a mostly true account of the adventures of Bram & Maud, and Nadia, Moira, Lisa, Louis, Lionel
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Seasons Greetings
X-mas is all around!
The shops are exuberantly decorated.
Those who haven’t left to their home-village by now are seriously considering to wait till after X-mas because travelling is becoming more and more impossible.
Buying building-materials gets equally impossible. It seems like everyone is fighting over the last bags of cement, stones and doorframes, because X-mas is the time to go on with your house.
The goats that survived the many weddings just before X-mas have to beware.
We’re all dreaming of a white Christmas, and if the white is finished, we’ll take red, no ice, please.
Bashi
Landlord
Google Earth 2
Being a mining engineer our neighbour Jeff owns a fancy gps, so he could tell us where we are. The coordinates of his plot are:
S 24 degrees 26’ 05.3”
E 026 degrees 04’ 08.4”
The last time he looked at GEarth the pictures were from around 2000, and the place seemed quite uninhabited.
S 24 degrees 26’ 05.3”
E 026 degrees 04’ 08.4”
The last time he looked at GEarth the pictures were from around 2000, and the place seemed quite uninhabited.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Ours
Double event: Motushi hops over from Serowe, and Pelo’s daughter Yvonne comes back from college in Mafeking. They would sleep at Jeff’s, so our contribution is dinner. This makes us feel really officially settled in: loitering, eating, drinking, talking on our porch!
Yvonne is enjoying vegetables after 3 months of student-food, while her brother Edu Zachary enjoys sleep and daddy Jeff dreams of scouting - minerals of page 3-girls?
WWS 6
Where We Sleep, 6th bedroom: Hille’s Sunset Bar in Morwa.
Because the house wasn’t totally ready on December 1st Jetske & Peter offered us two extra nights for free, braai included. When their spoiled rotten guests finally left, because they felt being nearby the building project would put just that extra bit of pressure, the house still was almost, but not enough, ready. Therefore Hille offered us his spacious office behind his Sunset Bar as a roof over our head.
Sounds like a dream come true to some people: living in a bar. It was great we could stay there, and it put a lot of pressure indeed, to our landlord and to the main builder, Bashi, who lives across Sunset and didn’t like it at all that we had to stay there.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Google Earth
Our view
How to find our Morwa-mansion?
Go to Gaborone and face north. Look for the railroad to the north (direction Mahalapye), left from it is the old tar road up north, and a little more to the left is the A1 highway. Go to the A1, face north and look for the Pakhalane-crossroad (about 10 k’s north of Gaborone). At the right, you should be able to see the Pakhalane Golf Estate: golf-greens, mansions and a small lake. Follow the A1 further north. 14 k’s after Pakhalane there’s a tar crossroad. To the left you should see Bokaa with Bokaa-dam (a lake). Go right instead to enter Morwa. After 2 k’s on this small tar road take a left turn to enter the dirt road up to our house. First try to find Jeff and Pelo’s house: a green roof high up the hill. We’re on the other side of the dirt road a bit down from them. Depending on how recent the Google-pictures are you should see an empty plot, or a grey structure, a white house (2 weeks ago) or an apricot mansion (since yesterday). At night in the incredible starry skies we see the satellite passing about once an hour.
Who’s who
Our mansion
This month the white and the Dutch population of Morwa metropolis ‘our side of the railroad’ tripled. December 1st George moved in, and two days later we followed. Rumour has it that there are at least two whites at ‘the other side’, but this railroad seems to be like the Berlin Wall, so our side don’t know them.
If you enter our side and ask anyone for the Dutchman, people will direct you to Hille. He worked as a teacher all over Botswana and now owns Sunset Bar. Ask for the white man next to the graveyard and you’ll find LJ hailing from Michigan in the US, who is retiring in Morwa from his building company and carpentry workshop. That leaves the white man on the hill, our neighbour Jeff from Minnesota.
