To Everyone everywhere!

December 31/07 3:03 p.m.

Last day of this ol' 2007 - Let's look ahead into a

Happy New Year! (LINK...touch it!)

My Tom-Tom speaks Turkish!

December 26/07 6:59 p.m.

Festivities over, lots of food still messing up the fridge, I can not help it, always stock up on too much to eat. We will dig into it in the days to come. -
Got a navigation device for my car for X-mas, played around with it very late December 24th, after coming home from the very nice X-mas party at daughter 's place, and bingo, set the thing to the turkish display. Told man of my life, now I would have to learn the turkish language, he kept himself from blowing his top on account of X-mas. He always gets aggravated about things like that very fast, must be a blood pressure matter. Found the reset button after a while, had been a bit slow on account of the X-mas drinks! -
Now we are getting ready for the young family including baby showing up for New Years's - baby's first journey!

X-mas Greetings!

December 23/07 10:48 p.m.

Landfrau and Herr Hund are wishing everyone a

Wonderful Christmastime

with my favoured X-mas-song!

Great Kid!

December 23/07 9:08 a.m.

Now, before we all become too christmassy, here is something,which brings you back to "normal" life, forget about dancing elfs!

http://www.ffk-wilkinson.com/

That Feeling of Christmas

December 20/07 7:43 p.m.

Beautiful, is'nt it? A breathtaking sight in the morning, everything looks like powdered with sugar, the air is so nice and crisp and at nite the scene is lit by the almost full moon . Would not change places with people going south these days.

Have started my food shopping today, the markets are still not crowded only my egg lady, who has her own hens, did not have a single egg left. Told me, to come back tomorrow morning. This way I can be sure that they are mega fresh. -

And, some other thing, friends who are missing my previous post with the dancing elfs, sorry, had the hunch that the link was somehow disturbing my blog. So I took it out.

Who ever is interested, can have the link per E-mail. o.k.?

Are there no Hyacinths in Houston?

December 19 /07 2:30 p.m.

So, dear friend, now you can see what they look like in "full blossom"! -

That's just on the side.

Yesterday we did our annual shopping for X-mas sweets at the most famous confiserie

downtown.It's real nice, if you do not have lots of errands to do and can watch the crowds milling about in a haste.Has been my first trip to X-masly decorated downtown this season! Looked at the giant X-mas tree in a mall, beautifully done up,which gives a light and sound show every hour. A lady standing behind me said to her companion that she had been really touched. When I cast a sneak look at her, she had tears in her eyes. Thats what I call X-mas spirit! We then always have a nice steak lunch at the Block House and after lunch I parked man of my life for an espresso at "the" Italian (as we always call him) in the mall and went scarf hunting in a department store nearby,where I had to cash in a € 10 voucher (never turn a free gift down!).Found just the right thing, sitting on a deco dummy,long and black ,the self knitted look, had it taken off, turned out, it had been the last one in the whole store. Now that I call real good luck and it is like a Christmas present I gave to myself, even if that present still cost me a pretty penny. But never mind, I deserve it! Gee Whizz!

Landfrau laughs again in the morning!

http://video.google.de/videoplay?docid=-1040822561042531433&total=101&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=8

December 20/07 8:45 a.m.

So fitting for this time of the year! - So, friends, look closely before working and remember...only 5 days till X-mas!

The Snow Queen

December 16/07 3:14 p.m.

The snow queen is a very charming fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, right for this time of the year and it came into my mind last nite at our daughter's outside- party. Well, they had put up baldachins and had fires going, "Glühwein" had been served and (brrr) cold beer and grilled deer sausages, very delicious. Nevertheless...our weekend guest, Montana boy, who lives in Texas now had been kind of shivering, a good training for his trip to Norway today. -
Had been warmer for our lunch trip to Schloss Dyck , a water castle (manor house) surrounded by moats, an old piece, founded in the year 1094 and has been in the possession of the family of Salm-Reifferscheid-Dyck since 1455. Had been partly destroyed over the centuries and the last damage had been a 1945 war bombing. Now a foundation is looking after the property and it has been beautifully restored and houses since this year a very nice gourmet restaurant named Blaikie.

Today is a great winter day and Landfrau and Herr Hund enjoyed a "nippy" bike tour through the fields around the village. Now its relaxing inside with nice X-mas songs and cake, sounds tempting? You bet!

Mysterious Postcard

December 12/07 70:02 p.m.

