Category: Autumn.

Mixed weather.

October 15, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

DSC_0001 (13) — How I wish I could say that it was a foggy day 🙂

I really shouldn’t drink a lot before I go to bed but yesterday evening I did so I woke up just before 4 am 🙂 🙂 I let the dogs out and it was quite pleasant outside. There wouldn’t be any daylight in hours so I went indoors and prepared our breakfasts.

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Just before we were going for a walk thew rain started to pour down. It’s no idea to try and get the dogs outside while it is pouring down so instead I had a cup of tea and some digestives with blue cheese :-9 Well the dogs had too so they were quite pleased.

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As soon as the rain stopped falling we went outside and I don’t think we managed to walk more than 50 meters (much the same in yards) before it started again. I sure wasn’t about to turn back home again so we continued. By the time we reached the old stable the rain was even worse than before so we stood there sheltered for quite some time.

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It never really stopped to rain but it didn’t at least pour down as before so off we went. Suddenly Alma started to walk in the puddles splashing the water all around her to my very big surprise 🙂 🙂 Well as normal she only thought that was fun for around twenty seconds and after that she continued to pull the leash 🙂 She does behave better now though, sometimes the leash isn’t stretched as if I was trying to hold an ocean yacht on a stormy day 🙂 🙂

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The sun started to shine almost as soon as we had come home again. It did so for quite some time but more rain is on its way they say. I’m in no hurry to go outside again so I am at the moment baking a bread in my slow cooker. Smells really nice but I think it’s around two hours left before it’s done 🙂 I can’t wait for that first slice with melted butter and cheese and a nice cup of tea 🙂

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Have a great day!

I might risk a cup of tea tonight as well :-)

October 13, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

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Time just flew away at work today and since the weather was quite nice I could have the big door to the painting box open quite a lot. Someone at work b rings fresh pears to work every day so we all can eat them when we like to. I like to a lot 🙂 🙂 I think he has brought two different kinds and I’ve saved quite many pear kernels that I now have in moist paper towels (in plastic bags) in the fridge. They are really tasty so I hope that if I get any trees they’ll give just as tasty fruits too.

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I took a look at “My pages” at my electricity company and in there I can see how much electricity I’ve used per day and the outdoor temperature as well. I can also see what it was like last year at this time of year. So according to the electricity company I’ve used 19,2% less electricity now than last year. The only days I’ve spent more energy this year are on especially Sundays and I’m not surprised since I do most vacuuming, washing laundry and making dinner for the coming week on Sundays. Last year I was lazy and bought most of my dinners at work 🙂 🙂

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We managed to take a walk in the forest before the sun set today. No hunters out today and they won’t be here until Sunday again. I wonder if they either have shot their moose or if they’ve just given up, so far this autumn I’ve just seen one set of tracks from moose so I doubt that there are especially many in the neighborhood. Then again there are lost of wild hogs so I think they can concentrate their hunting on them.

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I did actually have a cup of tea the other day and it didn’t affect my sleeping at all, I’m just as tired today so I think I’ll risk taking a cup again today. I might even go so far that I’ll have a couple of Digestives with blue cheese as well 🙂

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Have a great day!

Sunny days.

October 11, 2022 · 6 Comments ·

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Nothing special has happened, the days pass fairly quickly anyway. The sun has been shining these last two days and even though the sky has been more or less cloud free we still haven’t had frost at nights.

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That will change tonight they say, so I’m preparing myself for ice scraping the car tomorrow morning. I already have the winter tires on the car so I have at least not that to think about.

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I got my new lenses today and I tried them on as soon as I came home from work. I do see better in distances with them but instead it’s a bit trickier to read close up. That’s the compromise I had to do. I’ve been driving to work wearing my glasses so far but tomorrow I’ll have the new lenses on.

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I really would like a cup of tea now but I’ll settle for a cup of warm cocoa instead. Then again I’m, like many at work, really tired all the time now so I doubt that any amount of tea will be able to keep me up at night 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Have a great day!

I didn’t know they were on.

