Soledad's Journal

And I thought I would be done with Easter preparations by now! How... optimistic of me!

Anyway, I made gift bags of old wrapping paper today, in which to deliver the Kinder Schokobons tomorrow. Today, it was delivery day for the little pom-pom bunnies in their baskets. Also, I had to go to the pharmacy for Mum's medication - naturally, they didn't have everything and needed to order them first. Which means I'll have to go back tomorrow. At least it is a fairly quick process with this particular pharmacy, since they are open 24 hours on every day. Plus, I get allowance on quite a few things due to my customer card. Of course, the district nurse managed to prescribe one bottle of eye drops for Mum again; she keeps doing this, unless Mum specifically asks for three. They've been playing this stupid game for years by now; one would think the woman would have understood the requirements after all this time. Obviously, one would be wrong.

Afterwards I went to choir practice, which was fun this time. It appears we're going to have guests on Easter Monday: our choir leader and Eenie are coming over after lunch - which in Eenie's house takes place after 3pm, they being a half-Spanish family. So, I guess we can count on their visit around half past four at the earliest. But that's okay. We usually take a late lunch, too. Having guests means, however, that I'll have to bake that Easter cake I was planning to skip this year. Ah, well.

Tomorrow I'll go to our school's Bunny Cup day, which is basically some Easter fun that takes place on the last day before Easter holidays, during what would otherwise be the last two lessons. I'll help Erna direct the 7th and 8th term students baking yeast wreaths. So I've packed my own ingredients tonight, so that I can also bake our own Easter wreath in-between, which is practical, as the school kitchen has a much better oven than I have. *g*

Well, what's all over the town for me, that is. In the morning I took out the selective rubbish, took the empty soda bottles to the machine that pays for them and did the grocery shopping. I didn't get any further than the Lidl next corner and was glad about it. We're temporarily out of the negative grades - they're supposed to return next week with a vengeance, with double digits, grrrr! - so the walkways were reasonably clear. Getting to the other side of any street was the real problem, as the cleared-off snow is piled into dunes along the walkways on both sides, so... a real adventure. Only that I don't truly feel adventurous these days. *sigh*

In the early afternoon we had additional choir practice, which I attended because we're going to sing on the funeral of our choir leader's late husband. We practiced a very beautiful Hungarian folk song called the Evensong and the canon "Dona nobis pacem". I was glad I got to sing something I actually like but not about the occasion. :(

But at least practice took place early enough so that a great many of my former colleagues were still at school. It was nice to see all those people, to chat with them a little bit. I used to like this school and all the colleagues... well, almost all of them. But if Boss Lady hadn't been such a b*tch I could have lived with the rest of them.

Anyway, it was a nice - albeit short - reunion, and Mum was happy to learn that all the people who knew her from earlier school events still remembered her and asked about her.

... but they sum up in the end, so they must be appreciated.

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Due to all those activities, we had brunch rather late and saved the leftovers for tomorrow. Which means: no cooking tomorrow, either! Yay!

... at least where crafting is concerned. Have I said I wouldn't make any new elephants for a while? Well, I won't - not the big ones anyway. But I still had enough fabric left from Grandma's favourite undress for two small ones; that is roughly 40% smaller (and still have enough for two lavender sachets that will eventually be sewn). So, today I cut out the parts for Emma and Lilly, the two very floral, small elephants. A good thing that the dress is now all but used up, or else we'd be overrun by elephants! *g*

Other than that, I did the big grocery shopping today, promptly falling into the trap of reduced prices. Lidl is having their Alpenfest days, meaning that they offer various items from the alpine region's cuisine. I bought a box of pork knuckles (slow-cooked, so they only need 35 minutes in the oven), Weizenbier and two packets of fresh Spätzle, one of which already got turned into cheese noodles for two days. Yum!

I also bought a big box of 10 frozen Pretzels. Two of them served, freshly baked up, as breakfast. Mum and I both love them, but the ones I can get at Aldi or Lidl usually are too hard for her. Now she can have them fresh from the oven, which is great.

All these things basically ate up the whole day (except for a short nap in the afternoon). No writing today so far, but I hope to type up some of the already written parts later on. I do the first correction during this process, so it does count as writing, too - well, kind of.

Social life consisted of a phone call to Erna, our art teacher. Poor (ex-)colleagues are already run ragged, and now the stupid annual Faschingsball is coming up this week, too. Man, am I happy to be retired and able to avoid that mess!

Especially as I had to go out in the midday heat.

First, I delivered the baby book to my friend Ilonka, who was very happy with it.

Then we had a little get-together at one of our retired collegaues, complete with cooking over a (very small) campfire. Unfortunately, quite a few couldn't come for various reasons (all very understandable), so the atmosphere wasn't what it usually is like. Ah, well, there is always a next time.

At the very end, when I was about to leave, there was a downpour of rain - for exactly as long as it took me to get from Elise's house to the tram station. So I wasn't only hot, I also got wet, despite the umbrella I was careful enough to take with me. Gah.

