Weekend is coming, and I'm very much looking forward to it - there's good weather predicted for tomorrow, so we might go for a bit of a bike ride to make use of that. There would also be garden stuff to take care of, but, well... we'll see.

Otherwise, spinning is progressing. I'm also trying to get all kinds of things sorted out and all ducks in a row as far as possible before going mostly off-line and on a break for all of May, for a number of appointments and things.

Meanwhile, the Little Cat is already channeling the weekend vibes:

That is relaxation proficiency!  

Just in case you're looking for an excuse to look at a soothing murky green screen... you are helping fish?

There's a boat lock in Utrecht that is closed during spring - but that is the time of year that fish migrate upstream for spawning. The city has found a rather ingenious solution: The Fish Doorbell. You can watch the livestream from a camera in front of the lock, and when you see a fish, you can ring the doorbell for the fish. Once enough fish are waiting, the lock is opened and they can travel on.

You can find the doorbell here (even with an English version for the site). It's just the right thing to watch when you need to look at more or less nothing for a bit. And if you're lucky, you might see a fish!

Maps are nice, and very helpful, and an interesting thing. They are also quite misleading when it comes to the size of countries - because with the "normal" map projection, the one we're all most used to because it's the most common, the sizes change in regard to the distance to the equator.

So in case you've ever wondered how large Greenland or Finland really are compared to Italy... here you can find out: thetruesize.com allows you to drag and drop individual countries on top of other ones. Makes for some really interesting shrinkage if you drag Greenland into Africa!

A while ago, some reels turned up in my Instagram feed, and thus I stumbled over Elle Cordova. She's doing stuff about a variety of things, and one of them is... fonts. I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did: 

It's Friday! The weekend is coming up, and that's a very nice thing.  Also a nice thing? The many flowers blooming outside. Like those little ones:

It's really nice to have these heralds of spring blooming!  

It's Pi Day, 3.14, and to my great delight, I've actually realised it before posting here - so you're getting a Pie post today. 

I am quite fond of pies, and sometimes think I should make them way more often, but... well... they do require either some work, or some suitable leftovers. Work as in "making the pie and the filling to go with it", or leftovers that can go into the pie shell with little or no modification, so there's only the dough, and then the baking, to do.

For weekday lunch (which is the thing I'm cooking stuff for), making both the dough and the filling is usually more time than I can fit into the schedule... which leaves leftovers to put into the pie. Sadly, that does not happen too often anymore either. The nicest leftovers (I think) that you can stick into a pie shell is some meat-based dish. Add in, maybe, some leftover potatoes and vegetables, the remainder of the sauce or make some if necessary, and off you go. However, we've reduced the amount of meat-based dishes that we eat over the course of the last years... and there's my problem with having leftovers. 

So, hm, maybe we should have the sweet version more often then, to make up for it - but there's so many nice cakes to bake...

Do you have favourite pie recipes? Sweet or savoury?

I'm having the day off after my workshop, so you are getting this photo of one of the squirrels living hereabouts: 

It's sitting on the tree one garden over, having a snack. There's at least three squirrels that we see frequently, and two of them - one red and one greyish-red - seem to be romantically involved... so there's a chance for more squirrels over time!