October 9, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

d (1)

So the moose hunt has begun so we can’t take our walks in the forest today (nor yesterday). Well they left pretty early yesterday so we might be able to go there later today but the lovely sunshine will most likely be gone by then. The temperature fell down to 0C (32F) this morning but the sun shone so it was still pretty nice to stand on the kitchen stairs and drink a cup of tea.

d (5) — There’s an old well behind the fence.

d (6)

I would have loved to take a walk in the village but since Albin and Alma behaves like they do when ever they see anything moving or a cat or dog sitting still it really is impossible to do that any more. They scream and howl and Albin gets so excited that he ends up biting Alma (well once he bit my knee 🙂 🙂 🙂 He doesn’t bite hard, sort of nibbles but if some skin gets caught it leaves a bruise). Then again Alma is pretty though towards him and I do find marks all over his body when they’ve been playing in the garden.

d (11)

So anyway, yesterday I thought it would be a great idea to walk out in the empty cow pasture just outside my garden. It’s fairly big and usually free from any wildlife during the days as well. Plus I was a bit curious about what walks there at night. Two nights ago Alma (and Albin too for once) barked furiously towards something walking there. It was pitch black so I couldn’t see anything at all. My close neighbors and I wondered if it possibly could be wild hogs. So in we walk and no signs of any pig activity, not even from the piglet that always escapes from his enclosure.

d (14) — Apples growing on my seed sown apple tree, they are delicious.

d (15)

What I did see though was what I call badger paths. Badgers tend to walk the same route every night and after a while they have made clear paths on te ground. So my guess is that it is badgers they’re barking at. We walked around in the pasture a while and went back home again. We did the same routine in the afternoon too. What i didn’t think of the first time we walked there was that there are two metal wires on the ground. I might have gotten caught in one of them but wearing rubber boots I didn’t notice anything. We did however notice it a lot when we went in the second time, there is electricity in them!

d (28) — Well sometimes there’s a deer in the pasture during the day but this one jumped away quickly.

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So when we went back to walk home I wasn’t sure how to pass them without the dogs getting electrocuted by them again. So this time I just dropped the leashes and let the dogs run fast and jump over them 🙂 🙂 No problems at all but I doubt that I’ll be able to make them walk in to that pasture willingly again. I could bring something to cover the wires but Albin and Alma will most likely panic and refuse to walk on what ever I place above the wires. So today the dogs will have to be content with the garden unless the hunters leave early. The hunting group here has two areas not far from each other and they do quite often divided the time between them, half day here and half day there.

d (34)

The laundry is done and it is time to start making dinner for next week at work. This week I’ll have thick ribs 🙂

Have a great day!!

Does it stand for Does Not Serve? :-)

October 7, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

I tried to go out on the net yesterday and I don’t think I’ve had such good coverage in many years but still I couldn’t. When my computer tried to locate what the problem was it said that something was wrong with a DNS server. I have no idea what that is but I guess that DNS stands for Does Not Serve 🙂 🙂 🙂

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We’ve had a couple of really windy days here, so windy that I had to pick up a work friend on my way to work because he has one of those covered mopeds and it’s so high that he wasn’t sure if the wind would pull it of the road 🙂 🙂 🙂 He lives just beside the road I’m driving on to work so that was of course no problem at all. Well the good thing with this wind is that suddenly the price of electricity dropped to the lowest we’ve had in years 🙂 🙂 🙂 Doesn’t help me because my new contract starts on December first.

I talked with work friends and checked the different contracts they offered me and the fixed price is so high that if I chose that one my electricity bill would rice with 400% (it would be around half a US dollar per KWh). I could also chose the price by the hour and try to live my life after how the prices went up and down. One could say that if I wanted to use more electricity for something I would have to do it at night when the prices are as lowest, especially at nights during the weekend. Well I tend to like to sleep during nights so that wasn’t really an option either.

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So I chose something that can be described day by day or ongoing. I’ll pay for the average price for each and every day. If the prices would plummet I can change the contract already the next month if I want to, the fixed price is for a year. It seems that most people at work who needs to renew the contract will chose the day by day variant. So I’ll check if I’ve won the lottery later today, I think that if I won those 500 million kronor (around $45,5 million US) I would be able to feel safe during at least this winter 🙂 🙂 🙂

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I’ve had a rather exciting job at work these last two days. I was standing on a sky lift 6 meters up and spray painting the roof beams in a part of the factory. My brain told me that this is completely safe and nothing to worry about (I have to admit that I volunteered to do this and when I did I don’t think I used my brain at all 🙂 🙂 🙂 ) but my body screamed otherwise 🙂 🙂 Every time I finally had gotten used to it something happened, like the boss phoned me and I really refused to start talking in the phone at that hight, or the spray painter, which is almost as old as I am I think, started to behave oddly. It hadn’t been used in years so when paint mixed with thinner flowed through those old hoses they slowly gave up.

