A big nuisance are the eyes: carrying around 2 pairs of glasses is quite troublesome.

Yet the main problem is arthritis: the "oil" between my joints is unfortunately not replaceable, unlike the oil in the engine of my car. Especially my little finger (which I broke ages ago) sounds as if there is sand inside…

Turns out I still have the perfect skills to read instructions and operate machines

The real thing is that drinking coffee and eating cakes (my wife loves making cakes) and waffles (my wife makes the dough, and I love to bake)… I am gaining weight without noticing it.

Well, my trousers were trying to tell me something, and now my scale confirmed: retirement can make me fat

According to my wife I have to stop thinking I am superman.

Well, it’s just a mild flu the doctor said and in the mean time I am testing out how my health insurance is treating me after retirement. It should be cheaper… which is quite illogical as the older you get, the more health issues could come up.

Anyway, just make sure we eat healthy food from the garden, eat our own organic eggs and next year I will set up my own roosters. They do sell organic meat at one of our butchers, so that’s already better than nothing. But we do have the space and the chickens, so roosters is the next logical step.

Birch juice looks like water, almost tastes like water (be it a bit sweeter) and after you drank it, you get the impression it wasn’t exactly water…

Like water: it’s good for your kidney’s, just that you don’t have to drink as much water as you drink birch juice to have the same effect.

Each tree gives about 1 bottle a day, and that’s more or less your daily intake of fluids.

If you do happen to have a birch forest, you could sell the birch juice to those health shops, reform shops and organic shops… Ok, seems my mind is still in the corporate world

For the vegetarians or let’s say for the sweet tooth there will be apple bread: which is 1 whole apple backed in pastry in the oven.

Apple Bread

The true meaning if this ancient old habit has been long replaced by the Christian celebration of the 3 kings that visited Christ the 6th of January… Completely detached from all tradition and culture.

Yet it is said that in the cold winter months after the new years celebration, people collected all the left over meat they found and backed it in a bread, or made a kind of sausage first that ten would be backed in a bread.

Why there is an apple in the bread is then not clear. But knowing how my mother used to store her apples just outside in winter: they started to become dry and wrinkled. Not the ideal apple to consume fresh but for sure ideal to put into pastry, tarts and the kind

Anyway, since our bakery retired as well and the successor is as good in making bread as in making bricks… we made our own sausage breads and apple breads.

Sausage Bread

And since we don’t have a meat shortage these days, we love to put in 2 sausages in stead of 1

Now I always knew my wife was a good cook. Only these days she is even better

Lot’s of festivity meals are being cooked, since I am totally there to help with anything and everything.

I really don’t mind to work a few hours helping preparing yet again another delicious dinner.

And I do think I need to by new trousers… 1 size bigger that is…

Wishing you all a happy new year and see you back in 2009!

How long does the flu last without taking antibiotics? 5 days at most

Well, let’s cross fingers that this flu is not going to last any longer. When I was working, I never had any off day because of the flu, and now being retired and for sure having all the rest I can get, I get the flu! And it isn’t even winter yet, let alone autumn…

Ok, I must admit I took the mom of my neighbours to the doctor and had to wait there for 3 hours. Lots of coughing going on in the waiting room, so most likely I got it from there.

So I am taking it as easy as possible and drinking lots of warm tea with lemon and honey. Especially the honey is of importance as it contains natural antibiotics.

I tried the first day of my flu only to medicate me with red wine, but that didn’t seem to work at all

Meanwhile drinking lots of home made chicken and rice soup. Which is a good way to get rid of some of the old chickens ranging around in my garden, as there is plenty of supply of new chicks running around here, there and every where.

My wife told me to get a vitamine B-12 flu shot like she had seen on an episode of Kimora… Yeah, right, these people are most likely promoting stuff in their show in stead of talking about "their regular daily life". I have been in marketing, so done that also

So how long does the flu last? Mine is in day 3 and still not better. If after 1 week your flu isn’t finished and you have been resting as needed, then better go and see a doctor!

Cooked green lipped mussels in a simple veggie stock added some wine of course…

Ok, delicious is what my wife said, but she tends to be subjective (sometimes…)

She also said that mussels are not that good for your cholesterol, nor is too much wine…

Well, seems it’s not easy to get yourself a balanced diet, but I am working on it Meanwhile I am not taking my stupid Celebrex painkiller. I mean: why subdue your entire body when the arthritis pain is only in your pinky?

Tomorrow I have to go and by that green lipped mussel cream my fish seller told me about in one of my previous posts a few days ago. Life can be so busy when you are retired, and so it should be

So I go to the fish-shop buying my green lipped mussels. The man behind the counter, a few years younger than me, looks at me and says:

- you have arthritis as well? It doesn’t show though, how do you do it?

So I say:

- well, it’s only in my little pinky.

So he says: then you should apply a cream which I use as well.

I wrote down the name on a paper because oh well, my memory tend to have some lapses every now and then and I was in a hurry to start cleaning the mussels and cooking them

Actually it is as if somebody is poking my little finger with a needle INSIDE my finger. That’s the best way I can describe it.

So I went to the doctor and he prescribed me Celebrex, which is a painkiller.

Now I cannot be taking painkillers for the rest of my life.

So in order to get the fluids between my joints running again, I also need to take a food supplement called Glucosamine. Blur when I heard it, my pharmacist wasn’t of course. Seems with 1 out of 2 people, this Glucosamine gives you some extra connective tissue.

Yes: "some extra" only, so when you don’t have it, you cannot get it….

Since I don’t believe in popping pills in my body, I did some Google-ing and found that green lipped mussels for arthritis also contain a high amount of natural Glucosamine. Which means this evening we have mussels on the menu