WIP Wednesday: a year unplanned but in progress

It's not too late to say Happy New Yarny Year is it?

No?

Well, in that case, I wish you all a Happy Yarny New Year!


I spent mine many miles away from where my mobile phone provider thought I was (the Isle of Man, really?), and even further away from where I am right now (as home as home can be, when one is away from one's home, or one's heart). I got to spend it with my love, some old and some new friends. Yes, there was a little alcohol involved. However, and I cannot stress this enough, I did not have a hangover in the morning, epic or otherwise. Ha! Whether it be age or wisdom or both (or an upset stomach in the middle of the drinking) I can't claim to know, but hurrah!

I managed to meet up with some wool I had delivered, and delivered some jelly I had made earlier this year. Both were well received. My love and my BiL made me a most wonderful tool in the shape of a swift, of which I did not get any pictures in the sun. My camera took some shoddy pictures while my other camera made some difficult ones...

I visited new places (Cooper, twice in a day, twice!), met some new people (the best bar-keep of the week, nay the year! (2011, for 5 minutes) I'm just saying!), found some family not as I left them (Ehm, what happened to your chest area? It has bumps!) and left some family not as I came in (street-walker lipstick, the newest rage amongst toddlers).*

I found my shoes but not my kettle, a LYS and the bottom of my wallet, more bad but oh so good food (cheesy tots and a banana shake, unless they're out of banana at 4pm. Really?) and a potato pouch.

We travelled many more miles than we expected and did not see the Atlantic Ocean. We'd seen it already. We did go see Shiner though...

2012?

A work in progress. Let's all assume it's about moving onwards and upwards and maybe the universe will start believing it. (All together now!)


Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go meet up with my jetlag...**



PS. Nell, Heidi, how does February sound to you two?***


*Remind me to get those pictures off of MiL
**getting older
***yes, I'm trying to plan a meet-up through my blog. Why does that surprise you?****
****also, thank you Donna, for the potato pouch! Planning some sweet potato soon!*****
*****does Donna even read this?

It's been...

...a long week.

I guess it started last week with me being absolutely knackered by the time I got home for work. Which was unfortunate, as I had planned to use that time for translating the darned job I took on, knowing full well I was going to be busy. Over-estimating my planning skills and not counting on everything to go wrong meant I had a lot still to do on the website. That would've been ok if we didn't have an unexpected and unusual heat-wave.

You see, we don't get those. Often. It just doesn't get over 25 degrees C over here at the best of times.

It was supposed to be rainy on saturday, when we had planned to go to a Harvest Fair. The same Harvest Fair we tried to visit the week before, when it wasn't there yet. (Which became painfully obvious as we drove down the lane to a very empty estate, oops.) We decided to try our luck and battle the weather as we found it, so sweaters and jackets in the car and off we went.

It. Was. Hot.
I have pictures somewhere to show how hot the game birds thought it was.










A man became dinner by lunchtime



And a Sea Eagle decided to strike his official-looking pose.

Obviously, I didn't drink nearly enough as I forgot to bring Heidi with me to monitor my fluid intake, so I had a juice and a glass of coke, and a headache to show for it. By 22.00, that was gone, and I finally had the opportunity to do some translating.

As you might guess, it didn't quite work the way I had planned, as it never does, and this was no different from all the other times I get to postpone a small job. Still, it was all doable, just adding text from my papers into the system. I cursed until 2.00 and called it a night.

The next day, mom's family planned a day out, so I only had a few hours before and after that to work, but hey, it was the weekend. (I should mention, all is finished, apart form a later added article, which will get done tomorrow, so I'll just shut up about it and move on with the story.)

The day started with lunch, lovingly (ahum ;)) prepared by Natasja



We finished most of it and then she showed us what is currently standing of their house. It kinda looks like the outside walls will be left standing, but then again, part of the back of the building will be added onto, so some of it might go. Obviously Erik knows how to make a smooth wall, and the bits they have finished look awesome. Note to self: do not design staircase. Let the professionals do that.

We left, and payed the only wheelchair accessible tourist attraction in the entire city of Den Bosch a visit. The St Jan Cathedral is pretty impressive. We lit a candle for Uncle Kees. Erik was kind enough to play tourist guide and told us a few tidbits about the building, but I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. (I forgot...)











Pretty soon though, the relaxed city trip was to end and the hard grafting was to start. Old farts (you know who you are) got to ride around without doing much more than standing, while us spring chickens had to work for the money. It was all good fun, I lost 17 kilo's just by sweating, but some of us looked odd. Some of us worked hard. All of us had fun!







We missed Kees, Ron, Chris-Jan & Carmen and Darling DH. By Gods, we had fun though.