Now what?

Totally new pages for composing posts??? ...arrgghhh!  I hate change.  I like constancy and the ease with which I am used to doing things. Give me my old stuff back blogger.  Including that little golden pencil so that I can click on it to edit old postings.  I'm not all modern like I pretend.

Gee, thanks so much everybody for your good wishes and the commiseration.... it felt pretty darn good.  I do think I am on the road to recovery now.... I managed to stay vertical all day yesterday ... didn't feel the need to get horizontal til bed time ..which I think is a good thing.  I even went along with Mr. BV to check out the cabinet shop ... we are trying to get organized for a pretty big renovation.  Yes I know ...  those of you who have been reading this blog for awhile will be groaning...  because you know that we have been renovating for oooh..... uh.... OMGoodness is it 25 years?! aacckkk!!.... ourselves and also with contractors ... so... this, hopefully, will be the last big push and it will be done.  Once and for all the rest of my time.  Please.
I absolutely love the names of paint colours... Willow, Silver  Moss, Grey Slate.  Eventually it may not be one of these ...but, perhaps something similar... or I may do cream and go with greenish walls.... who knows?  It's all still up in the air....

We've had lovely snow white cabinets (for 15 years now) that we built ourselves...well, Mr. BV did most of it...I was the gopher, second pair of hands, hold this, hand me that  ..etc... hey sounds like more assisting ..hahah...always handy to have an ex dental assistant around the house.  So, this time we are going for some colour on them.  Then, more colour decisions...walls..... and if we change the kitchen...what about the rest of the house? ...see how it goes?  No such thing as a simple reno.  There just isn't.

Hey they still look great in a photo...ignore the backsplash... no tiles and crappy glue all over the drywall... but, it's time for a change for a few reasons.

So, with real interfering from various angles ... there was not much time to work on any stabbing of fluff for my "goosie" ...but, I did decide after stab number 4,952...that the beak just wasn't going to get any smaller ...and that it was about 2 sizes too large for her dainty little head.  So... back to grabbing some more beak fluff...a smaller hunk this time... don'tcha just love the scientific terminology? ... sounds like the old days at the dental office...   "Hand me a little blob of cement will ya Veronica?"  .... and now I have a beak that I think is a better size.  We'll see when I finish working on the end of the head where the beak will attach.  Want to get it just right.

And...I did stab a bit of the dark green stuff in order to get a collar started.  Actually just stabbed a bit to see if I could get a long flat thin bit sort of made up... then I guess I will attach it to the neck and try to figure out how Gretel makes it look like it is not actually attached... but, just put on like a collar would attach.  She has a great knack... have you checked out her felting?  Get over there and do so.  Immediately.   Oh, and...prepare to be blown away.

WOYWW

I'm just barely getting back to the land of the living... after weeks of bronchitis and serious sinus infection and coughing so hard I've damaged tissue in the breast and rib areas.  I feel hard done by (what a whine hey?) as I never even usually get colds....ever !!..... but, finally I've given up fighting it on my own and am taking antibiotics on the insistence of my doctor.

Two days of that and my gut hates it... nausea....but, I persevere ... as I must.  A big sinus infection has lodged itself and won't be shaken without them it seems.

Today ...I am trying to also get back to WOYWW...(check it out here) and this is the bit of fluff that I did some half hearted playing with yesterday and today.

I began the actual shape weeks ago...before we went off to Portugal....but, am refining it and almost have it where I want it now.  (I hope to get some more Portugal photos on here soon too....) I'm trying to only play for a short time each day to ease my wonky elbow back into things.  Man, what a wreck I am for somebody who bragged how healthy she was and who seemed to think she was pretty amazing....sigh ..... right now I feel crappy.  Yep...that's all I can say about all of it.

Anyway... back to fun and fluff ....

My attempt to make a Gretel Goosie.... with fluff that she actually sent me so that I would have the real stuff instead of the rather stiff and fuzzy stuff I was trying to use.  It just wasn't going to make the same goose at all! This wool is soooo soft.  Thanks again Gretel... hope I can do a good one and make you proud.  I know at the moment it looks a bit more like the Lochness Monster...but, trust me...it'll be better later...... honest......

This is more the size of tiny guys I am used to making ...  hahha... only as big as a beak..... and how do I get that beak smaller...?  I'm stabbing away and it isn't happening... maybe I'll have to try again with a smaller piece of fluff.  Or, maybe I'll try squeezing it a bit and stabbing more and even some on the long angle of the thing...yeh...maybe that'll work.