In other words: Morwa is a village without street-names or plot-numbers. People find you by your distinctive features. Around our plot for instance live the blind man who used to be a teacher, the old lady who’s plot everyone wants, and the man who works in Orapa.
We’re curious what our distinctive feature will be. The shopping bag, as our Nissan is called in Botswana, the bald white man, the woman who doesn’t allow catapulting at birds, or the empty fishpond?
Monday, November 27, 2006
Guests
Just heard Joost & Christina will be arriving in Gabs 26th of December!!!
They'll leave the Netherlands the day before. We can ask them to deliver snail-mail to us - if you want to send us an X-mas card, e-mail Bram or Maud and we'll mail you their address.
They'll leave the Netherlands the day before. We can ask them to deliver snail-mail to us - if you want to send us an X-mas card, e-mail Bram or Maud and we'll mail you their address.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Free Voice
We spend a lekker evening with the Dutch Free voice-delegation (www.freevoice.nl). They were in town for a series of meetings with Samdef, and grabbed the opportunity to see their PAC-member in exile Maud.
How could we sit outside and relax when we should be in front of a satellite tele, waiting for the Dutch election results? Thanks to the sms-service of our FV-chairman of the board.
Monday, November 20, 2006
Mabutsane
The wheel is still spinning but the hamster has left.
That about sums up our abfab outing to Mabutsane.
Thursday afternoon Lans phoned and asked if we felt like joining him to Mabutsane – a combination of visiting his girlfriend and seeing a potential client. After record packing and quick last minute shopping we were on our way into the Kalahari. Why so hasty? You don’t want to drive that road in the dark, because it will be quite impossible to miss all the cows, goats and donkeys; they also like to travel via tar.
Mabutsane is a small Kalahari-village with a huge government building because it has a district-function. Melissa works as a Peace Corps volunteer in a hiv/aids-project.
The first evening we decided to keep it mellow – just get beers, an ice-block to keep them cool and firewood to keep us warm. To get Melissa accustomed to the Dutchies the men made kroketten. It’s so fokken marvellous, these Kalahari-nights: the air gets cold but the sand is still hot, and in the total darkness you look right into the Milky Way.
Getting awake was a bit of a struggle, but we managed to drag ourselves into some clothes and over to the Cool Joint to sit under a tree. The trick is not to move except for sipping your drink. The wheels were spinning nicely, but our hamsters took the morning off. Around lunchtime they came back so we could whip up an omelette and start working on the biltong-project. That evening we were supposed to have a braai with the Afrikaner boer who wants to sell big quantities of biltong (dried beef). Lans is doing the marketing and we pitch for designing the packaging that must be a hit in the tourist-industry.
The evening started a bit confused. Our boer got stuck in Zeerust and we decided to create a salad and have another bonfire evening. The boys went out to get beers and firewood – and didn’t come back. We figured they got stuck in a bar too. Antoinet phoned to tell she refused to sell them firewood because she wanted to braai anyway. And yes, our men got stuck in a bar too; she could see the car in front of the Cool Joint. Which isn’t as far as Zeerust, so accompanied by Antoinet's dog, which joined them in the bar, they managed to fetch us girls. By the way, who’s that white man that bought all the Amstels in Mabutsane?
It’s exactly like Holland: say ‘let’s bbq’ and men who refuse to enter a kitchen ever suddenly are zillion-star cooks. After an excellent braai and party night we ended up in our hot home sand again for one last cigarette and iced klippies & coke. And another. And another. These stars do that to you, you simple can’t go to sleep when there’s something so wondrous to see.
Due to his head start in the bar Bram went to bed after the first last. A brilliant idea, we discovered the next morning, when he was the only one whose hamster wasn’t on strike. He managed to get us safely back to Gabs, and is now sound asleep with a cat on his legs and a dog at his side.
That about sums up our abfab outing to Mabutsane.
