Life never stops to amaze me.

Isn’t it amazing how you can have a really lousy Sunday (or week actually) and an almost perfect Monday?

Yesterday I spend most of my time reading (a very depressing book, which I have locked away in a very deep cupboard now) and surfing the web trying to find more gift ideas. I actually found a couple of brilliant suggestions, but some are actually a bit too expensive so that depressed me even more. By the end of the afternoon I was getting so depressed I was getting ready to lock myself away in a cupboard too. But I didn’t! I turned the computer off and cooked a nice meal, enjoyed it and watch some old funny and romantic comedies.

Today I felt a lot better. My run, this morning, went amazingly well. My hay fever has disappeared now that the temperature dropped and that is helping a lot too! Afterwards I had a shower and folded my laundry while listening to the radio. It’s Pinkpop weekend and again, none of my friends (sometimes I wonder why these people are my friends) wanted to go, so radio, TV and internet is all I have to keep track of the festival. This morning I heard this (skip to 00:35) and all I can say is ……goose bumps! Although it made me feel I was really missing something, it also made me wonder what the band (Krezip) was feeling at the time. It must be amazing to sing just one line and then be drowned out by the crowd. Superb!

In the beginning of the afternoon I hopped on my bike and went to the local discount garden centre. It’s a really nice trip and the wildflowers growing next to the bike path really put a smile on my face.

This Highland cow (her sisters were around too) broadened my smile even more. So much nature (on the way back I saw and heard a woodpecker too) in a city! Woo hoo….it just blew the last lingering gloomy feelings right out of head.

I bought four cheerful flowering plants and jumped on my bike again for the pleasurable ride home. I didn’t get very far at first though, because a car pulled up beside me and followed me at a low speed (I really hate it when people do that, but maybe that is just me being paranoid). As it turned out the guy just wanted to ask directions. He had to go to the racket centre. So I pointed him in the right direction and he said ‘but I just came out of that street and didn’t see the centre’.
Me: ‘Well, you must have missed it then, it’s just across the street from the garden centre’
He: ‘Really, I didn’t see it’
Me: ‘But you must have, there are a gazillion cars parked in front of it. There is some sort of paranormal fair going on’
He: ‘Oh, that’s where I am going’
Me: ‘Guess you shouldn’t bother then’
He: ‘Why?’
Me: ‘Well, if your gift can’t feel all that paranormal energy, it’s probably useless’
He laughed really hard and said: ‘your right! But I am just lousy in finding my way, I am lucky if I can find my way home again’
Me: ‘Get rid of your gift and just get yourself a Henk Henk (a bit of Dutch humour, the thing is actually called a Tom Tom Go)’.
He laughed again and totally agreed. Next he turned the car around, thanked me with a big grin on his face and left. So nice to make a stranger laugh and smile like that!

On my way back I started thinking about my Mom’s upcoming birthday and all the gift ideas again. I am still having a hard time picking the right one, but I do think I have a solution if I can’t make up my mind. When every attempt to pick and choose fails, I’ll probably do this. I’ll get a gift box and fill it with 75 cards(or envelopes). On every card I’ll write an idea (of course I would cheat and write some of them down more than once). I’ll give the box to my Mom and let her pick five cards, with the option to swop them if she doesn’t like her first pick. Next she can pick her own present from the five cards. Maybe not the best solution, but at least that way I’ll be sure she gets a gift she really wants.

It’s a………. chick!

Great news people, one of the Peregrine falcon eggs has hatched! I haven’t seen the first hatchling live yet but it’s there alright. The other eggs will probably hatch soon too, so keep an eye on the live stream, this is fascinating stuff :)

The birds are back!

Last year I wrote about the Peregrine Falcons who were raising a family on top of a radio/TV tower. Well great news, Mum and Dad are back and they are starting a new family :) Mum has laid her first egg last Tuesday.

If you are interested you can take a look inside the nest box or watch Mum and Dad come and go here.

I wonder….do these people have any kids?

Last week the UN-climate summit in Nairobi ended with, what they called, a result. Hooray, they are going to cut the emissions, I thought, but that wasn’t it. No, they are going to help Africa so that they can start working with clean technology. Makes sense doesn’t it, because after all Africa has a lot of industrial countries on its continent. Hmmz… when you think about it, it doesn’t make that much sense at all. It would have made more sense if the 35 industrial countries had agreed on using more clean technology themselves, but they didn’t. Instead they tried to agree on a timetable for the completion of discussions on global binding emissions cuts beyond the existing Kyoto Protocol, which means they actually talked about a timetable, a plan, for the past week and a half. And did they actually come up with such a timetable….nope! No clear timetable emerged, so there will probably not be enough time to get new targets into place before 2012, when the Kyoto agreement expires. And because they were so busy talking about the schedule, there wasn’t any time left to talk about another round of mandatory cuts in emissions……obviously!

I had high hopes after reading the Stern Review. I thought that this would open the world’s eyes, but it apparently had not much impact. It's very clear from the Stern Review that we need very rapid cuts in carbon emissions and that it will cost far less to cut emissions now than to deal with the consequences later, so why wait? I don’t know what they are waiting for. If we acted internationally now, things could still be changed around. The world could still be a nice place a hundred years from now, but instead politician and ministers like this option better:

• Floods from rising sea levels (displacing up to 100 million people)
• Melting glaciers which could cause water shortages for 1 in 6 of the worlds population.
• Wildlife will be harmed; at worst up to 40 % of species could become extinct
• Droughts may create tens or even hundreds of millions of “climate refugees”

Prosperity today, is much more important then a healthy liveable planet earth in the future.

