Thank you so much, Merry!

Thank you, Julie!

22C sunny even though there are clouds.
It's still very windy, approx. 6-7 Beaufort.
The occasional shower possible.

Weird to have these stormy winds during summer. I do have the sliding door open, too warm to not do that.

Hi Delightful!!
Thank you! And yes, she's adorable!
It is time to expand her domain a bit so she has more room to run and play :)

Thank you :)

More work done today.
The street is less 'bright' and more work with liner on the cobble stones.
The mist has been corrected, chimney added, the mountain/rock done, people, and of course the doorway and expansion at the harbour. That part isn't finished yet.
Oh yes, and some reflection lines from the li'l island in the water.





CLOSE UP

25C mostly sunny, but to the south I see some dark clouds. Hopefully they'll blow to the east and dump their load elsewhere. Above farmland maybe, hihi.

Quite windy, strong gusts forecast for this evening and night. Fortunately the provinces north of me will bear the brunt of it with heavy storm gusts (Code Yellow) but it'll mean wind will be strong here too.
Strap around the gates it'll be.

Little Roosje is venturing further and further, boldly going where no kitten has gone before, haha.
Last night she'd disappeared. I realised I didn't hear her anymore so I started calling and searching, alarmed.

Couldn't find her, then decided to check the extension as the door to that was blocked, but open nonetheless and Nila was in there.
And yup, so was Roosje!?
The li'l dare-devil had figured out how to get over the cardboard block AND through the magnetic fly curtain. That curtain took Nila some time to figure out, prolly more daring to go through it as it was strange, doesn't feel too great on fur/hair either.
But Roosje had done it just like that.

Thank goodness the backdoor was already closed otherwise she'd likely have ventured out into the then dark garden as well!
And I don't want her to go out just yet. She's only been here for 1,5 weeks. Way too soon!

Currently working on this. Nowhere near done, enjoying the process very much!
There's an awful lot of detail in it, even now, for instance the tiny 'peaks' of the rooftop of the building to the left, but also the li'l island with building to the right.
And more to come as like I said, nowhere near done!

The mist got too much. It was too greyish at first, or so I thought. Now I regret adding white to it as I'll have to dim it again now.

In any case, happy with it so far!

Frying a tomato, about to put an egg in, as a late evening snack. I'm hungry!!!

The best rain ever was at Uluru. The rangers said it hadn't rained in 10 years! Suddenly everything flowered, was lush etc. A total transformation!
And seeing Uluru dark from the rain with waterfalls everywhere, WOW!!

I didn't have a camera, such a shame, but at least I've seen it :D

Hihi, this is so funny! I was about to post "depends where you live. When I lived in Indonesia I didn't like it much!"

What I didn't like about it is that people in traffic seem to go nuts as soon as a few raindrops had fallen. I still don't understand why or what it triggered in them. All of them honking their horns, mostly for no reason, and all very anxious and cranky. All because it rained?

Rain season in Jakarta was people feeling cold and wearing warmer clothes, getting a cold, not being happy etc.

One thing I can think of is that maybe houses flooded in many kampungs. And also snakes tended to come up out of hiding due to too much water everywhere after heavy rainfall (our driver told me that).

And sometimes people had stepped/fallen into the open drainage/sewer and drowned.
I think for the Indonesian people not such a great time of the year?

Another thing... washing didn't dry properly & without having had sunlight it'd stink and needed to be washed again.

22C Sunny with a few wispy clouds and quite windy.
Looks like a good summer day though!

I prefer to know ourselves better BEFORE we chat and potentially meet...

Exactly. There was this clip that had gone viral of exactly that in some Asian country. N-Korea? Or China?

There was facial recognition everywhere and even something as harmless as jay-walking got you penalty points. A certain amount of these had very serious consequences like no mortgage, no schooling and whatnot.
They can even deny access to shops and supermarkets that way.
You'd basically become an outcast of society.
Total control...

It's scary as hell!

No, the business owner you pay gets charged.
It DOES mean the cost of all that has led to an increase in prices to make sure business keepers don't lose too much money.
So we don't know we're paying it, but we are, indirectly.

Also, withdrawing money from the bank costs a fee, putting money in the bank costs a fee!?!
And to make it even better...
You can only take a max of E250 a day out of an ATM with a maximum of E1250 a week.
You can get an account that allows for more, but then you pay to have that more luxurious account.

And having an account costs money as it is, a fee that gets automatically taken from your account, for me every month.
And I believe an additional fee for the bank card.

My bank card doesn't work so well anymore so I wanted to get a new one.
Suddenly this would cost me E25???
It used to always be free in case of damage, now it costs me money.

All in all it may appear using the bank is free, it is not. I think we'd be shocked if we'd add up all the fees we get charged.

Banking has always cost money, ever since the Knights Templar invented it. And a bit is okay and understandable, but it's getting out of hand.
Certainly since it costs them less since it all electronically done. They don't even have brick & mortar banks to go to anymore so they're saving a helluva lot on that alone!

And electronically means they can see whatever you do, wherever you go etc. etc.

That was the point of that message I saw: pay cash as no one makes money from that bill, plus they don't know where you are nor what you're buying.

This is "Rate my Profile" not "Complain about the site"...

The other day I came across an interesting article, something I hadn't thought of before.

Years ago we were encouraged to pay in shops and supermarkets with our bank cards instead of cash.
(the Dutch generally don't have credit cards)
We us these bank cards to pay at cash registers using what is called PIN machine, a device to pay electronically. It was encouraged as it was less labour intensive and thus cheaper and bladibla.

Business owners weren't too happy as each transaction cost them money so at first they try to discourage people from using this electronic system and were even difficult about it if you didn't have cash.
It got so far over the years that few people have cash. Everything is done electronically, from paying in shops, paying rent & bills (all done via online banking), to a parking ticket for parking space.

Now someone posted the following (I'm NOT certain about the amount
If you electronically pay the hairdresser E50 the bank takes off E1.25 transaction cost.
When the hairdresser then pays his garage that E50 for a repair, the bank takes off E1.25 transaction cost.
When the garage keeper pays the supermarket E50 for groceries, the bank takes off E1.25 transaction cost.
And so on and so forth...

Meaning, after x amount of payments the E50 isn't worth E50 anymore as the bank has taken of snippets again and again and again.
When on the other hand side you pay CASH and have a E50 bill, it will remain E50 no matter how many times it's used to pay. No one takes off any costs, so it doesn't lose its value, it is and remains E50.


I never thought about this whole money scheme/scam but dang!
And we're all so used to electronic payments, that the idea of going back to paying cash isn't appealing. For instance in the supermarket I prefer to use express checkout, what we call "fast cash register" as I then don't have to wait in line. But... I can then only pay with my bank card.
If I want to pay cash I have to queue up which isn't pleasant during tourist season!

And I couldn't even park my car when visiting my mother as the parking meters often don't take coins anymore.
And so on and so forth...

Without fully realising it our desire for ease and comfort is costing us dearly.

So in short... you're not happy with (your) life and you expect a partner to fix that for you?

It'd be better to do it the other way round, you fixing your issues yourself and then finding a partner...

Thank you so much, Julie!

24C sunny & blue skies with a few wispy white clouds