Category: Mushrooms.

Concrete ice.

October 19, 2022 · Leave a comment ·

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Yesterday night I didn’t get much sleep. Nova got some kind of stomach flu and had to go outside every now and again, usually just as I started to fall asleep again. Also at 1:30 am I needed to go to the bathroom myself and after that it was even harder to fall asleep.

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So I was so tired at work that I went home a couple of hours early. I wanted to leave earlier than I could but suddenly some job came in (that we’ve been waiting for a long time) so I had to finish that before I could leave. So I thought it would be too late to take a nap because I didn’t want to have trouble falling asleep in the evening again. I made fish and rice for Nova (well the other two got some too of course) and after that I sat down in my recliner.

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I did wake up every now and again to let the dogs go outside in to the garden but mostly they wouldn’t since the rain was pouring down the entire day and well into the night. So when it was time to actually go to bed I just went upstairs and fell to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow 🙂 🙂 🙂 Novas stomach had calmed down so I didn’t have to get up because of her either. I still was nasty tired when I woke up but that feeling just vanished when I had my big cup of tea 🙂

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The world outside was pretty cold when I let the dogs out. Didn’t feel that bad because there was no wind but I realized how cold it was when I was about to scrape off the ice from the car. Concrete ice I call it. I managed to scrape off enough so I could drive till the end of the village road, there I stopped and scraped off the rest 🙂 🙂 Tomorrow morning will be much the same they say and I’m not looking forward to it.

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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.

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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 🙂

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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!

It’s warm on the sunny side.

September 18, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

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The sun has mostly shined all day but the temperature has barely reached above 13C (55,4F). It does feel much warmer in the house on the southern part of it where the sun hits than it does on the northern side (and I mean indoors). So while I’ve been able to have the kitchen door open for quite some time today I’ve still had the radiator on in the living room where there isn’t any window on the south side of it 🙂

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We were out in the early morning and for once we actually saw a couple of Roe deer. Alma went nuts as always but Albin did actually stay quite calm. I did manage to calm down Alma after a couple of minutes but she refused to stop looking at the point where she last saw them 🙂 Too many scents after the wild hogs all around us though so she was still all over the place when we were walking. I brought a plastic bag with me and I did find some mushrooms, not the most yummy but they are perfect if one wants to make a mushroom sauce.

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No need to make dinner for the coming week at work today, I did that last week and since I’ve been at home all week I still have it in the freezer 🙂 Today I also tried cooked food for the first time (well unless one counts toast as cooked, it is after all sort of fried) and so far so good 🙂

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Economists are surprised that we have stopped to buy other things than necessities much earlier than they anticipated. I wonder why since they’ve scared the crap out of people telling us that electricity and petrol prices will be insanely high the coming winter. Also all the central banks have raised the interest rates to stop the inflation, which has no effect on the electricity and gas prices what so ever, making the living costs insanely high as well for lots of people. So how can they be surprised at all? Of course people will stop buying things they really don’t need when they’re told the coming winter will be as close to harmagedon as possible without actually go through Harmagedon for most people 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Well nothing much we can do about it anyway to be honest , all we can do is to hope it won’t be too bad. It is time for a cup of tea and some toast and after that it’s time to give the dogs their food too.

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Have a great day!

It’s a mushroom year.

September 16, 2022 · Leave a comment ·

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We’ve had a rather nice day over here. It started out cloudy but then the clouds broke up and after that it’s been rather sunny. Lots of smaller clouds up there in the sky but still sunny enough to warm up my little cottage.

DSC_0005 (2) — I’ve heard that they’ve been working a lot out at the peninsula this week but at first it didn’t look as they had thinned out anything.

DSC_0011 (3) — They had but just enough so that the trees will have enough space to grow (this is now days a part of the nature reserve. They removed all spruces so that a more natural forest will grow up again). I must admit that it is quite nice to walk around in a birch forest.

DSC_0010 (4) — I also found a Lingon berry 🙂

I went to the optician yesterday and this time it was a young man that checked my eyes, it’s almost a year ago I did that last time so I didn’t think my eyesight had changed at all. Turns out they had. I don’t know why but suddenly he asked me if I was a hunter? I said I’m not and he didn’t have high thoughts about hunters at all 🙂 🙂 Around where he lives it seems they mostly have trophy hunters who doesn’t care about the wild life at all so I was happy to tell him that here it is quite the opposite since they always check how many of each animal we have here and how many they can hunt without disturbing the balance.

DSC_0006 (3) — The autumn has come much further out on the bog than closer to the village.

