Lost & Found

Normally I only wear my wrist-watch when I go out; and as soon as I get home, I kind of automatically take it off and put it on the chest of drawers in the hall; where it stays until next time I go out. At home I have some kind of clock in every room, so don’t need the watch. Of course nowadays I usually also have my mobile phone with me when I go out, and can use that to check the time. But as I usually keep the phone deeply buried in my handbag, I find it easier to wear the wrist-watch as well – especially if I need to make sure I don’t miss a bus, etc.

Anyway. Today, when I was going out (to the supermarket), the wrist-watch wasn’t where it should be. Okay, of course it happens sometimes that I forget to take it off right away when I get in, so it could be in any other room. I took a turn around the flat, but couldn’t see it on any of the most likely surfaces. Mysterious. It didn’t really matter just then, though, as I was going to walk, and didn’t really have to think about time until back home again. (So much else to think about at the supermarket… Like, they have reorganised the whole place lately, so I don’t know where to find things there either!)

Got back home, and after a bit of rest, I decided to have another go at looking for the lost watch. I searched every obvious surface, and even a few drawers, but it was nowhere to be seen. In my mind, I tried to retrace my steps.  On Sunday, my aunt and uncle were visiting, and I know I did wear the watch when we went into town for lunch. (I also felt pretty sure I still had it on when we got back home.) On Monday, I was only out for a short walk, and remember that I noticed when I got out that I had forgotten (!) to put it on; but decided that it didn’t matter, as I wasn’t going far. Tuesday, I had no reason to wear it, because I did not go out. I did make several trips down to the basement, but then I bring my mobile (and there is also a clock on the wall in the laundry room).

So how, when and where did I manage to mislay my watch?!

I was looking in a very unlikely drawer when the answer hit me – and made me go and have a second look in a different drawer. There I found the watch nestled up together with my basement keys; which I keep on a black neckband.* Getting back up from the basement yesterday, I put the keys on the chest in the hall. Later on, I  grabbed the keys and put them back in their drawer – and, obviously, the watch happened to go with them… (Black and steel, it matched the keys and band perfectly!) Phew, mystery solved! No immediate need to worry that I’d suddenly gone totally scatter-brained! (LOL)

* (In the “unlikely” drawer, there was a similar neckband…)

Button Up

The change from winter to spring/summer involves shifting some clothes between my basement storage and wardrobe(s) in the flat. I started taking down some of my wintriest coats and boots last week, and continued with bringing up some summer clothes today (when I had laundry day, involving repeated trips up and down between my flat and the basement anyway).

This one-button jacket seemed to have shrunk somewhat over winter (hm) but I decided to give it another chance by applying this “button trick”. All you need is a spare button of the same kind + a piece of string or something (I used a thin black leather strap, more or less invisible against the pattern). Put the string through the button, adjust the loop to the size you need, and tie a knot at the other end. Then just put the extra button through the button hole in the jacket, and the loop around the original button – and there you are. It keeps the jacket more comfortably together, and the “cheating” is not too obvious unless you take a very close look…

Signs of Spring

The snow is now all gone now around here; and the streets and sidewalks have been swept clean of all the winter grit.  Actually we’ve even had some April days with almost summer temperatures (~18°C). A bit of a shock to the system for both plants and humans (allergies setting in!) – and birds. The rumour must have spread fast down the river to the coast, to the sea gulls… “Hey! Good news! The snow is almost gone now… High time to get started with nesting and laying some eggs!!!”

To me, the arrival of the gulls is the audible of spring around here. One day, out of nowhere, the air is suddenly full of their cries again. And the crows and magpies are in for some serious competition for any scraps of food that barbecuing spring-celebrating humans happen to leave behind outdoors…

So far (because all of March was so cold) not a whole lot of spring flowers to be seen yet; except for crocuses here and there.

But today I also caught sight of the first daffodils (growing from the ground, I mean, and not planted in a pot). The blue flowers are scilla, I think.

Photos taken with my phone camera. The one in the middle from last week, the other two today.

Progress or Regress (Duolingo)

One day recently, I woke up to a Duolingo Update causing chaos in my personal progress statistics.

“Crowns are a new feature that we believe lets us teach better. Each skill you do has a “Crown Level” associated with it. When you level up a skill, you earn a Crown, and the types of exercises you see will get harder. You can choose to go deeper into skills and level them up or continue on to new skills to learn new content. This is a total redesign of the skill tree…”

I’m not quite sure yet whether to regard this as a Good Thing or a Complication. At first it did seem like going backwards rather than forwards! But as the actual learning is more important to me than counting points, I guess I’ll adjust ; )

Today I noted that while in the phone app I now only see the new crowns, on the website I can still see my old levels and scores. So I thought I’d put in a comparison here for future reference for myself, even if perhaps not of much interest to anyone else.

The “fluency” percentage has been skipped altogether, though - and probably rightly so. It was rather misleading, as it was based on Duolingo practice rather than on one’s actual skill. In my case this became obvíous in for example being rated as more fluent in Spanish than in German. (Spanish I only started learning via Duolingo two years ago; whereas I studied German at university level back in the 1980s, and in Duolingo have only been freshening up my vocabulary a bit.)

According to the old system, my skills are ranked:

Spanish – level 23, 22651 XP
Dutch – level 19, 13747 XP
Turkish – level 17, 10643 XP
Welsh – level 15, 8890 XP
German – level 15, 7522 XP
Danish – level 14, 6953 XP
French – level 14, 6731 XP
Norwegian – level 13, 5800 XP
Russian – level 11, 3892 XP

The new “crown level” system gives a different order…

German: 237 crowns
Dutch: 206 crowns
Spanish: 166 crowns
Norwegian: 124 crowns
Turkish: 113 crowns
Danish: 100 crowns
Welsh: 92 crowns
Russian: 60 crowns
French: 59 crowns

Apparently, Duo does not think much of my French skills, whichever system is used to measure them! I suppose he may be right about that: I learned French for five years in school, way back in my teens; but I have to admit I haven’t been doing much to keep it up over the 45 years or so in between. However, in reality it is probably better than both my Spanish and my Dutch; and certainly better than my Turkish, Welsh and Russian…

 

A Nice Pot of Tea

GB’s post today reminded me of this envelope I too recently received from John. (Thanks!)

For comparison, here’s a photo of my favourite real-life small teapot...

… and one of the Tea Shelf in my cupboard…

I usually buy my tea loose leaf in various blends with fanciful names, in a special Tea & Coffee shop in town.

As for coffee, I never drink it. Only tea. I never owned a coffee maker/percolator.

I do keep a jar of instant coffee for visitors, though!