When I got home, we ate ice cream and cheesy buns for lunch - neither of us has much of an appetite for a cooked meal in this heat. Then I dropped onto the bed and slept like a log for more than an hour. I'm feeling moderately alive now. *g*

I took with me Evie's felt songbook but couldn't deliver it, as she was one of those who couldn't come. So I entrusted it to Erica who'll meet her tomorrow at school. Problem solved. :)

Well, actually just the morning, and even that included some serious grocery shopping, but I enjoyed it very much anyway.

My friend Eenie and I have this ritual that we go to some fancy café once in every summer, and that was today. Not because of the coffee itself, which is usually overpriced, but for the environment and for the relaxing and stuff. This time we went to the Café Frei in the Savoy Park shopping centre. As you can see, it is a very pretty place:



I had a Wiener Kapuziner and she had a Black Forest coffee dessert, which looked delicious; I'll try that one next time.

And since we were next to the Auchan supermarket anyway, I did a serious amount of shopping, too. Eenie very generously offered to chauffeur me and my acquisitions home, so I bought all those things that are heavy and hard to haul home on the tram: cleaning things, mineral water, boxed milk, lots of yogurt and the likes. So we are covered for quite some time with those.

Fortunately, I didn't have to cook today. We had the last of the leftover soup and the veggie burgers, plus some banana bread and even some ice cream, which was nice. Tomorrow I'll have to think of something. Perhaps some lemon chicken will be in order. We'll see.

Edit: I just got the e-mail that one of our retired colleagues died last night. We weren't exactly friends, but we've worked together for near twenty years and she lived two streets away, so we often took the bus home together and chatted frequently. She was quite a few years older than I am, but still...

And this time I was the crazy one. I needed to clean the raised toilet ring because it needs to be de-scaled regularly. So I took it off and saw that the actual toilet beneath it needed de-scaling, too. Since I had to scrub the toilet ring in the bath-tube, I had to scrub that thoroughly as well. And since I was there already, I scrubbed the sink and a good deal of the tiles, too. By the time our cleaning lady arrived I was practically breathless - and I couldn't blame anyone but my crazy self. *g*

Consequently, no cooking and no crafting was done today. Putting things back to their place took another hour or so, and after that it was leftovers and vegetating in front of the telly. Cleaning always has this effect on me. ;)

In any case, another (ex-)colleague realized I had birthday and gave me a call. It lasted a good 40 minutes, and we laughed a lot and talked about old times and kiddies we had both taught. Some of those kiddies have families on their own by now - it shows that we are getting old, even though we try to hide it.

As I said, no crafting today, but I've finally hunted down some promising templates for the counting page that is supposed to consist of 12 Christmassy cupcakes. Of course, for 12 cupcakes to fit onto the same page, they need to be really small, so I might not be able to use my nice and easy, ready-made felt numbers but will have to create much smaller ones myself. Gah, and I thought this would be an easy pattern! But what must be done must be done, there is no way around it.

Since Elise's 8th-term-class has invited me to their farewell ceremony, I decided to make them a farewell gift. So I put Theo's cooking book aside and started making little owls, based on these guys:



Of course, I won't have the time to sew them; making these took ma half a year, for the last group I was actually allowed to teach; so I decided to make a cardboard version, in the hope that I'll be able to finish them in the less than two weeks I've got until the actual event. Today, I cut out all the owl bases and the belly parts, and made a rough cut of the eyes. I'll glue these parts together before I'll start with the wings and the beaks.

The best part of it is that I only had to sacrifice one sheet of craft paper for them; for everything else I could use up some leftover card stock scraps I had in my cupboard. That is, in my eyes, a double win!

Other than that, we had a visit from the chiropodist (the one who can't speak and work simultaneously and, unfortunately, does speak a lot), which pretty much ate half of our day. I thought I wouldn't be able to manage all the cutting I planned for today, but in the end I did, after all. Of course, my hands hurt now a bit, but the worst part is done.

I cooked. I made a food run. We had a visit from the physiotherapist, which always leaves Mum tired and ache-y. So yeah. Back to routine.

I talked on the phone to my friend Elise who told me about Boss Woman's latest performance. Boy, am I grateful that I no longer work under that person's yoke! I feel sorry for my girls, though. As if Covid weren't bad enough...

The icon to this post are titled "Radek working", and I chose it because I was very busy today, too.

I spent most of the day finishing the sea page to Little Emma's birthday quiet book. The good thing with sewing is that I can do it in my bedroom, while the telly is running, unlike with paper crafting. So yeah, I was sewing on pieces of velcro and other delightful things, but at least the page is done now. There'll be a picture, as soon as Mother Nature provides me with enough light for my iPad mini to take a decent photograph.

I also baked a small cheesecake (with chopped apples), and I talked to my friend Erna on the phone. (Ex)colleagues are happy this weak because they're having autumn break and don't have to expose themselves to several hundred potentially infected children. Of course, when said children come back on Monday they'd probably have been on holidays at some crowded places, so things will definitely take a turn to the worse. As if they weren't bad enough already. *sigh*

On happier news, our young colleague A. has finally given birth. Baby boy is 3120 gr and 53 cm and is cute as a button.