I've only ever tried tiny bears, hippos and one mouse and erm....what else..? ...... well, that's it really.  Kind of got stuck on bears I guess.  It seems because I am used to making them of fabric...I can get a pretty good little face on a needle felted one too.  Well, I think that's the reason.  I can actually almost 'see' a little head shape taking form before I get too far along at all with the stabbing of the wool puffs.... and I like how they turn out for me.   This is Scruffy.  He actually won an award at a pretty big local fair .... at our Stampede...which is world famous...

They all begin the same though....huge puffs of varying types of wools.... stabbed thousands of times with a barbed needle til they become the desired shapes.  My pen tool will hold up to 3 needles ...or as few as one.... and gives something better than the skinny tip of the needle to hold onto while working on a piece.

If you'd like to try your hand at needle felting, there is lots of stuff online to check out.. and if you'd like to play WOYWW ... come on... do it.

Bright straw..

that's what I like to call the colour of this grass.   It's actually Pink Ribbon Grass ...and in summer it is lovely deep green with a light pink center area....

I leave it most winters ....so there is something interesting in the yard even in the snow.  I cut it back in the spring.

This year there was hardly any snow on it..it remained in perfect shape.. .and now... no snow for a long time except last week and a bit yesterday...but, it's all melting quickly.  Lovely days this week again temperature wise... and this looked so pretty from the window.

PS....just out of curiosity....what became of the little gold pencil that used to be at the bottom or our postings on the blog page?  So we could click on it to change something?  When did that change?  I liked it.  How do you go back into a post now to add something without having to scroll through dozens on the edit page? .... how? .....

Friday flowers....

......taken over and through fences of various gardens in Entroncamento on our walks about town on days we actually stayed home.  We put in a lot of miles ....same as last year.... but, this time even stayed away for days at a time.

Who can conceive of being able to grow Bird of Paradise in their backyard when one lives in Canada?  ...hahahha..... they would be covered in snow if they bloomed at this time of year anyway.  Well, every year with the exception of this one.  No snow and temperatures of guess what, today?   a great summery type golfing day here at +14C (courses won't open til end of April ) ....sunny and blue....sigh..... how I wish I wasn't coughing too hard to go outside.  I would surely wet my pants half way 'round the block if I went for a walk.

My sister mentioned that these are definitely not the golden years...not even remotely close to resembling the silver ones either ....she was thinking probably closer to rust and corrosion would be more like it if one tried to describe things.  Yep.  I feel exactly like a rusted out old car body.  Look like one too for that matter.

So, instead, I send flowers..... check out  Susan's header and pics on her post .... beautiful... and Sylvia's too....alway so lovely ...  I saw several blogs with flowers earlier today whilst trying to keep myself occupied and in a position that least initiates coughing.  Because it reeeellly hurts!  Which totally negates lying down....drat.  I just want to lie down and go to sleep for about 4 days right now........

Don't know what these actually are ..but love the watermelon colour....

update:::   some say it is quince....... okay then, we'll go with that.

And, finally, some blossoms above the hillsides of grapes at one of the Port quintas we visited.  The blossoms were alive with bees.... buzzzzzzing......... I thought I was very brave leaning right into the tree.  Of course I didn't think to zoom in......sigh.... shows how light headed I was already.  Hahahha...what an idiot...

Lipstick and White Linen

This afternoon I actually put on lipstick and some lovely White Linen body cream after my bath.  Got to try to make myself feel much better than I do.  Been having uncontrollable coughing fits that got to be a bit scary.  And, of course, they finally took their toll.  Ribs or tissue is now painful...but, today finally I am saying I've rounded a huge corner.  No coughing fits today.  Thank goodness..

Word from the doctor is .... bronchitis and severe sinus infection.  Gee... already knew that.... especially from the gunk I am blowing out...oh, sorry who wants to hear about that .. if you were drinking tea or having a nibble...sorry.

This is ridiculous. The cold didn't actually go away.  It just got progressively worse after the one day I almost fooled myself into thinking I was feeling a bit better.  Silly me.  I probably should have just succumbed. Or at least one of us should have. Gone to bed and moaned our way through a few days and told the others to go on without us  But, no....not any of us ..... Nope.  Instead, like somebody on holiday and be damned if a cold was gonna keep us down....onward we went.  I kept thinking and saying 'intrepid'; mostly to myself, but was really and truly thinking the other "i" word.  You know the one.  Idiot.