Thursday afternoon Lans phoned and asked if we felt like joining him to Mabutsane – a combination of visiting his girlfriend and seeing a potential client. After record packing and quick last minute shopping we were on our way into the Kalahari. Why so hasty? You don’t want to drive that road in the dark, because it will be quite impossible to miss all the cows, goats and donkeys; they also like to travel via tar.
Mabutsane is a small Kalahari-village with a huge government building because it has a district-function. Melissa works as a Peace Corps volunteer in a hiv/aids-project.
The first evening we decided to keep it mellow – just get beers, an ice-block to keep them cool and firewood to keep us warm. To get Melissa accustomed to the Dutchies the men made kroketten. It’s so fokken marvellous, these Kalahari-nights: the air gets cold but the sand is still hot, and in the total darkness you look right into the Milky Way.
Getting awake was a bit of a struggle, but we managed to drag ourselves into some clothes and over to the Cool Joint to sit under a tree. The trick is not to move except for sipping your drink. The wheels were spinning nicely, but our hamsters took the morning off. Around lunchtime they came back so we could whip up an omelette and start working on the biltong-project. That evening we were supposed to have a braai with the Afrikaner boer who wants to sell big quantities of biltong (dried beef). Lans is doing the marketing and we pitch for designing the packaging that must be a hit in the tourist-industry.
The evening started a bit confused. Our boer got stuck in Zeerust and we decided to create a salad and have another bonfire evening. The boys went out to get beers and firewood – and didn’t come back. We figured they got stuck in a bar too. Antoinet phoned to tell she refused to sell them firewood because she wanted to braai anyway. And yes, our men got stuck in a bar too; she could see the car in front of the Cool Joint. Which isn’t as far as Zeerust, so accompanied by Antoinet's dog, which joined them in the bar, they managed to fetch us girls. By the way, who’s that white man that bought all the Amstels in Mabutsane?
It’s exactly like Holland: say ‘let’s bbq’ and men who refuse to enter a kitchen ever suddenly are zillion-star cooks. After an excellent braai and party night we ended up in our hot home sand again for one last cigarette and iced klippies & coke. And another. And another. These stars do that to you, you simple can’t go to sleep when there’s something so wondrous to see.
Due to his head start in the bar Bram went to bed after the first last. A brilliant idea, we discovered the next morning, when he was the only one whose hamster wasn’t on strike. He managed to get us safely back to Gabs, and is now sound asleep with a cat on his legs and a dog at his side.
WWS 4
Where We Sleep: fourth stop, Peter’s Place in Gaborone.
One of the things to do when back in Gabs is to visit the Dutch consulate and greet Mien, who runs the place. She tipped us about Peter’s Place, which we loved at first site. It’s run by Peter and Jetske. For the Dutchies: yes, Jetske’s parents emigrated from Groningen to South Africa in the 50's. Maud’s happy to be able to practice her Afrikaans and borrow books!
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Dovepost
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Red Tape
The first Big Difference between holiday and work overseas is the huge amount of red tape. Right now we’re very proud we got our ‘idiot-forms’. We’re officially mentally sound (as Hamish would say: Bram’s (m)oral aptitude has been approved of). But that’s just one of many forms, and each form has to be copied and certified three times. Our stamp collection is multiplying like mice!
This whole process is frustrating, amusing, a catch 22 (for instance: you can’t get a local bank account without a residence permit, you can’t get the permit without the account), and flabbergasting all at once. Than again we’re the lucky ones, with okay-looking native documents in five languages, and we’re in Botswana, where the Dutch consulate is fabulous. Imagine being Chinese, or an African in the Netherlands...
This whole process is frustrating, amusing, a catch 22 (for instance: you can’t get a local bank account without a residence permit, you can’t get the permit without the account), and flabbergasting all at once. Than again we’re the lucky ones, with okay-looking native documents in five languages, and we’re in Botswana, where the Dutch consulate is fabulous. Imagine being Chinese, or an African in the Netherlands...
