Denmark

Right  now I think of all those years I'm blogging on this account. 10 Years already. I think it was May, june 2004, just before I went on a holliday to Sweden. And where have I been since then? Holland, Belgium, Germany, France, Switzerland, Spain. This year I want to go to Denmark. Let's try to find a cycleroad to that flat and windy country ;)

2014

We entered 2014, the first day is almost over. Happy New Year everyone!

When I look forward to what comes; Tomorrow will be the first full working day after 8 weeks.

I had my operation on my jaw postponed. Half november I had an operation and it took me 3 week to get back to work and 4 weeks to be completely back again for the full hours. Well that starts tomorrow. Today I came back from the north, where I celebrated new year's eve.

My garden will be full of apples this or next year. I have planted 3 trees in the garden. There is more to eat in the garden like granberries and blackberries right now. The tomato and strawberries have to be planted in the spring.

I picked up cycling again after the acccident in September. This time I cycle upstairs in the attic.

I note here that I still want to see the movie Brazil

solar energy

With a new house and little time to make a mayor change in life, I switched to a zero emission strategy and some had solar panels installed on the rooftop :)
It's quite a financial investment but I got a feeling that I got to do something. The fact that I can do this gives me the responsibility to do it.

Four days ago a company installed the solar energycollectors. It's autumn now and we had some bad weather days. Yesterday we had even a tornado on a 20 Km distance. It's no good for my energyfarm.

Surgery

Within less than 2 months I'll have an operation.
I'm walking around with a brace in my mouth since July 2012. The next step is the operation In November 2013. Due to a minor accident in September I broke my thumb bone. It made me postpone the surgery.

But it's okay.

I have some difficulties going to work. I can't cycle. To dangerous with an arm in plaster. So I take the train.... a 12 minutes walk for a 9 minutes train ride and a 15 minutes walk to where I work. Luckily the weather was fine until now. A real Indian summer. 

I'm waiting for autumn, do you?

writing

Well, I am still here. In the meantime I removed to a new house 4 kilometers to where I once lived. I picked up cycling once again, fell again, broke my hand.

Now I have to pick up writing. I don´t know what to write about. Maybe it´s because I just have too much to think  about. But at least Ocean writes, which gives me a reason to keep on going. She is just a wonderful person.

heatwave

In the Netherlands we are on the brink of a heatwave. A few days with temperatures of 30+ Celsius are very rare for this country. The last wave was in 2006 (maybe I blogged about it) and there were to much people who died of dehydration and complications due to the heat. Luckily today was a day witrh a low humidity. The heath was much more bearable.

For my garden this is a test. I planted a few sunflowers and I don't know if they can face the sun much longer.

This part of the garden is 2 metres wide and 4 metres wide.

back

After 3 months I'm back. In the last months I moved to a new home. It will take some time to call it really my home I guess. It's a new house, finished in April 2013. Everything is so much bigger. The luxury is beyond believe if you know what it was.

Now the housing task has almost been completed. I can look forward to next the task.
A medical operation. I'm not happy with it. And I don't know whether it has to be done. I can live without surgery, though surgery is completion of the medical course I started in mid 2011.

Yeah, let's do it the easy way, step by step. Box by box.

time flies indeed

I read a post of Ocean,  a blogger I follow. She wrote a post titled time flies.

Time flies, time passes away quicker that say 10 years ago. But my experience is that if you use time as you are busy you find a kind of satisfaction and looking back it slows time. But if you don't take action, don't take the initiative time slows too but is wasted. So you better can do something.

In the 19 hundreds the castle on the picture below was rebuild. It took the owners 15 years. In their times much happened too but didn't their time fly less high?

Read more about this castle in a new window. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasteel_de_Haar

Christmas

This year it was a completely different Christmas. My brother asked me to come over to his house.

His little darling of 16 months was overwhelmed by presents of the family. A nephew commented on facebook if  Santa crashed above his house seeing so many presents.
The food was good and the wine was a kind of heavy for me.
I only slept for 3 hours. A short night it was. :)

The 27th I had an appointment with company which will deliver my kitchen. Some say it's better to have a floor first and then to install the kitchen. That depends I learned. I will have a wooden floor.  Maybe it's better to have the kitchen installed first.
Yesterday I visited a company for wooden floors. It's quite difficult to decide what to choose. Yes I have to make up my mind for what I'll do with the walls and how will the ceiling look like.
Today I visited my house and I saw the fence was opened so I had a look on the building site.  It looks great. The garden has been flattened. If it wasn't winter I could sow the grass seeds.

It's almost New Years Eve. I'll stay at home. It'll be my last one in this house. Kind of sentimental tearyuerking event. O man, I getting old :)

***HAPPY NEW YEAR 2013***

space

Cassini, launched in 1997, made 60 photograph and put together this was the result.

An eternal flight into space...

On Oct. 17, 2012, Cassini was deliberately positioned within Saturn's shadow, a perfect location from which to look in the direction of the sun and take a backlit view of the rings and the dark side of the planet. link

Malala

It's a sad story we all heard of about a 14 year old Pakistani girl Malala Yousafza, a childrenrights activist.

A midieval savage cruel act of men who think Malala's voice shouldn't be heard.

Her voice shouts for help to condemn the Taliban. Her voice shouts for education for girls. Her voice shouts to people all over the world, especially Pakistani to listen and accept education for girls.

She might be heard if I may believe the newsreel. Hopefully Malala recovers from this.

My thoughts are with her.

boarder

I guess my blogger problem is over now. I just deleted the history and cookies from firefox. Now I'm able to log in on blogger.

What is happening on the boarder of Turkey with Syria has much to do with Turkish citizens in Europe. Their country is more or less under attack. It's even a NATO problem because an attack on one of the members is an attack on the other members. Hopefully the shelling doesn't escalate.

It reminds me of s song of Bruce Cockburn titled if I had a rocketlauncher.

Good feeling

For a while now I use Firefox instead of IE. I Don't understand why I got problems with accessing blogger to write a post. So I use my iPad to update this blog.

I visited my house which is being build and to my surprise the roof is almost ready. Inside, the stairs are installed. Again it was a wow feeling.

Politicians

 A week ago we weren't sure what was going to happen, but now politicians did their work.
The 2 parties who won the election have assigned 2 people each to start an information round. These 4 man have to examine the possibilities to form a new cabinet.

Last Tuesday we had the State of the Union (prinsjesdag) and the Netherlands has to cut spending. Life will become more expensive that's for sure. Maybe also more attractive.

wow

In Dutch Politics A Landslide of votes to the progressive left party PvdA and the right wing Party VVD gives new opportinies to get out of the mess Europe left us. But now these 2 big parties, who have a majority in Dutch Parliament (Tweede Kamer), have to work together in a coalition to run this country.  However they haven't  a majority in the House of Commons (Eerste Kamer).

My question and hope is that we can create some rest and might be able to negotiate and use the poldermodel instead of let all happen and do nothing.
If it's true and tomorrow morning there will be a draw, or a close call, I hope Democrats 66 will make a difference.

I'm trilled....