Weekend

This Saturday we’re going away for the weekend. Our first short trip after the terrible motorcycle accident. We booked a hotel near the sea and beach in IJmuiden.

Why IJmuiden you’ll think, it is to combine it with a visit to our friend Whera. It was planned on May 5, but as you know something came in between, and I had to cancel it. The weather is not very promising, but we still cannot go for long walks, so it doesn’t matter. I’m sure Basil will enjoy the beach, and we just find ourselves a nice spot at a beach restaurant with a big cup of hot chocolate and sea view. Life can be worseJ

Will be continued……

Picking up normal daily life

I still think in two different time schedules, one before and one after Jan Cees' motorcycle accident. Or as I also call the period before, when the world was still beautiful, although this gives the impression that the world is not beautiful anymore and of course it still is. Even for us, or maybe better to say especially for us, because Jan Cees has had so much luck to survive such a bad crash the way he did.

We had never could dream of a recovery like this during the first weeks, and I don’t like to think about what could have been the worst outcome.

From now on we go forward and when he is finished with his intensive therapy at the end of November, a new period will start. From that moment on he has to go to the gym with a physiotherapist to get his muscles in shape again. Besides that, he needs to find a way to find a balance in doing things because his tiredness is still an issue. At the end of November he will also  start going to work 2 hours a week.

For us, it means that we have schedule everything. Not only therapy, shopping, and cleaning but also friends and family who wants to come, or invite us for a coffee. It can be too much sometimes, and it is difficult for Jan Cees to turn them down. That is something he has to work on because since it’s less clear from the outside that he still is not recovered at all it’s more likely people are thinking he’s back again.

Although it’s all very complicated sometimes, I’m still very happy that we can do this together.

The unthinkable happened

Well just to drop the news directly, I will tell you what the unthinkable is. Jan Cees and I decided that it would be a good idea to get married. Why? Now let me explain. After all those years of not wanting to be married, just because we didn’t see the extra value of getting married. But after having three loved ones die in the past year, we were confronted time after time with notarial documents in which we seemed not to be connected to each other. After the third time, we were so done with it, and so it came that we decided to get married. With that decision the first hurdle was taken. We first decided to marry abroad during a holiday on Curacao and then afterwards we would tell the family the news. First of all, holidays to Curacao are still quite expensive, and as soon as you mention the word marry, all prices will be doubled. So that plan went into the trash bin. Well, what to do? I will leave out all the in between steps and just end with the final plan. Because I thought it would also be nice to have a happy family gathering after all the sad ones we had this year, I came up with the last day of the year, December 31. After discussing the pros and cons of this date, we decided to go for it. How difficult this date was we found out when we went to the city hall to set the date. In Capelle aan den IJssel, the city hall is closed from December 23, 2016,  to January 2, 2017, so hurdle number 2 had to be taken; looking for another location to marry in Capelle aan den IJssel. After calling almost all available wedding locations who all told us that they were closed on that date we found one that was willing to go open for us. So lucky us. We could move further to hurdle three: finding ourselves an registar who was willing to work that day. Not easy but we found one, so no choice, but who cares. At least we found the two most important parts of a wedding ceremony. What’s left then to organise? Food and drinks, the easy part. Who do we want to invite, remember we came from doing it without any audience, so this part was not that easy. In the end, we decided to invite the small group of the family we have left and a few friends. So there will be 32 people, starting with lunch followed by the ceremony and drinks afterward. The whole happening will end at 17.00 hours so everybody can be on time for their New Year's eve celebration at home if they want. Only our family will stay for New Year's eve at our home. For the rest we can talk about it this coming Thursday if you still have questions leftJ

Writing task

As promised in my last session with Val I have to write more to get used to checking before sending my email. This proofreading has to help me to improve my written English and avoid to sending emails with stupid typo mistakes. Why is this important in a world in which we more or less accept that because of the rush we have we make mistakes in typing? Is it due to the smartphone communication where we have all the abbreviations such as LOL. This, by the way, took me more than a few days before I figured out that this meant someone had a lot of fun. In a strange way, it’s a bit weird that I’m less bothered with the speed typo mistakes I make in my Dutch emails. I’m afraid I  start to have the same who cares mentality as all others around me. So as from now I will try to improve my life and write more carefully thanI have ever been before. 

New hobby

I’ve found myself a new hobby. I recently found out that painting with calc pant is a very easy and quick way to paint anything in your home. I did the tv cupboard, and from there I tried it on the stairs. Just two steps to see how it holds. And the last challenge are the tiles of the bathroom floor.
This last one is a bit difficult because to get the best result I have to keep it dry for a few days. Of course, I had to shower in the morning, so there are a few spots without paint nowJ So I have to figure out a better way to do this. I know there are a lot of people who are already  using this paint for ages. I don’t understand why I had never heard of it sooner. Knowing this earlier could have helped me to do more painting in less time.My next step will be the dining table, and after that the trash bin:-)

Grammar

What if I will never learn the difference between if and when, what and that, bring and take and all other for us Dutch people difficult to learn words? If; if things are not sure, and when for things that will happen is what I need to remember.

The same with bring and take: I’ll take my books with me to class, and I will bring him to school if it rains tomorrow--> Right?

What and that, also such a terrible thing. Although, it seems to give me less trouble than before. Maybe there is still some hope for meJ

Always what to do

After almost a year of doing nothing at all on our painting and renovation work at home, we decided last week it’s time to have some action again. I think it’s already more than four months ago that we removed the attic windows to let them dry inside before we paint them again. You can say that they're really dry now, and we need to order the scaffolding to place them back. If we wait a bit longer it’s winter and then it will be too late. We’ve put a thin cover with plastic to avoid the wind and rain coming inside the house. As long as the weather is like we’ve had these last months that’s fine. However, with the pouring rain and heavy wind a few weeks ago it was all leaking, and we had to replace it. So you see, we have to take some action. We decided this morning that the coming weekend is the best choice because it seems the weather will stay dry. So that will be the coming weekend. Last weekend I painted the television cupboard. That was already more than two years on the to-do list, and it’s now finally done. Okay, not complete because Jan Cees still need to change a few things, but that’s easy. As soon as he’s ready I can paint it. I’ve used special calc paint, and that’s very easy to process.
After the cupboard, I need to do the stairs and the hallway, and I want to finish it before ChristmasJ

Maybe a bit ambitious but let’s see where we end up.