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Well I’ve done it by I must admit that I will never do anything like that in my life again 🙂 🙂 🙂 I think that this was a thing where I was too old to learn and enjoy something like that. My work friend who came to help to paint in those spots I couldn’t reach (he’s much longer than I am) is much younger than I am and he leaned over the railing painting well outside of the sky lift, I held on to the beams like my life depended on it 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Renewing the electricity contract.

October 4, 2022 · 8 Comments ·

a (2)

I’ve nothing to say really. The weather has been nice and work days have passed quickly.

a (19)

I went to the optician yesterday and he corrected what I felt was wrong, I’ll get a text message the day the lenses arrive.

a (23)

It is time to renew my electricity contract. I haven’t checked what they offer yet but I’m pretty sure it’ll be expensive. I can take a fixed price for one year or pay what the electricity costs every hour. If I take the last one I need to check when ever the price is low and do all laundry and vacuuming then and that would most likely be in the middle of the night 🙂 🙂 🙂 I think I’ll go for the fixed price. It might be expensive now but god knows how expensive the electricity will be when winter hits Europe.

a (30)

Have a great day!

I’m so glad she stayed in the garden.

October 2, 2022 · 6 Comments ·

a (1)

I let the dogs out just before going to bed yesterday evening, Albin came back rather soon and just as he was walking indoors I hear Alma bark like crazy and she’s not playing, she was furious. She was at the other side of the garden, barking towards the big pasture but since it was completely dark I couldn’t see anything.

a (9)

It took a while before she finally felt she had done enough 🙂 I still have no idea what she was barking at but she was still very upset when she went indoors. My guess is that it could have been the piglet that always escapes from his pasture, she really don’t like those piglets. It could also be a moose or perhaps a fox or a badger. No person in their right mind would walk there in the dark, it wouldn’t take long until that person would fall and injure him or her self 🙂 🙂 The thing I was most happy about though is that she never left the garden to try and hunt down what ever it was 🙂

a (14)

Yesterday was rather nice with lots of sunshine and nice temperatures, today was more murky with misty rain and grey skies. We did see the sun for about ten seconds but that was it 🙂 🙂 Still I don’t mind autumn days like that, they are perfect to just stay indoors doing very little. Well I did the laundry at five am and at two pm I made dinner for next week at work. The rest of the day I’ve done nothing at all. At least I can’t remember doing anything but sitting in my recliner watching something I’m not interested in on tv 🙂 🙂 🙂

a (18)

I’ll leave work early tomorrow because I’ll go to the optician so we can correct my contact lenses. I should be able to see in long distances since they are progressive but it does feel like they forgot that part when they made this pair 🙂 🙂 I realized that I missed lots of mushrooms when we were out walking because of the lenses, I didn’t wear them yesterday and we walked the same roads and suddenly I saw mushrooms everywhere 🙂 🙂 🙂 (I have those mushrooms in the sauce for my dinners at work for next week 🙂 )

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I’m tired and I would love to join my dogs in my bed right now. Too early though, it’s not even seven pm yet 🙂 Nothing but the news on tv that I want to watch and the news can hardly be called uplifting 🙂 🙂 🙂 They’ll report that the price of fuel have risen lots because the temporarily lowering of the taxes are gone, I’m so happy I filled up my car before I went home on Friday 🙂 They’ll also most likely talk about the sabotage on the two gas pipelines going from Russia to Germany and the risk of having a fascist party pressuring the coming government. They can not create a government without that party’s support so they’ll most likely give that part anything they want. This party is the lackeys of Putin and think it is ok to threaten journalists but I guess having the power will excuse anything.

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Have a great day!

The cold air hit me like a ton of bricks.

