Song of the day: Someone you loved, by Lewis Capaldi. Such a gorgeous song.

Life. It has a way of getting away from you...or at least it does in my case. So strange the way the world has changed, even since the last past here on the blog. As of today we are once again in lockdown, nuts, I tell ya. Totally nuts! But, it is what it is, right? The powers that be make a decision and we must all abide by it. I just can't help but feel bad for all those people who really can't afford this shaite. For the people who suffer because of these lockdowns and are losing everything.

But, the old mantra still counts. I won't care about things I cannot change. It has no use.So, let's see if I can bring y'all up to date to life as it is at the moment. What all has happened since the last time I wrote?

First there was school. I thankfully passed my exams with a respectable average of 9 (out of 10), so that was over and done with. Actually got my diploma last October so I've got that sucker in my pocket at long last. Was nice to see about half of my fellow students again, and to have a bit of a social distanced party with a shot of booze followed by a beer.

Work. Well, we have a forced close now again, but before that I had two lovely months working in the Buffet restaurant again. The formula was different, no more free for all buffet, but a 3 course dining experience instead. Though different from usual (and what I love most doing) it was still a nice challenge...until the corona measures got tightened again, of course,  meaning that our restaurants had to close and we were only allowed to offer take-away to our guests. But that, of course meant that we had too many chefs in the kitchen. So what does that leave for Sammie, you might wonder. Well, luckily I can be bumped to TD, meaning I get to help big brother out with the hated morning shifts.

The 4:20 wake up call is pretty much killing me, but work is work...or at least it was, considering things will change again now with the new lockdown. I might get lucky and won't need to start at 6 am until January, which should be awesome. I don't mind work, in any shape or form, but I do hate the early morning. Ha. We'll see how that goes.

Had friends over for dinner the other day. I miss cooking special stuff, so it was the perfect occasion to have some fun in the kitchen. Decided on three courses that started with a lovely fresh pumpkin soup decorated with fresh herbs and a blot of cream cheese in the center. The main course was a lovely experiment of red beet risotto topped by a bit of Parmesan. This dish had strips of veggies on the side and a yellow creamy sauce with saffron and rose. Last but not least was a strawberry tartlet made from scratch with a bit of whipped cream on top. Was a wonderful evening with friends and good food, so that was a successful evening in my book.

Been experimenting with bread, partly because I am playing with the idea of starting to do some kind of catering, or food take away on the side. I already have several people interested in my vegetable bread, which would be great if I can get regular orders for that in the future. They would be more interested in seasonal veggies, though, so that meant I had to do some experimenting. Ended up with 3 new recipes from that. One with cauliflower and carrot. One of three types of cabbage, and one with pumpkin and parsnips. Definitely fun to try, and there might even be a restaurant interested in it, so I will keep you posted on that.

As for Mr. Whitney, the absolute gorgeous fella (aka golden retriever) I adopted this spring is still with us. He's amazing. Such good company and hardly ever a bother. He's adjusted well to his new life with us, absolutely loving our 3x daily walks, and enjoying his very own home-made food. He's no longer skinny. He's got muscles now and his confidence is still improving daily. He's such a marvelous addition to our lives, I can barely remember a time when he wasn't here. He's been making sure that we go on plenty of walks, which is of course very good for us since going to the gym isn't actually in the realm of possibilities at the moment.

As for the house. My...our lovely house. We got quite a bit done in the months that have passed since my last blog. First of, we have upgraded our electrical system, meaning that now we can have a proper kitchen when the time is right. Added to that all the walls in the living areas that had to go out are out, so we could put in new floors in the kitchen, the office and the living room. Which makes sooooooo much of a difference. No more cold tiles under my feet, not to mention that the first 3 floors are so much more spacious now. It is absolutely awesome. Basically we now have the house's base exactly the way we want it. Sure, we'll have to remodel the kitchen, still, and the bathroom, a shed, and the garage, but there's no rush. It's all very livable until we've got some savings to do them proper. Right now I have added a kitchen island that gives me at least enough work space, and painted everything that needed painting, too, so let's see how things go.

Dealing with mom's passing is a sometimes it's okay, sometimes it still hits me by surprise, kind of thing. Sometimes I can still not believe it, and now that we are dealing with the aftermath of the house in Spain and such, it is very much back in my mind, I fear. I wish it wasn't, and yes I am working at letting it go and accepting it, but still, it isn't easy. Alas.

It has been slow on the writing front, but I have started on a new book because I needed something new, something different, so guess what. I am writing a paranormal/horror/thriller. I kid you not. We've got zombie killers and all that jazz. So much fun to do. Got over 11k words now, so I'm pretty pleased about that. Will be getting a couple of the older manuscripts out of the dust piles so we can start sending them out in the near future, but until then I'm having fun doing the creative thing again.