First to Porto, where we made things worse I'm sure and by then one or two of the others had a cough too. Walked by the river Douro after dark ...yeh..really good for us all.....like I said...we were nuts.  It was pretty though....I don't remember much...but, I've got photos to prove it....thank goodness.

We even walked across that lower footbridge to the other side and up and down hill and dale over there in the neighbouring town called Vila Nova de Gaia.  More on all of that for another post.
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For now... it is Thursday.  And that means there is Equine Therapy happening at the centre.  My friend Maria volunteers here..... I thought it would be just a little place known to locals and I tagged along on one of her days.  WOW!  It is a world class training centre!   Who knew?  It has it's own site where you can view the beautiful horses trained and raised on the quinta.  What an amazing day it was.  I hope I was not so very contagious that I passed on my illness to any of the little guys and gals having fun at the riding ring. I did not stand beside them too long and was out and about taking photos and looking at the other horses and land and stalls and exercising areas etc...and getting a slight shock before I realized the rope I was holding was a lightly electrified enclosure.... sigh....   Good luck everybody on not getting my plague.  Please all be healthy.

This huge Stallion... called Pino... was pounding his front hooves on his stall door..trying to get some attention... then grabbing his blanket from way outside his stall door...and trying to unlatch the upper lock...they have one placed on the lower part of his door just because he can..... and in general being waaaay too frisky for my liking.  I have been bitten twice before by horses...(I still love them but I am a bit wary nowadays) and know what it feels like so I wasn't going to even try pet him when we walked one of the handicapped kids up to his stall.  Maria was too brave for my liking and it made me nervous. ...she petted his nose and he did try to nip on her....he bared his teeth and nipped at her plenty of times and in general made a nuisance of himself...and was doing a lot of very frisky hopping (hopping as in how very BIG guys do if ya know what I mean)  around in there .... and then.....


suddenly..........this....

 

Little Joao stood close to the stall door and just raised his hand ....no words at all...just raised up his little hand........

That big horse just became a gentle giant.

This my favourite photo of them... I love it.

The kids were having their ride around on a very gentle much smaller horse in the arena...but, Celine, the trainer and manager of the quinta was training one of the big horses while they were doing so.  I am betting that if that horse gets to the top rings nothing will startle him in his beautiful routines.  The kids were busy doing what kids do and of course, it included a bit of squeaking and giggling and nonsense.... especially since somebody new was there.  Me.  Even Celine had to ask for a bit of respect for her horse finally...and then all went back to more or less normal humdrumming .....

Here she is on one of the horses in training...

Meanwhile on the outside of the ring...the kids were having their fun...... and standing very close to that very low barrier you see in the background...under two feet high I would guess..we stepped easily over it... .... and the horses are encouraged to use the whole arena... sometimes actually brushing you with their tails if you stand too close.

Kids riding around the outside ...Celine in the centre again.....

I think this one tells it all.  Celine. Slim and wiry as a whip.....master horse trainer.... looks like she means business doesn't she? ...

hello blog buddies...

I've run away for a few weeks...  ....to Entroncamento, Portugal ....  same little town we visited last year.  It wasn't planned and was last minute, but we decided to come anyway......

Yep...we've run away...so don't have access to my own computer...and I wanted to post a photo...but, am having trouble figuring out how I did it last year....hmmm... so, you might not see any Portugal for a week or so... oh, hey.... there it is, finally, at least I found one from last year that I could move around.... this is from a seaside area called Peniche.

Poor Mr. BV had a terrible time with pain in his sinuses on the descent into Amsterdam....and it didn't really go away til we got to Portugal.... and I got off the plane with a sore throat and it escalated into a rotten cough and lots of nose blowing .....and then?  I gave to everybody else.  Bad me.... .... second cold in as many months after not having one for 17 years....horrible.... and, now I am quite a bit better and everybody else is down and out with it...... not good at all.

Not quite the fun start we expected on what should be a good time in Portugal.... but, somehow we have still managed to put in lots of miles and see lots of country and taste some Port in Porto, the city of port.  Later today, we are headed for the Algarve.... if everybody feels up to it.....