A little trip to Amsterdam

Two weeks of wonderful sunshine here in London, and then a trip with work colleagues to Amsterdam.... pouring rain!! However, it cleared towards the middle of the day, and it turned out to be a great time on a boat, going through the Amsterdam canals.

Although I have been to Amsterdam many times before, I had never had the opportunity to see some of the little hidden courtyards - originally mostly built out of charity by organisations or individuals - that can be found in the centre of the city. Here is a picture taken in such a courtyard.

It was a bit too late for shopping by the time we came off the boat, but I just had to take a picture of this cheese store.... Really makes me want to go back some time soon (sigh). Besides... there must be some nice little yarn and crafts stores just waiting to be explored.

Happy CFIDS/ME Day!

Today on Florence Nightingale's 188th birthday we celebrate the international CFIDS/ME Awareness Day, actually the whole month of May is dedicated to CFIDS/ME. The biggest event will be the 3rd international conference on the 23rd of May in London.
On this Awareness Day we should not forget those ones who aren't lucky enough to have supportive families and friends and those ones who passed away miserably like Sophia Mizra. If you are going to read about Sophia's story and medieval practice in the 20th century, you might need some time to re-adjust afterwards; her story is very touching.

The CDFIS Association of America Website with their campaign SPARKS is still the only one having started a media campaign and keeping a list of all interesting materials.
The Guardian commented on this month's event by publishing an article about what life with CFIDS feels like, which I only became aware of thanks to reading posts on the Ravelry forums - knitting helps!
A very good site is run by CFIDS-affected Regina Clos , but you'll need to know a bit of German. Since Germany is miles behind the USA and the UK, she took the time to translate lots of articles from English into German. It makes a huge difference to be able to read an article in your own language; also, many CFIDS/ME patients suffer from 'brain fog' which some times even makes reading in their native language difficult - never mind trying to read in a foreign language. Even the German Association for CFIDS referrs to her website as the one with the most up-do-date data base information. In order to keep her site alive she has finally agreed to put up a donation button. If you can spare a few Pounds/Dollars/Euros, give them to her so she can keep up this fantastic work.
Having CFIDS myself, I know how hard it is to keep yourself going despite the pain, the fatigue and all the countless other problems a chronic illness brings with itself, while not allowing yourself to wallow in self pity and slip into depression. To give you an example of how a constant lack of energy feels like, have a look at the spoon theory.
Having said all this, thinking about illness shouldn't make us depressive for the rest of the day - on the contrary, it should make us celebrate life in all its diversity! We cannot put our life on hold until we are all 'healthy' (and what is all healthy anyway?) there is so much to discover and what seems like small steps to one is a giant leap for another. So, for today, let's not go out and compete about who is the best but encourage our colleagues and friends to be who they are.

Weekend away going to Luebeck

We went to see my sister in Luebeck for her birthday and to celebrate her exams. My parents took us to a restaurant for dinner, I don't think I have eaten that much for weeks! During this weekend we found a most amazing shop and we made this: and this and thisWe drove to the beach and watched the ferries to Finland. It did look like they were walking over the beach...

and we spent lots of time talking, sitting on the balcony, watching a cat
And then we did some more talking, eating (white asparagus, I really miss this here in the UK!) and watching the sun set. A perfect weekend!

Going to have a cat!

The landlord has given his permission: we can have a cat! I'm soooo excited!! Some happy thoughts after spending one hour trying to fix my Thunderbird. But hands up who knew that the Logitech software is blocking Thunderbird updates? Huh? No idea why, but when I disabled it, the email gods smiled at me again. So now you all know and I can get back to knitting...

Happy Birthday to .... Us!

I can't believe we almost missed it - dots&yarn is now one year old. It's been lovely blogging and sharing with all of you!! So, 5000 site visits on, we are still alive and kicking :-) Happy first birthday to us

Wonderwool and gifts

Wonderwool weekend, and G and I made it there! Not exactly knowing what to expect, I was nevertheless looking forward if not to a great show, then at least to a weekend away. It only took Hertz 30 minutes to go through our booking on Friday evening, and judging by the faces in the room that was very fast - which made us start the trip later than we anticipated, but despite that we had a lot of fun. Having spent all my time with arranging events for our vocal group, I really enjoyed every free minute - even driving on the motorway which I usually don't like that much. We had the most beautiful Bed and Breakfast. Just look at the view in the morning from the bed. We drove up to the Show grounds after breakfast on Saturday morning in the sunshine. Even the weather was perfect, there was really not much to complain about! In the hall it didn't take us long to meet with lots of lovely people. Have a look over there to check out the pictures on their blogs. As our camera wasn't cooperative during the weekend all our pictures were taken with our mobile phones. Our Ravelry Badges (very quickly printed out on Friday morning) were a great tool to talk to strangers. I managed to get my Mum's and sister's birthday presents this week. G finally got her wish and tried out the giant knitting needles, and continental knitting is not an adventage here!
After a nice pub dinner we drove back home (some more late night driving). The past two days were spent very close to the phone, as my sister had her last exams in medical school and I'm proud to say she did brilliantly and passed everything yesterday evening. I'm still working on her graduation present (actually we are working on it as it is a co-production) I'm sorry to be so enigmatic, but my sister tends to check out the blog at odd times, so I can't say more. I'm flying to Germany on Saturday morning (this time some very, very early getting up) to see her. Initially I wanted to pick her up after her last exam (as it is tradition in Germany), but I couldn't leave earlier. Well, Saturday will do nicely, too, and I'll even get a part of the birthday cake then.

Spring cleaning

Spring cleaning does help, not only to get rid off dust and clutter, but also to find lost things! One of the lost items was the camera....

Our Easter Egg project

The garden wakes up. My hosta shows definite signs of spring too.

I love Fridays, especially when we get our fruit and veggie delivery. I don't have to carry them, they taste much better than from the supermarket - and (equally important) they're organic.

The finished Irish Hiking Scarf with the wool from the Knitter's Coffee Swap 3. I finished it some time ago, but there was no camera to take a picture of proof.

In case you're wondering what I'm doing right now... this is the second sock of the second pair of Globe Trotter Socks for my Dad (I'm suffering at bit from second sock syndrome) and I'm listening to Jonathan Stroud's The Amulet of Samarkand. Acctually I'm cheating and listening to it in German, but it's fantastically read by Martin Semmelrogge. So please excuse me I have to listen some more.