House-Hunting
Again the hunt for a ‘our house’ didn’t take long. There’s just one tiny obstacle: it isn’t finished - yet. There’re loads of other houses for rent, partly because people save money by building and letting instead of putting it in a savings account, but ... we want this place in Morwa!
We’re just spoilt by our Mochudi-house earlier this year. We can’t look at a residence as such anymore; the view, the atmosphere, the people living around it - vague stuff like that has to feel ‘okay’, otherwise we won’t take it.
Our landlord-to-be (who happens to be business-editor at Mmegi, www.mmegi.bw, one of the many coincidences we encounter) says he’ll have this house fit to live in for us by December first. We’ll see.
For the time being we rent a lovely, although over budget cottage at Peter’s Place in Gaborone and enjoy the luxury of having everything taken care of and watching satellite television.
We’re just spoilt by our Mochudi-house earlier this year. We can’t look at a residence as such anymore; the view, the atmosphere, the people living around it - vague stuff like that has to feel ‘okay’, otherwise we won’t take it.
Our landlord-to-be (who happens to be business-editor at Mmegi, www.mmegi.bw, one of the many coincidences we encounter) says he’ll have this house fit to live in for us by December first. We’ll see.
For the time being we rent a lovely, although over budget cottage at Peter’s Place in Gaborone and enjoy the luxury of having everything taken care of and watching satellite television.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Babbelas
After surviving our Dutch bye bye parties we should have enough experience to survive our African welcome home celebrations… This small get together in Potch got a tiny bit out of hand – turning into a big hit.
Big it was, and hit it does, in de morning! How much coffee, Tab and water does one need the day after to overcome this serious dehydration? Luckily Louis dished out some pills before we went to sleep, so the babbelas doesn’t give us a headache.
Big it was, and hit it does, in de morning! How much coffee, Tab and water does one need the day after to overcome this serious dehydration? Luckily Louis dished out some pills before we went to sleep, so the babbelas doesn’t give us a headache.
Bakkie
We’re the proud owners of a Nissan 1400 bakkie standard – a very basic, retro car, and for both of us the first brand-new vehicle in our live.
Buying it was ever so easy. In the morning we walked to Main Street, had an hour of looking at cars, and decided it had to be this lovely bakkie instead of a second-hand Toyota Tazz. Nick helped us bargain with a couple of Nissan-garages, and in the afternoon this bakkie was ours.
Getting the export-license was a different story. After an hour or so of racing around Joburg with our driver from Nissan, and visiting police stations that couldn’t help us, we ended up at the right place. Together with a lot of other people who desperately wanted ‘clearance’ to prove they don’t drive a stolen vehicle. After hours of moving from one counter to another, waiting, and chatting someone called for ‘the people who go to Botswana’, and we got our clearance and export license.
In Potch we pimped the bakkie with a gear lock, immobilizer and radio, and makeshift Sun Design logo, so now we’re all set to go.
First Job
Joburg
I’m sitting on Nick’s porch, enjoying the sounds of the African birds – even the shouts of the hadida are lovely on our first day back.
Heathrow once again proved to be the airport from hell, but we survived and as a bonus our luggage arrived on the same plane. At Jan Smuts we had to wait for the Zurich-plane, which would bring Nick’s niece back from the youth world championship karate. That gave us time to discover Jan Smuts, soon to be OR Tambo airport, is a big building pit now because of the preparations for the 2010 soccer.
Now the sun sets and the crickets start their concert. My nose is still too blocked from flying to enjoy the smells, except for the kamfer I put in between the clothes we left here, but tomorrow I’ll also smell Africa. All in one: it’s marvelous to be back!
Friday, November 03, 2006
PHONES
We're still struggling with the connection between our usb-stick and the internet-cafe-pc's, so you'll have to wait a bit longer for our pictures and adventures.
