Soledad's Journal

... can do pomp like this - and I mean it in a positive sense. I spent all morning and early afternoon watching "Trooping the Colour", and loved it! Loved the coreography, the music, the uniforms... everything. I'm so glad both ZDF and ORF 2 broadcasted it, because BBC News did not, nor did any of the Hungarian channels. It was a delight, it really was.

Fortunately, I didn't have to cook today, so I could afford to be lazy in front of the TV half a day. *g*

We caught up with sleep in the afternoon, ate leftovers, watched the Great Canadian Baking Show, and with that, the day was over. Loved it.

And on a completely different note:

Happy Birthday, disthrainsdotte!



I hope you had a wonderful day. Wishing you many happy returnings!

Thank you, elwenlj, for the lovely little bells - I've never seen so tiny ones, and I'm sure I'll be able to put them to good use. :)

Also thank you, thesmallhobbit, for the lovely summer card. It was such a pleasant surprise! :)

In other news, Mum and I made our weekly trip to the corner café, which was really nice. Then I made cauliflower Strudel (sorry, noadvertising), talked to my friend Evie on the phone and we watched re-runs of the GBBO. And now I'm about to read some fanfic until "The Repair Shop" starts.

Question to well-informer British people: Is BBC News not showing Trooping the Colour this year? I'd love to watch the parade, but I couldn't find any hint at a live broadcast.

Now I'm up to 5 and have nearly run out of the 1 cm wide paper strips. I'll give the slightly wider - and delightfully patterned - ones a try next. Hopefully the design will work with them, too. *fingers crossed*

I skipped choir practice today (again). Had it been a regular one I'd have gone, considering that we have our term-closing concert on Sunday. But there was planned the good-bye "party" of our little diva, the soprano solist who presumably won't join us next term anymore and I just didn't have the time to waste for that. We'll have an extra practice on Friday, so I'll take part on that one. Yeah, I know I'm petty, so what's new?

Not much else happened. We ate leftovers, I fetched my alarm clock from the horologist and made a quick trip to Lidl for milk, yogurt and ice cream. As usual, they didn't have our favourite, the salted caramel one. From the brand we favour they only had walnut ice - huge staples of it. Their freezer is always full with walnut ice, I don't know why they keep ordering it as nobody seems to buy it. I bought strawberry flavoured Vienetta instead, but caramel ice would have been so much better. Or the coffee one. Ah, well.

The weather is warming up again. It was 27 degrees today but it felt more as the wind has stopped. I mean, I'm glad we can open the windows again without having to nail down everything first, but the heat is so not mine.

Happy Birthday, lissas_elves!

I hope you had a lovely day. It would be nice to hear from you again. It has been too long. :(

Over here, it was a rather unremarkable day. I did the second half of the big cleaning in the morning and was accordingly dead afterwards. Fortunately, we had leftovers (the excellent chicken paprikas I made yesterday), so I only had to throw together a salad. No cooking is always a good thing.

Other than that, I was lazing around and reading my own older BSG/Star Trek TOS crossover stories. I'm planning to start another one in that series, parts of which have existed for quite some time, so I need to check what I had written earlier in order to prevent continuity mistakes. Considering that the first part of the series was written twenty or so years ago, this is really necessary.

The promised rain finally arrived - fortunately for our balcony, it was a very minor one and lasted about five minutes or so. I hope that was it and we can breathe again. At least daytime temperatures dropped by nine degrees, so it's quite pleasant at the moment.

... concerning the basket weaving. I've tried to put together the existing three sides and the basket promises to be an uneven, clumsy and ugly piece of work. I will finish the fourth size, just because I'm stubborn like a mule, but will never give this pattern another try. I've found another one on YouTube - more than one, actually, all of which are done without any glue involved, meaning that the end result won't be sticky and spotty and altogether disgusting. I hope. If not - well, there will be another way to use up my collected toilet rolls.

In other news, it's still freaking hot over here. Temperatures peaked at 32 degrees, they are still at 28 degrees at the moment. Mum is suffering with her aching joints a great deal, I'm just uninspired and sleepy all the time. I had to do the grocery shopping in the early morning, when it was "only" 22 degrees, and that meant getting up an hour and a half earlier than I usually do. Getting up early isn't something I do easily, but needs must. I'll have to do the cooking in the early morning tomorrow, too, or else I'd keel over in the kitchen. Oh, joy.