Landfrau really had fun today. Had to get rid of papers and bottles at the local containers. Right next to the paper container there is a mailbox. And there had been that postcard on the ground, with an - undevaluated!, US-stamp. Adressed to someone in the city. Probably fell out of the paper- garbage of someone. Anyway, I picked up the card, read it, of course (came from Florida) and put it into the mailbox. Now I really would like to eavesdrop at some peoples place when they get their discarded card and have to pay fine on account of improper stamp. Hi,hi, some surprise! -
My punishment followed up right away, my favoured glasses fell apart when tried to clean them. Rushed to the optician shortly before closing time and got them repaired and cleaned for free right away. This again I call "good luck"!

Gee, what a Birthday!

December 9/07 00:32 a.m.

No, not mine, my dear friends, would not appreciate it twice in a year, even if it had been such an adequate event. It is seldom, that Landfrau (the soziophobic nut) enjoys an outing. But, chapeau...this birthday celebration realy had been great, might have had something to do also with the table I had been seated at and the nice ,attrative gal whom I already had fun with at a previous encounter. Anyway ...was great it did not rain on me in the end, waiting for man of my life getting the (new) car. -
Had been allowed to drive it today, drives smooth, but nothing beats my "speedy gonzales" mini!

P.S. and today has been yesterday

Can you top that?

December 6/07 pretty late

You think X-mas might be exciting? Well, take my "Nikolaus" day. First of all man of the house wanted to throw my present into the garbage, I had put this big carton onto his chair at the table, unwrapped on accont of the size, only with a bow, must have looked unappealing! - Second, had a sobbing granddaughter at the phone, who got something completely wrong I said, third, after talking tonite with daughter 2.0(always in a rush) and telling her that I just laughed my head off about the DVD "Little Miss Sunshine" , that came as a surprise present from granddaughter (very sweet!!!), told me that now she could keep her copy and that better not get a DVD player for myself before X-mas because she already owns one and does not need two. - Also had a little row with my brother about family matters and now I am winding up my "Nikolaus" day with a big glass of red wine. Cheers!!!
P.S. wish lists are not so great if everyone picks the same gift.

NIKOLAUS TAG!

sida1 LINK!!



December 6/07 8:29 a.m.



So, have you all been good? Has St. Niclas put some goodies into your boot? He did in mine, thanks, Nikolaus!

And for all of you, who have not been so lucky ,here a charming little story, just touch the above link (courtesy http://www.charmingquark.de/) and let yourself be carried into a nice pre-Christmas mood!

...and last year Nikolaus had been very bad!!

Solitary walk this Morning

December 4/07 3:42 p.m.

No, not quite, Herr Hund and myself had been roaming the riverside of the rising Rhein (Rhine) and, very cute, met a solitary pair of wild geese, they must have decided against migration, wise guys!

This is this year!

December 3/07 8:53 a.m.

Deco - galore!

Nice to be inside

December 2/07 2:18 p.m.

Not only no snow,but gusty wind and rain, the "Flying Robert" syndrom! - Beeing out in weather like that, the world consists only of dog owners. Now the Landfrau-Herr Hund team is home, Herr Hund smells, Landfrau smells good.

Advent Sunday

YouTube - The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale of New York

December 2/07 8:43 a.m.

The countdown starts, Christmas is around the corner. And above is my favoured Christmas song , too bad Kirsty MacColl had to die so young, what a voice. (Bible belt residents should refrain from opening the link and should rather look at the nice picture of a nicely decorated table from a previous year, no snow here today).

Tempted?

December 1/07 8:45 a.m.
Promises must be kept, now here is the recipe:
(and, I do not seem to be a gifted photographer of foodstuff,this is the best I could do)-

500 gramms flower (fine)
160 gr. finely ground almonds
250 gr. honey
125 gr. sugar
125 gr.butter
each 5 gramms powdered cloves,cinnamon,ingwer,cardamon
ground lemon peel (1/2 lemon)

5 gramms Kaliumcarbonat
5gramms Ammoniumhydrogencarbonat
(to be dissolved eather in rosewater or rum(for the alcoholics ;0) !)
very strong smell,but dont worry, wont taste it later on.Has to be put through a haresief and added to the doughmixture - important!!)

mix flower,almonds and spices and the smelly stuff
bring to a boil (important) honey and sugar ,let cool off
add
mix dough till it can be rolled out (in case too crumbly,add a bit more honey)
form cookies (with former)
bake 10 to 12 minutes in preheated oven medium heat

still hot, put on icing ,mixed with lemon juice and water to taste

....and do not taste right away,let sit for a day or two

Like me, they get better by age.

And now..good luck! (if you still want to try it)
Oh yes, and store in a cookie-jar at a cool place.