For the moment you just get our Botswana cell-numbers:
Bram +26771219936
Maud +26771219954
You can also send sms's to Maud's Dutch cell-phone (thanks for testing, Kristien).
Hope to be able to tell you more soon!
For the moment you just get our Botswana cell-numbers:
Bram +26771219936
Maud +26771219954
You can also send sms's to Maud's Dutch cell-phone (thanks for testing, Kristien).
Hope to be able to tell you more soon!
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Mo(u)rning after
Every single one of our many bye bye parties deserves it's own post, but this picture sums it up nicely. Leaving for six months just takes too much 'organize darling, organize' to blog.
Our Leiden-house has never been so clean, and so 'almost finished'– thanks to a lot of help! Let's pray it will be rented fulltime... The mountain of potential luggage will never fit into two 23-kilo suitcases… To survive we'll just pack our farewell-presents: solar-powered equipment, binoculars, digital compass, cd's, books and diaries.
Lots of thanks to all of you!!!
Friday, September 08, 2006
Zeeland-party
We had an abfab weekend-holiday in Zeeland with Janny & Cees. To celebrate Bram’s 50th birthday, and Maud’s 45th, and because we survived two years of wedlock, they gave us a weekend in their Zeeland-farmhouse and our pick of shows from the Zeeland autumn festival.
Friday we saw Wagner’s ‘Der Fliegende Hollander’, performed in the harbour of Terneuzen, in between two channels. A great show – the performers were good, and the ships passing by left and right made for the perfect mis-en-scene.
Saturday evening we went to Kamp West-Kapelle to hear the stories of the now Dutch people who came from the Molukken.
A bit of history: after the Second World War the Netherlands had to give up their Indonesian colonies. The government lured the KNIL-soldiers (royal Dutch Indonesian army), and their families, over to Holland by promising them it would only be for a short time, they would organize an autonomous state in the Molukken for them. This, of course, didn’t happen, and the KNIL-people and their families lived for years in these camps that were only suited for a short stay. ‘Imagine it happens to you, being bon in a camp, hardly any light, 8 square meters for a family – imagine’. ‘Imagine being a kid, born in a camp, 8 square meters for a family, hardly any food, clothes, whatever, waiting to return to your homeland, and wait, and wait, and wait – imagine’.
Totally different from the impressing Wagner-cultural experience, but equally touching, the music and songs as told by a little girl, now 52 years old actress. The impact was enforced by the decor: the courtyard of a real former camp (now used as caravan-storage) Many of the other visitors sitting next to us were the actual camp-dwellers from years ago.
Sunday-afternoon we joined a much lighter sing along-event in Middelburg, and than back to the Randstad, back to work.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Monday, August 28, 2006
First Cousins
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Build with Beer
Wednesday evening Bram’s brother arrived to do some professional jobs in the house and help with the beer (due to bad coordination Maud & Bram both bought a lot). Friday our sister in common law and their daughter joined us. A brilliant concept: Henk-i, Harriet and Jolin did a lot of work and kept us working, and we had a fun weekend.
Saturday Jolin decided to hop over to tio Haroen to play with her nieces and baby Joseph. She deserved it, after cleaning auntie Maud’s Barbie-stuff and hanging out with all this boring grownups Friday-evening. We had Bram’s & Henk-i’s friend from way back when Victor and his wife Lena over for dinner – party for the grownups, but for a 7 year old...
Jolin’s Saturday-program was a lucky shot for us, because auntie Marisabel decided picking up the girl should be a group effort, and a family dinner opportunity. Her delicious meal gave us strength for our working Sun(Design)day...
Now it’s Sunday-evening and we’re tired and very happy with all the work that’s done!
Changing Jobs
Thursday Maud had her last day at the office. We skipped the big party we had in mind, because her new boss wanted her on duty immediately after office hours. In fact office hours at Sun Design, were she is working now, are round the clock. And being PA for one of the two directors, Bram D., is killing.