Well, that's about it for today, I guess. Hope everyone is doing alright and is keeping safe. I'll be back...

Not all bad...

Song of the day: “International love” by Pitbull and Chris Brown, of course. Not the deepest song you can imagine, but what the heck.

Right. Lots of time past since my last post, hasn’t there? Well, I’ve been keeping busy, a necessary thing also because I get bugged a lot (in my head) if I don’t keep active. Rather annoying, but since I get paid to work anyway, I’ll consider it a good thing.

Sooooo, what’s been going on? There have been some trips into town. Basically getting the necessities that any workshop needs. Haven’t been able to find a proper work bench, either on-line, or at the local shops, so I decided to wait until I find something affordable, and good. Instead I’ve put together a couple of work benches from old pallets, and dove into the big pile of wood that was meant for burning in the near future to take out old wooden beams that have now been incorporated into perfectly fine work benches.

Did buy some wood. First to heighten gates that the dogs have been scaling. Managed one without needing to buy anything, but I simply didn’t have enough for two. Secondly, the main house needs proper shelving in one of the cupboards, so I need to get those cut…by hand, mind you, because I don’t have a circle, or a jigsaw yet. *sigh* Life is hard when you’re cooping. Hah.
Also been sorting through the meager supplies of tools, so far, digging through rubbish and finding old ones that are perfectly fine to use too. I’ll get this set up yet.

Also ordered three proper shelving units. Sure, I could have made them myself, but I’d have needed more tools too, along with wood, etc, meaning time. So I’ve got three proper units, nice and sturdy, that I’m putting together bit by bit.

Since the digs through the waste stack in the yard, I have managed to scrounge up some workable woods, which is reassuring. Not by far enough, but I can work with it at least.

Been trying to familiarize myself with the area. Went out a couple of times…first time I got lost on all the tiny little roads, found my way back, thankfully, and now there’s a TomTom in the car making that a lot easier…of course the second time I went out I’d tried so many roads the first time that I already knew where to go without it. Hah. Will be handy for new locations, though.

The supermarkets are very different here. The sequence of how the products are placed, the products themselves, the people, lots to learn…like the other day I had to gas up and couldn’t get the blasted thing to open. So I asked three guys that passed if they had a clue, and they either looked annoyed with the question (didn’t have a clue in other words) and one looked frightened as if he was expecting me to rob him, or something. Anyway, in the end I found this little lever under the front seat that opened it up. Phew. What a relief. Also had to “top up” my phone. Didn’t know it was called that, so the poor boy at the gas station was all confused when I asked if it was possible to charge my phone there. Had a good laugh about that later.

Had a visit at a builders supplier, which was fun. I’m going to need a friggin’ dictionary because they use completely different words for everything here. I asked him about certain sizes, materials, and the poor guy looked at me as if I was talking Chinese. We did figure it out in the end, though. And though they doubted that it would be possible before the weekend, the next day they came to deliver the lot for me. Yay. Then I didn’t have my work area yet, though, so all I could do with the stuff was put it away, but still. Yay. Nice fella. Will probably be seeing more of him in the near future.

What else. Well, I’ve been doing some tree pruning. I know, not the right time of year, but some of these babies are looking completely neglected, and I just can’t help myself. Spent about an hour doing that yesterday, and since the sun was shining that was rather nice. I mean, what more can you want, right? Sunshine, a bit of music, plants to talk with. I was very relaxed afterward.

Since no one is vying for the honor of cooking, I’ve been doing a lot of it, which is nice. Had a nice curry yesterday…I know, curry’s are not my favorite either, but it went down nicely enough.
Also, there was a rather impromptu dinner for a supposedly picky eater (nothing too spicy or too strong in taste), which came out rather successfully. There were jokes of stealing me away as a cook, so, I’m thinking it went well. Hah. The meal did work out nicely. I had a starter rainbow salad (all the colors I could get basically) with deviled eggs. They are very fond of their eggs here, apparently, so that whetted the appetite for the main course. A penne pasta with a white wine/cheese sauce, tastefully enhanced by fresh garden herbs. I was told that the guest didn’t like spices or herbs at all, but the way I figured it had more to do with the combinations and effects of said spices and herbs. I kept the tastes mild, soft, and creamy, and it was good.

Today I made a pumpkin soup for lunch, because I am trying to maintain my diet of proper feeding despite me keeping busy and sometimes forgetting to stop and eat. Luckily around six the work day comes to an end, and I can focus on cooking something that will keep my nutritional intake up-to-date, so to speak. Hah.

