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.)

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.

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.