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I told him about how the hunters not even was upset about us having wolves close by and that they also cared about the lynx living in the area. That would not be the case where he lived. We kept on talking about that for almost twenty minutes but we did actually talk about the lenses too 🙂 🙂 I sure hope he didn’t have any other customer waiting after me 🙂 🙂 🙂 So now I’m waiting for the lenses to be made and when they arrive I’ll get another appointment so they can check that they work for me and then they’ll give me yet another appointment after a week or so to see how things work out. No need to teach me how to put in a lens though, I have no problems what so ever to poke myself in the eye without blinking 🙂

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I had a short walk with the dogs this afternoon and brought a plastic bag just in case I would find any mushrooms. I think I can say that this is a mushroom year. I know quite a lot of edible and unedible mushrooms but I still only pick a few of what actually is edible. There are always too many delicious mushrooms that can look way too much some that are more or less deadly. Even though I know the difference between a deadly White Toadstool and a white champignon I still don’t pick the champignon just in case I for some reason would make a mistake. So I only pick the ones that are totally sure like chanterelles, boletes and hydnoid fungi (and a few more). We don’t have chanterelles in this part of the forest and very few hydnoid fungi but we have loads of boletes.

The boletes I found today has a slimy layer over its hat and it is a bit tricky to get rid of that before doing anything with the mushroom. It must be something like trying to remove the slime from a slug 🙂 🙂 🙂 They are quite tasty when being fried though 🙂 They are also favorites amongst the larvae community 🙂 So even if it looks like quite a lot when one comes home it really looks like very little when one finally has fried them 🙂 🙂 🙂 I think I have enough for two sandwiches with mushroom stew on them 🙂 🙂 Lots of more mushrooms in the forest though so if I only remember to bring anything to carry them home in I think I’ll have plenty for the rest of the year if I want them in my dinners 🙂

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It is time to give the dogs their dinner and even though I do feel slightly better I think I’ll settle with some toast with perhaps jam and cheese 🙂

Have a great day!

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A bit too heavy.

September 8, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

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The day started rather nice, reasonable warm for being an autumn morning and the sun slowly rising. After that it sort of went down hill 🙂 Strong and chilly winds arrived and so did clouds. We did get some sunshine later in the day but the winds were too chilly for the sun to warm up.

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We have some filters at the huge washing machine at work that needs hydrochloric acid and caustic soda to work. No big problem really because we handle it rarely and when we do we have protective clothes and a breathing mask. The problem is that the containers weigh between 75kg and 85kg (165,3 pound and 187,4 pound) and it isn’t possible to use any kind of lifting device where they are placed.

e (4)

So I changed four of those containers yesterday and that wasn’t a good thing to do 🙂 🙂 🙂 The joints in my left hand aren’t happy and neither are the joints in the toes on my right foot 🙂 🙂 🙂 My back has some things to complain on as well to be honest so I only stayed for almost half the day at work so the filters could be cleaned. The only reason I’ll go to work tomorrow is because I’m the one who knows what to check inside the washing machine after they’ve stopped painting for the day. We have so much to do now that we work 24 hours a day now and the only time we can really go through the washing machine is on Fridays afternoon.

a (11)

I’ve started two radiators today. The chilly wind really cooled down the cottage and even though I’m preparing for lower temperatures to keep the electricity bills down the coming winter I really didn’t want to freeze now when my joints are acting up 🙂 🙂 Sweden is the biggest exporter of electricity in the EU so our electricity should be pretty cheap to be honest but since the EU now is one big market we’re now forced to pay a much higher price because for some reason we must pay when the electricity costs on the open market and that price is founded on what the most expensive power cost at the end of the month. So even if we don’t use especially much natural gas in this country we still have to pay for what the gas costs.

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I really can’t understand that logic to be honest. We really should pay for what the energy costs at that speciffic time we used it and since we don’t use natural gas we really shouldn’t pay the price for it either. They are now thinking of removing the natural gas as the price indicator but EU rarely works fast so who knows when that will happen. So now they say that every house owners should have at least $ 5000 US as a buffer to be able to managed the electricity cost. They are also talking about some kind of support so that we don’t have to pay so much for our power but we’ll have our election for government on Sunday so they’ll say anything right now to be honest.

DSC_0023 (1) — At least 2,5 meters (much the same in yards) high.

Have a great day!

It’s always fun to get a summer cold.

June 11, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

a (1)

I sound like I have been drinking whiskey and smoking twenty four seven for the last thirty years 🙂 My throat hurts and it feels like fever comes and goes as it pleases. I did feel a bit off yesterday but thought it was just being Friday and I’m getting up at 3:30 am in the morning.

a (4)

So I haven’t done an awful lot today but I have actually vacuumed all floors. The dogs do drag in a lot of mud and sand but I have contributed to it a lot as well since I didn’t remove my shoes after working in the potato and vegetable patches.

a (10)

I’m going to x-ray one of my hips next week so if I’m not better on Monday I won’t go to work. I really don’t want to risk being stopped just because I have a cold and I do need to do this next week because I’ll go to the doctor for the hip check up the week after and then those x-rays are needed.

a (15)

I do have a lot of honey so I think that at least my throat will feel ok pretty soon. I’ll also drink a lot of rose-hip soup, I always do that when I have a cold 🙂 Too bad that I don’t have any ice cream or ingredients to make som myself but I guess one can’t have it all. It’s time to make that soup 🙂

Have a great day!