So far the weather has been relatively mild. There’s been rain, sunshine and lots and lots of clouds…which reminds me, there are lots of air balloons around these past, just yesterday one almost landed on top of us, which drove the dogs here a wee bit bonkers.

As for the proper attire over here…I’ve got myself some willies, aka rubber boots, (yay!) a good wax raincoat, and a matching Australian bush hat of real leather that is supposedly water proof. Let the rains begin…well, not right this instance, and not permanently, please, but I’ll take ‘m all for a “test drive” just as soon as the opportunity arises.

Hauled around some trees…nothing big, mind you. 5-6 foot long at most, ten, maybe fifteen inches thick. The gates here are not properly installed to keep lively dogs inside, so I needed to put in some emergency thresholds. They won’t be permanent, since it needs to look better than this, but for now it’ll do. I call it a workout. *wink*

Been working with the animals some as well, in particular obedience training. They are eager to learn but working with bigger groups than just one or two, is difficult. You’ll have the full attention of a dog, and are trying to make it sit, or lay down, only to have it be distracted by some other nimwit jumping at the treat you’re trying to use as a lure to make it obey. Hah. Still, all things considered; not bad.

I might have good news in the near future, but I don’t want to jinx it, so I won’t share just yet. Might be nothing too, so it has no use to get you all excited about it anyway. Hah. We’ll see.

Will be going home for a visit in September, by the way. First big brother will come to visit, help me out a little, and then I’ll fly back with him to be home with my lovelies for a day or two. Can wait to see my Knight and Sitabah and Daxie…even Tadaika, and Indigo, and Jelly, and all the others. Very difficult to be away from the lot like this.
Less than six month to go, I have to keep reminding myself of that.

But, it’s not all bad. I am adjusting, I think. There are moments I can just let go and enjoy the scenery, or the work. Right now I’m still running on a basis, “be busy or crash” thing, but even that should get less bad at some point…I hope.

The foot…well, on that part things are pretty good at the moment. I wonder if it has to do with the flat ground, or the softness of it, or something, because despite the heavy boots I’m wearing most of the day, I’m not suffering from extremely painful conditions. How’s that for strange, eh. A positive thing.

Well, that about sums up the past week. Sure there have been unpleasant moments, and frictions and human interactions that might have gone better, but I rather focus on the nicer stuff, ya know. Heck, I even got some edits done.

Saying that, I have some concerns about the home front. Apparently Knight II is having some trouble eating, which could have to do with the warm weather there, but still. And grandpa had himself a scare while he was out in the yard. He stubbed his foot somewhere and ended up bleeding all over the place. Makes me worried that his blood thinners might be doing their job a bit too well. Apparently he had to apply pressure a long time before it stopped bleeding.

As to anything else. I’m too tired now…sorry. I’ll be back.

Seriously hating hospitals

Song of the day: “Under the sun” by Cheryl Cole. It is starting to get a little old now. I’m ready for something else. If it is still in my head tomorrow, I’m going back to singing Will Young’s “Come on” darn it. Works like a charm to kill another song that keeps haunting me.

So yeah, the end of the weekend, and back into the new week, darn it. Why do the weekends go so fast as opposed to the…wait a minute, the entire week goes way too fast. Grrr.
But anyway, I had a wonderful dream about going to Ireland the other day. Was absolutely splendid, so I am totally going to do that one of these days, just to see if my dream compares to reality. I would fully describe the dream, but let’s face it, I’m late again, and wouldn’t be able to go into that much detail if my life depended on it. It comes down to the fact that I’ve had a ridiculously long day and am looking forward to calling it a night. Hah.

Oh gawd, I don’t know how I could have forgotten (or didn’t I) to mention that we have the Land Rover back. Yay. They fixed the transmission box, and she’s purring like a kitten again, so double yay on that, despite the fact that now there appears to be a problem with the speedometer. The mechanic promised to look at that later, because they weren’t sure if the problem had been there (it hadn’t) prior to them fixing the car. We’ll get to that later. I’m just happy it’s working again. Of course (this comes as no big surprise to me, by the way) now the Opel has an appointment again because there’s this weird screeching sound. Aaaargh. Stupid cars! Hah.

Saturday: Right now, thinking about it, I’m drawing a complete blank. Hah. Lemme just get my diary here…right. We went over to Liane, the lady with the fence we built, to check out the pool and to take measurements for the adjustments she would like us to make.
It didn’t take long to figure out what the problem with the pool was. After crawling through the water for about an hour I found a small hole about three inches from the wall, which had created a path toward one of the supports and literally streamed out there. Soaked through, and wary of the swarm of bees that had decided to make the leak spot their watering hole, we finished up our foray about two hours after arrival and headed back home.