September 30, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

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Some morning it feels like it’s just impossible to wake up, this morning was one of those. Then I opened the door to let the dogs out and I woke up in a second, it was -4C (24,8F) and that cold air hit me like a ton of bricks 🙂 🙂 🙂

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The rest of the day has been pleasant though. Lots of sunshine and I opened the big door to where I paint as often as I could, it was still rather chilly until the afternoon so the door wasn’t open for longer periods of time though 🙂

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But like always clouds started to arrive when I stopped working and even though we did have some sunshine while we were out walking clouds soon covered the entire sky. That will at least keep the night temperatures on a much nicer level and well above freezing point and who could ask for more 🙂

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I’m out of energy now so either it’ll be an early night and I’ll go to bed or I will fall asleep in my recliner, I’m pretty sure nothing will be able to keep me awake no matter what I’ll do 🙂 🙂 I might have some red seedless grapes first though, they were on sale when I was in the grocery store today. I do like grapes no matter what color they have and to be honest I can’t say that they taste much different depending on the color, I’ve tasted bigger difference just by eating different green ones 🙂

DSC_0049 (1) — It’s either me or my neighbors who once threw an apple from our own gardens just beside the gravel road and now it gives the most delicious red apples 🙂 I do hope the forest owner leaves it alone.

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Have a great day!

Strong winds and sunshine.

September 28, 2022 · Leave a comment ·

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It drizzled some when I drove home after work today but I think that was all we got, places in the south tip of this country got more today than they usually get during this month. Well they’ve had so little rain this year that they need it but I guess the problem is that the ground is so dry that it couldn’t drink any of it up anyway.

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We’ve had strong winds though and on the forest road I drive on every day a smaller tree had fallen down and torn off the electric wire beside the road. It was tricky to pass that place because we had to almost drive down into the ditch beside. The one behind me most likely got in trouble because it didn’t catch up after passing that place. I know I shouldn’t smile while writing that but that driver is so annoying because he (I guess it is a he driving the car) is so close to me that if I panic break he will hit me pretty hard.

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Nothing had fallen in the forest where we walked after I had come home. We even had some sunshine. One good thing with strong winds is that the moose flies, who are bad flyers, preferres to stay in the vegetation. To be honest I haven’t had that big problems with them this autumn, perhaps the summer was too dry so they died before hatching from the pupae? Then again, the Beekeeper who walks much out on the bog says it’s worse out there so maybe I’ve just been lucky so far?

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Someone has destroyed the two gas pipelines from Russia to Germany, Nordstream 1 and 2. They weren’t used but still full of gas who now leaks out into the water and then out into the atmosphere. We all believe it’s the Russians themselves because anyone doing this needs lots of money and knowledge on how to find the pipelines and how to put explosives on them deep down in the ocean. Now panic is spread because they now think the guilty one perhaps also wants to do this to other gas pipelines and electric cables that lies on the bottom of the ocean. Also this made the price of natural gas go up again and that will eventually make the electric bills be bigger even though we here in Sweden don’t use natural gas to make electricity.

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Well I still have the same price and won’t have to think about that until the 30th of November when I have to renew my contract. It is time for a cup with hot cocoa and after that I’ll fall asleep in front of the tv 🙂

Have a great day!

Tonight they’ll hit a small asteroid far away in space.

September 26, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

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We had lots of sunshine yesterday, very different to what the wetaher sites had guessed 🙂 🙂 Not particularly warm perhaps but warm enough to have the kitchen door open quite a lot.

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Today is a different story, lots of rain and more is on its way. The weather sites are guessing that we’ll have rain for the rest of the week so I wouldn’t be surprised if we instead will have lots of sunshine 🙂 🙂 I don’t mind the rain though, it’s too dry here right now so some trees have leafs that just hang down like unstarched handkerchiefs.

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Nothing much is happening here though and since it is raining the dogs will refuse to take a walk and I can’t complain about that 🙂 🙂 Tonight they’ll hit a small asteroid far away in space just to see if they can change the direction it is travelling in. Just in case they would find one on its way to hit this little planet of ours. I always get a bad feeling when I hear that they will do something like that.

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What if their calculations on what will happen is wrong and that small asteroid will change its direction and hit something else that then will start moving towards us and finally hit and kill us all 🙂 🙂 🙂 Perhaps not in the near future but later on when we won’t suspect anything to hit us 🙂 🙂 Well I’m pretty sure we soon will destroy this little planet f ours anyway so no idea to worry about asteroids far out in space.

Have a great day!