As for social life, I talked to H. and my friend Evie in the early evening, so at least we still know that the other one is alive. Evie is still at working age, and (my former) Boss Lady is getting more insane with each passing year. Poor colleagues are run ragged, and a lot of things she makes them do are overblown or completely unnecessary. God, am I happy to be an old hag and retired!

... with the basket weaving. I've used a different wet glue. The work itself went a tiny bit better, but the glue soaked through the cardboard and the weave ended up every bit as lopsided as at the first time. Next try: the glue stick. This promises to be a frustrating project, I'm afraid.

Otherwise it was a quiet day - quite warm, too, so we got up earlier than usual to go to our beloved corner café while temperatures were still bearable. The former student of mine who's a fruit vendor was out with his booth and sold excellent strawberries, so I went over and bought some. They weren't cheap, but they are delicious and ripe and Mum loved them.

We then came home and joined forces making lunch: I boiled and peeled the potatoes and the eggs and Mum put together the potato casserole. Then my friend Elise came to fetch her cookies, after which Mum and I both had a nice, long nap. Until it was time to watch re-runs of the GBBO. And now it's nighttime again... but still quite warm. Phew!

I've got up to 24 degrees in the morning. By the time Mum and I made our morning excursion (she admiring the toddlers on the playground, me hopping over to Lidl), it was 28 degrees - at half past ten in the morning, mind you! Currently, it's 31 degrees. We are sitting in the flat with blinds down and all windows firmly closed to keep the heat out. Ah, well, at least I didn't have to cook today!

Crafting-wise I've made one side of the little cardboard baskets. It was harder than I imagined. Part of the problem was that I can't for my life, cut things (even paper) in a straight line, so the individual strangs didn't fit as they should have. Another part of the problem was probably the wet glue that I used. I do own a hot glue gun, but... well, let's just say that the piping bag isn't the only thing I'm fairly hopeless with.

I'll try a different kind of wet glue tomorrow... and when that doesn't work, either, I'll switch to the glue stick - and to double-sided tape if nothing else helps. Those all have their own nasty tricks, so this promises to be a really interesting project (in the Chinese curse sense of "interesting"), and the four sides of the poor basket will probably turn out all different. But we all learn through pain, right? *g*

Lidl is having Greek days right now, so I've bought some frozen spinach and feta satchets, which we'll bake up in the oven as soon as temperatures go down a little. I've also bought halva with pistachios in it. I hope it will be better than the supposedly pistachio-flavoured ice-cream I bought on Friday and that tastes very artificially, almost like perfume. Grrrr. We had to pour eggnog over it, which is a waste of good alcohol, but what else could we have done?

Oh, and before I forget: congratulations, adafrog, to the 20th birthday of your journal! It seems we've all been on LJ for a considerable time. :)

I've finished and boxed everything; Elise can come and fetch her cookies any time she can. Our batches are boxed, too, although we sampled them to our afternoon coffee; just to check the quality, of course. ;)) I also made the cheesy scones, which we promptly had for lunch, since they are the best when they come fresh from the oven. That means two cooking-free days for me, as we still have a big heap of Shepherd's Pie in the fridge.

We also had laundry day, like every Saturday, and I took Mum out to the playground next to our building, where she amused herself with watching the toddlers while I hopped over to Lidl for a bit of shopping. After that, I discovered a woman selling local strawberries near the supermarket. They were quite price-y, but huge, ripe, and actually tasted like strawberries, so I bought half a kilo for twice the price they would have cost at Lidl. Mum judged that they were well worth the price, so I might do it again, should the woman still be there.

I've also done some preparations for tomorrow's (half)-cleaning frenzy that will include the bath, the loo, the kitchen, the anteroom and the balcony. Gah, I so hate cleaning! But it must be, especially after having liberally coated the kitchen in floor, icing sugar and other baking ingredients for three days in a row.

... since I don't seem to be able to comment at the moment.

at my little sewing kits, shall we?

This is what they look in the outside, with the lids closed.

And this is the inside, with the little pincushions and the reserve buttons.

I think they turned out cute enough. Not very professional but cute. I'm content with the outcome.

Not much else got done today. I cooked lunch, solved some crossword puzzles, we watched some TV and took our respective naps. My way-too-smart phone tried to make me believe that there were 23 degrees in the outside - well, it definitely didn't feel like that when I opened the windows. That stupid wind we've had for about two weeks by now makes even lifting the flat complicated. When I open the window, things start flying across the room! *Grrrrrrrrrr!*

Weather forecast promises rain for tomorrow. If the wind keeps this level, I see dark about the balcony. :(