There was cooking, and yard stuff. First cabbage seeds are in the multi pots. Coliflower, broccoli, white cabbage, red cabbage and kale, which should make up for part of this winter’s suppers. That done, big brother and I went back out for a donation, which took way too long of course, meaning that I didn’t have a lot of time to write…it’s a procrastinating thing, I assure you. When I do get to sit down at my computer, my focus decides to take a flying heap. No worries, though, I’ve reached the three hundred page line today, and that’s a yay too. The end is nigh.

That night I had a rather scary dream about finding a splash of blood on the floor, and then finding the cause of it. In the dream Arthur had basically been ripped to pieces, which make feel all icky when I woke up. Decided to give Arthur a good petting when he came outside, just because I felt like it. Hah.

Had our visiting dogs for company while I hung laundry, and rushed through breakfast so big brother and I could head down into the yard and take apart a wooden constellation because we’re going to use it for the wooden partition around Sally’s cabin. It took a few hours, and there was full sunshine, but the breeze kept it bearable at least. Only managed to drill out two of the poles, by the way, because apparently I put them in well last year, hah, because the jackhammer had trouble getting through it. Ended up with two poles before I had to rush up so I could drive middle sister to the gas station where mom had made an appointment with two separate couples who offered to take “yellow bird” and the chinchilla off our hands. Tight finances call for extreme measures after all. Both couples seemed nice, and the ones who took the bird said that if we ever needed a place for birds, we should just call them because they had three (or five) aviaries to fill yet. A reassuring thought what with the parrots still in the cage in the house. It is nice to know that they have a place to go if things ever get dire.

There was supper, of course, and though it was wonderful, my stomach did not agree with it last night. Half of it came right back up, darn it. I hate it when that happens. It reminds me of the times when that was a normal occurrence for me and depresses me. *sigh*

Sally’s been very tired, which is basically the only side effect she suffers from during the treatment. Which reminds me, this morning we headed out early because we had to go to two hospitals in a row. First in Malaga, where she got radiated as usual (after having to wait for a full half hour after we had been specifically asked to be there at one thirty on the dot. We were) and then Marbella where she had her first meeting with her oncologist.

Almost didn’t make it there either, seeing as there was some sort of traffic jam going on that appeared out of the blue on one of the most dangerous roads of the area. I had about three seconds of warning while the bloke in front of us stamped on his brakes and put on his flashers. I pumped my own, once, twice, and then came to a full standstill with the third, less than a yard behind the car in front of us. Jeez. My blood dropped straight from my brain, leaving me a little breathless as I looked from the stopped cars to Sally and Dani (she volunteered to go along to translate) to see if they weren’t plastered against the front windshield. Double jeez. That was close, but the brakes held true, I didn’t go into a skid, and we got through it without damage. Yay!

At the hospitals, we went through the whole song and dance, she was examined, all the questions got asked and filed and then there was the talk. The nasty business of what her previous doctors hadn’t gotten around to explaining: “You’re tumor is not curable, and there is nothing we can really do except treat your symptoms.” Yikes. She was startled, but not sure enough about her English to respond to it. That came later while we were in the car with her, and at home. She had thought that they were going to cure her, that the test result would come out as relatively harmless, but now she heard that they were basically aiming to make her life as pleasant as possible for what time was left for her. *sigh* She’s taking it well, so far, agrees that the doctors don’t know everything and that she’s going to make the best of it. I’m sure she’ll have some bad days coming, but so far her attitude toward it is admirable. Let’s hope she can keep up the positivity, which is one of the most important things at this stage.

The fence building job is going through, and despite the fact that I went through the majority of the DIY stores in the area to look at prices, Liane decided to keep it simple and picked the metal fencing to close it off. Good thing, since it will take the least amount of time…in particular with the predicted rain, and the yard stuff we still need to do. As it is, we’ll be busy with it, two to three days, which is going to make it all a tight squeeze.

My doggies are bound to be upset with me again, but it can’t be helped. Knight II will be going along, of course, but the Chaos will be resentful, to say the least.

But anyway, once we got home today, I was seriously running on fumes. I dislike hospitals severely, and the bummer is, that when Sally’s chemo starts we should prepare to spend a full day there because they will try to fit as much treatments into one appointment as they can. I better have a book and computer along for the occasion.

Luckily big brother cooked, so I didn’t need to do that. After walking through two hospitals (buildings and parking lots) and two massive DIY warehouses, I really wasn’t in the mood to cook. I was actually jealous of big brother and grandpa who spent the majority of the day in the basin, mucking out sludge. Seriously, it is preferable to hospitals. Hah.