Plum, satsuma and apple jam :-)

September 24, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

It was supposed to be cloudy all day here so I wasn’t the least surprised that we’ve had sunshine for most part of the day. Ok there has been clouds but the sun has had long periods of shining through. It has been fairly warm as well, 17C (62,6F) so the radiators have been turned off and the kitchen door has been open quite a lot.

b (5)

My winter apples that usually aren’t ripe until the middle or late October are already ripe and quite delicious 🙂 I got lots of plums from my neighbors and I realized that I wouldn’t be able to eat them all before they would go bad, not many plums last for any longer period of time I’m afraid. So i cored them out and put them all in the blender. I almost had enough for a big jar but added one of my apples and two satsumas as well 🙂 The apple makes it easier for the jam to harden and I could have used lemon juice but why not use satsumas when I have lots 🙂

b (11)

I also added some cardamom because that’s my favorite spice when it comes to sweet things :-)The jam turned out really well so I’ll have some of it on my pancakes tomorrow 🙂 Alma almost behaved on our walks today. Now when she pulls the leash she only pulls it forward and in a steady pace so it’s easier to keep control of her. She also almost only shouts like insane as long as we pass the neighbors cottage and later on the Beekeepers cottage, after that she only whines a lot but at least rather quietly 🙂 🙂 🙂 She still can’t concentrate on anything for more than fifteen seconds though, I’m pretty sure she has some kind of dog ADHD 🙂 🙂

b (18)

I almost always bring a plastic bag with me on our walks now so I can pick those mushrooms growing on or just on the side of the roads we’re walking. It may look like much when I come home but after frying them there’s very little left 🙂 🙂 My favorite mushrooms to photograph though are the Red Toadstools. Over here we have plastic ones as decorations in our Advent candlesticks 🙂 so when I see the first ones looking up from the ground I start to think of Christmas, almost as early as the advertisers 🙂 🙂 🙂

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We aren’t supposed to have any sunshine tomorrow so i guess we’ll see quite a lot of the sun 🙂 🙂 They’re also guessing that we might get some rain. The coming week will be chillier and we’ll get lots of rain as well according to their guessing. We do need rain so I won’t complain too much if we actually get it. I wouldn’t mind if it became a bit warmer than they are guessing but if they are right about the clouds being here 24/7 we will at least not have frost at nights and therefore I won’t have to scrape ice from my car 🙂

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It is time to get some hot cocoa and since there’s absolutely nothing I want to watch on tv tonight I might look at a dvd instead. I usually don’t fall asleep when I watch a movie so I will be tired by the time I go to bed 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

New lenses.

September 22, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

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Once again I had to scrape ice from my car before leaving for work, I really don’t like it 🙂 Still it doesn’t seem to have been that cold in the garden because nothing looks frozen at all. I guess that my high hedge and the fact that my cottage and my neighbors cottage stays warm enough during the night to keep the frost away until the morning comes.

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I left work a couple hours early today. I went to get my new contact lenses and wanted to try them for a couple of hours today so I would know what they were like. I don’t think it would have been a good idea to put them on tomorrow morning and then drive to work 🙂 🙂 These are test contacts, just to make sure they’ve made them right and I’ll have them until Monday two weeks when I’ll go to the optician again so we can see what I think of them.

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They aren’t perfect, I can see clearly from about 60cm (15 inches) to around 3 meters (much the same in yards). Then there’s a long distance where everything is slightly blurry but I could see the trees on the mountain very clear 🙂 (a mile or so away). It can depend on the light because the lenses are most sharp for shorter distances like reading in the middle because when one reed there’s brighter light and the pupil will become much smaller. The sun shone really bright today so I guess my pupils were quite small all the time. It’ll be exciting to drive to work tomorrow morning when it still is quite dark 🙂

e (8)

The lenses work really well together with the camera though, everything is sharp no matter what distance it is from me and the camera. I have no problems putting in lenses in my eye, old habits die hard or what they say but I did have huge problems getting them out 🙂 🙂 🙂 No matter what I did those lenses sat on the eye as if they were glued, no risk of them falling out by accident though 🙂 🙂 🙂 Then I remembered that one should always look up when picking them out. Didn’t take more than a second when I remembered that 🙂 🙂 But I think I need to buy eye drops because the air in the factory tends to be rather dry, except beside and inside the big washing machine and I’ll be working inside it tomorrow afternoon 🙂

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I think it is time for a big cup with hot cocoa and perhaps a couple of digestives. I’m really tired today, don’t know why, so it’s a good thing I took out those lenses because the odds of me falling asleep in front of the tv are pretty low 🙂 🙂

e (21)

Have a great day!