Maud can’t wait till October 5th, when Bram starts working for the other Sun Design-director. This woman surely will give him a hard time also!!!
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Billemaatjes
Sunday, July 30, 2006
About Chicks and Pits
Us (surrogate) parents had a very, very hard weekend. In between changing nappies, feeding and loitering in the sandpit or swimming pool you have to down your morning coffee and afternoon beers & wine during the babies' naps. And the toddler only sleeps in the afternoon...
But Jack (1 year and a bit) had the hardest time of all. He discovered All there’s to know About Girls.
Picture this. You’ve got a few days off left. It’s a blazing hot summer, so you decide to escape Amsterdam and venture into the woods. You arrive in time to join the dinner party, and hey, look, at that other table, there’s this single chick. Great body, nicely tanned, angelic face, natural blond curls. You smile at her, she smiles back. It’s almost bedtime, so you ask here out for the next day. You plan the perfect day: breakfast, sandpit, lunch, pool, dinner – the works.
The sandpit is a big hit, so you try to kiss her, and she accepts. The pool is an even bigger hit, even though you did not manage to grab some booze (horribly greedy adults). She flirts with you all the way through dinner, and you have this great, feet-on-the-table, after dinner conversation about life. Cool, things are working out! You ask her to meet you in the now familiar sandpit the next morning and she agrees with this angelic smile.
Early the next morning, all excited about YOUR girl, you race into the sand. She’s there, angelic smile and all. And all is what she grabs. Your tools. Your cars. Even your auntie. And than she runs off with this tanned dude...
Hairdo
Why is Maud scratching her head all the time? It’s not lice; it’s the new hairdo.
After years of Bram begging to get the hair braided and Maud refusing to do so there was this offer you can’t refuse. Joyce came over from Ghana for a holiday, and as she is the best hairdresser...
Imagine she worked in Botswana at the Afrodizzia hair saloon, which Bram and Maud know quite well.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Morning after
After our umptieth farewell-party (yeah, we got a head-start, and there’ll be many more) we planned a weekend full of activities. Bit of gym, loads of renovating, bit of shopping... Now we’re having coffee & aspirins for breakfast, trying to build up strength for the day. Luckily someone did most of the dishes & general cleaning up after the guests left – must have been us, still feeling like sweet 16. By the way, our youngest culinary discovery is chilled baklava accompanied by chilled rose.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
P(L)EACE
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Akwaba
This poor blog got totally neglected because Maud has this urge to exchange huge emails with her friend Kristien every day. Meanwhile there has been a lot to blog about, as you can see in the pictures below.
Happy pictures – not like the ones Rima (a Lebanese colleague of Bram) mailed from Beirut. Living next to the airport she has a good view of what the Israelis are doing.
While Rima is bombed we went to the yearly Ghana-day in Den Haag. Ghana-day is good company, music, food, and beer. Joyce made redred so we had an excellent picnic. Having a beer with it is a bit complicated. First you have to find the beer-woman in between the women with the big coolers selling drinks. Together with your hard-earned beers you get plastic bags to wrap around it, because there’s this official walking around telling everyone ‘no alcohol’. Luckily he can’t see the difference between the original spa-bottles and the ones refilled with apetashe...
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Liv
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Party-animals
Sunday Maud had a little get-together that was planned 26 years ago. Okay, the original plan was we would meet 10 years after finishing high-school, but there was a slight delay. Thinking we are responsible grownups now we decided on lunchish, starting 1.00 pm. The last people left past 1.00 am. The only problem being that you may feel like 18 again, but when the alarm wakes you at 6.00 am your body tells you your real age.
It’s funny to see people change and don’t change – even if you didn’t see them for 26 years, there’s so much which makes it like yesterday (hence our successful attempt to digest the same amount of chips, wine, peanuts and beer as we used to do in France while celebrating finishing high-school).
