting room looked at me, eyebrows raised again, but this time I felt it was more of an accusatory look. As if I could help it that the vet’s procedure had turned Fleetwood into a malicious tiger. “He’s never made sounds like that before”, I defended Fleetwood truthfully. “He really is a very sweet cat.”

We all looked anxiously at the surgery door, expecting to see the vet turn up in the door opening, covered in bloody scratches, clothes shredded and a red&white cat clinging to his head. But the door opened and the vet turned up with a big smile on his face, holding a travel box with my usually very sweet Fleetwood in it. “Judging from the sounds coming from there, it all went smoothly?”, I asked. Vet laughed out loud. “Not really. He really really didn’t want to pee. But I could feel that his bladder was full, so I laid him on the table, with Paulien (his assistant) standing at the other end, holding a cup to catch the urine and I was massaging his bladder to get him to pee.
He did. Right in Paulien’s face hahahaha! But… marvellous assistant she is, she did also manage to catch something in the cup, so finally we can analyse it to see what’s wrong with him. He didn’t really like the procedure. But he took his sweet revenge hahaha.

Paulien appeared, drying her face with a towel. “I really did think he was a sweet cat, until just now”, she giggled. “He peed right into my face. Bloody cat!”

(Fleetwood did have kidney problems and needed to go on a diet for the rest of his life. Sadly he died about 6 years ago. He had a malignant tumour in his mouth and when the vet operated on him, it became clear that he couldn’t save him, so… that was the end of Fleetwood. Famous for peeing in the assistant’s face.)

Oh, don’t laugh and 100 Things I Love About the Netherlands # 17:

I love the town of Groningen.

OH, DON’T LAUGH

So finally we could enjoy an afternoon and out with friends on their boat, the Hendrik-Salvador.

I mean, we were promised numerous outings for almost four years now, but somehow we only managed to get on board on one occasion, two years ago. That is mostly due to our private zoo that we can’t and don’t want to leave alone for too long and our friends normally keep their boat in a harbour that is almost an hours drive from our house. But last Saturday afternoon we left all the four-legged hairy and two-legged feathery ones to fend for themselves for the afternoon and jumped on board of the lovely boat that our friends temporarily rented a space for in a harbour in the town of Groningen, not far from our house. We were going to enjoy a view of the town from the water. With him being the captain, her being a fantastic cook and taking care of the catering on board, another friendly friend, who just keeps laughing and giggling when he’s had his first glass of wine, joining us we were ready for an afternoon and early evening full of fun.

ANYWAY…

It started out alright.

The weather was good (it is unusually warm and dry this Spring in the Netherlands).

The harbour, surrounded by lovely colourful houses.

I even spotted an Indian. He was looking in a different direction.

And then we left the harbour to sail (is it called ‘sailing’ even though it isn’t a sailing ship?) through the town of Groningen.

We sailed (?) past a real sailing ship, the Ecolution, initiated by the first Dutch astronaut; Wubbo Ockels.

A very interesting ship; if you follow the Ecolution-link (after you’ve read this post of course), you can find out everything about it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first bridge opened to let us through, the second bridge did too (interesting blue underside),

the third bridge opened in a different way…,

and then we came to this bridge.

It stayed closed.

Oh sure, HE could go through…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and THEY could go through…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…but we had to wait for one-and-a-half-hours before that bridge would open to let US through. Apparently bridge keepers have to eat too. And I suppose they take a nap after dinner. And then they have coffee. And then they kiss their wife and kids goodbye, hop on their bike and cycle to the bridge to open it for innocent people who own a boat that is just slightly too high to go under the bridge.

ANYWAY…

We decided to turn the boat around and go back to enjoy a bit of the countryside around Groningen. Perhaps we could go into Groningen from the other side of town. So we went back and came to this bridge…

…that THEY could go under, but WE couldn’t. And since the bridge keeper was enjoying his dinner…

ANYWAY…

There was nothing else for us to do than moor the boat and enjoy the idyllic view… (of a whole row of portaloos hmmm)…

…have a nap…

…watch the ducks swim past…

…open another bottle of Prosecco…and hate envy people in a rowing boat…

 

 

…and one-and-a-half-hours later the bridge finally opened and let us through to sail (?) back to the harbour, because it was getting too late for us to do the whole Groningen-tour that night.

On our way back the guys on board decided to inspect the motor compartment. While we were sailing (?). In the other direction! No one was steering the ship. But did we, women, panic? No, we didn’t. We’d had a lot of Prosecco. It does wonders for one’s ability to relax and enjoy the sunshine…

 

 

AAAAANYWAY…

The food was great, the wine was very enjoyable too, as was the company. So we did have a fun time.

 

The next day I got a second chance to take photos of the town of Groningen, from the water. Our friends had invited some other people (some I knew, some I didn’t) to do the Groningen-tour by boat and then sail the boat back all the way to its original harbour all the way up in the province of Groningen and invited me and hubs to join them. Hubs decided to stay at home to take care of the animals, so I could enjoy the entire journey.

Some previews (I’ll post more photos later this week):