I wonder….do these people have any kids?

Old style romance and a lovely house.

When the days get shorter and the evenings longer, the temperatures drop and the heating is on, it’s time for some cosy candlelight and a little bit of romance. Alas, there is no one to cuddle up to at the moment, so I tried some artificial romance…….I watched the movie “The Lake House” this weekend. It is a very cute and romantic movie which reminded me of those old b/w movies I used to watch with my Mum. Remember those movies, when a kiss was nothing more then the touching of lips :). Anyway, in “The Lake House” the lips touch too (just a few times), but in a more convincing way. I am not going to write a review here, there are other people out there who are much better at it. I just wanted you to know that I liked the movie a lot and that it warmed my soul and my heart :). By the way, I like this comment I found about this movie, because it actually says it all “Like all good romantic movies there's a man and a woman, a beautiful house on the lake and a cuddly dog. Good dialogue, great direction, sweet cinematography and good acting -- even by Keanu.”

What I absolutely loved about this movie was the lake house itself.

As you can see, it’s no ordinary house; it’s an unusual beautiful house! A beautiful refuge of light and glass suspended over the water and totally in touch with the lake and its surroundings. The center bit of the roof can slide open and directly under that is a lovely living tree. Although it's not really big, I could actually see myself living in such a place. Can you imaging yourself sitting there, having breakfast while the sun comes up or eating diner, while the sun goes down. You would have your own private swimming pool/skating rink right outside your door. In my opinion it’s an amazing place and it has an extraordinary design, but not the kind of design everyone would fall for I guess. Some people might think it’s a bit too industrial and too cold, but I think the building still has enough charm to give it a warm feel (must be the colour they used on the outside and the old ornaments that are used on the inside which reminded me of old English greenhouse).

Well, after watching the movie I was curious: Does this house actually exist and if so, who designed it. Luckily the internet provided me with some, although somewhat disappointing, answers. The house did exist …. for the duration of filming. When filming wrapped, nothing was left behind. Such a shame!!

The house stood along the serene, 55-acre man-made Maple Lake in Cook County, Illinois and was designed by production designer Nathan Crowley. He was the 2005 BAFTA and Art Directors Guild Award nominee and the third generation of men in his family to hold a degree in architecture. The roots of the design lie in the 1960s glass box style, but they also drew inspiration from the Regency Period, a style popular in England in the early to mid-1800s, to add romance and elegance to the overall look.

They built the house in just seven weeks and it measured more than 2,000 square feet and sat atop steel beams ten feet above the waterline. The massive project used 35 tons of steel and employed a near 100 member crew of carpenters, welders and painters. For the build they collaborated with veteran Chicago construction coordinator Troy Osman.

Oh and in case you are wondering….. they didn’t drove piles into the lake bed to support the structure, no they did not, they opted for concrete pads. They created a temporary dam and they actually built the house next to the lake. When all building work was done, they broke the dam and flooded the underside of the house. And like I said earlier it was all removed as soon filming wrapped…..nothing was left behind. It’s a crying shame!

Cue autumn!!

Only 7 days ago I was wondering if the summer was ever going to end…….Well, it did two days ago and quite abruptly too. It’s almost as if turning back the clock to winter time (standard time) had something to do with it. One week ago, we still had a lovely 22 degrees and today’s high is 8ºC. Brrrr! I am freezing! This abrupt weather change is a shock to the (/my) system. I am cold…..oh, I already said that!....And the last couple of days I’ve been feeling a bit lousy, a bit like you feel when you are going to get sick or something. I rarely get sick, so apparently my body is just trying to adjust to these new temperatures. I secretly asked it if it was done yet, but as it turns out, the answer is NO! It’s chilly!! Oh….. I already mentioned that too. Man, this post is going absolutely nowhere. So I won’t bore you any longer. You are welcome to sit by the fire

while I put my summer clothing in storages and get out the warm wool sweaters, shawls, winter coats, gloves, boots, warm pants and long johns. After that I’ll go to shop to get some cocoa and some candles and then I think it’s time to finally say……AUTUMN is here!!

Stay warm!!

Is the summer ever going to end?

Okay, we have had some (to be honest very little) autumn weather, but this is actually getting quite ridiculous right about now. November is just around the corner and I ate my lunch outside in the sunshine (temperature 22º C/71.6ºF) today. Normally it would be 12º C by now. But hey, I am not complaining…..I am enjoying it (and that’s why you are now ending up with this lame blog post :þ). On the other hand, I like the seasons too…..

This morning I went for a long walk and on a small quest actually. I wanted to find some mushrooms to photograph. That’s kind of hard; because where I live you can find absolutely anything and everything except a real forest. In my little village (don’t say that…..the village thinks it’s a city!), they throw a few trees and shrubs together and call it a forest or a park, but IMHO it’s not even that. When you can walk through it in 15 minutes it’s not a park, it’s a green area. Okay, honestly, they are nice, but not what I was looking for…….

At the end of my walk I found some fungus/mushroom (or should I say toadstools because they are toxic as soon as the ink starts dripping), however not the kind I was looking for. I found some Coprinus comatus, the shaggy ink cap, lawyer's wig, or shaggy mane. Not very interesting, but I was pleased with the pictures I took. So, since I was in a creative mood I turned them into a little project and I think they are much more interesting to look at now ;) Feel free to disagree!