After a very blue Monday at work we recovered quickly because we celebrated Rachel’s birthday. Rachel’s mom Jacinta flew in from Scotland, and again we had a wondrous evening, which made Maud forget she planned to go to bed before midnight. (For our irregular readers: Rachel stars in Portanol.)
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Too busy for words
October 24th we go back to southern Africa, to stay until the first day of May. To do what? That’s mainly ??? for us also. Part of the time Bram will be teaching graphic design at Pretoria University. In between we want to spend a lot of time in Botswana, doing ‘whatever you want, we’ll design it’ to earn some duku.
This plan keeps us very busy now already. We both have to quit our jobs to do this, which means we have to start networking because we want freelance-work in Holland when we return. We must let the Leiden-house, which means a lot of unfinished renovation-projects have to be finished quickly. We need more work than Bram’s Pretoria-job to survive, which asks for preparation also. Last but not least we like to enjoy our Dutch friends & family as long as we are here. See the sleeping beauties, our first cousins Karen (r) & Daniela (l), and Joseph.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Giant
Coming home Saturday we encountered two very angry cats. Tlo & Tau were so Not Amused that they decided to Ignore us (and to Refuse to Eat, which is a miracle) for Two Whole Hours.
Bram’s been to Brussels with his brothers & sissie. The first night the boys managed to loose their little sister because they were loitering in the station while she jumped into the train. With the tickets, Bram told Maud when he phoned her immediately. Luckily they managed to follow her trail and have a great time together.
Meanwhile Maud managed to become incapable of wearing shoes for the time being. The first foot went when she got stuck between the kitchen counter and Reus’ ass, while he was fighting with Kyro. Reus (Giant) is Maud’s mom’s Big Dog, and Kyro is the dog-who-thinks-he’s-a-human (and loves his white whine; he used to live with a whino). The second one went when Maud helped her mom to build a Fong Kong greenhouse. Because it was raining, and raining, and raining, we decided to make the zillion small parts into bigger parts in the carport. While carrying the front wall over the hill to the building place, Maud slipped, and the ladies saved the greenhouse, but the ankle went. By now the beautiful greenhouse stands, and Maud looks like a fool, walking around on slippers in this very cold, very rainy spring.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Stormy 60
The beautiful summery weather has changed into a stormy spring. Which is good, because we finally had two days to start finishing the house, and staying inside doesn’t hurt now. Maud succeeded in creating a stormy look all around the house. She decided more cleaning out is needed before we can start building, so there’re boxes and piles of stuff around everywhere. Poor mothers, they’re grannies now, so they definitely need books, toys, et cetera. Poor Bram is cycling back and forth to the ‘give-away shop’, where you can bring things you don’t need anymore, and people can shop for free, with the surplus.
Sunday we celebrated the 60th birthday of Maud’s uncle Aernout with a stormy sailing tour on the IJsselmeer in his 104-year old botter (wooden fishing boat).
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Unicorn
Yet another weekend with a lot of socializing, a bit of gardening and no revamping the house at all... By the way, does anyone know how to get rid of the bright red bugs that eat lilies? (Preferable without using poison. I already tried catching & killing them, and the eggs and larvae, last year, but there are too many.)
It’s still a summery summer, so we did the boat-thing with our Thursday-, Saturday-and Sunday-guests. Floating around town, the boat loaded with friends, drinks, and nibbles, Holland is nice again. As long as we’re on our own island... Which includes loitering in our garden with friends this Friday-evening.
By now everyone is wondering why this post is titled ‘Unicorn’. Because of a weird item in one of Maud’s language-newsletters. Unicorn used to be the name of the Dutch peace-mission in Afghanistan. It’s a name that has good connotations with the Afghanis, they say. Now they changed it because it makes English speaking soldiers (Americans, I suppose) think of a gay movement in the us of a. When we first read it, we thought it was a joke, but it seems to have really happened. Words fail to express what we think of this.
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