Writing a blog during holidays

I promised to write my blog during my holiday and until now I had no time left at all to write something. And you're right to sent me an email to remind me at that promise:-) We were busy with the dormer window and the paint. It is a terrible height:-( We are now four days further and the dormer window is almost finished.

Does our Basil needs a haircut?

An issue that we have discussed  from day one that he came to us. The problem are his eyesight. We really think he sees a lot less than a dog with a proper haircut that doesn't cover his eyes. When we throw his toys further away then one meter he can’t see them. Or he is just lazy. To find out which is the problem, his blindness or his laziness we gave him a ponytail as you can see on the picture. Basel didn’t mind and we have him renamed into Fifi.

Two days left..

Two days to go before the vacation will starts and I think I still have work for six days work. This means I have to make a choice; what to finish, what can wait until I’m back or which what  I could ask Danielle to do. Tomorrow I will see how far I get with it. After that I will decide how further. Luckily the minutes from the last department meeting are finished without too many mistakes. Now I have to wait for the last person who has to approve them. Then this job is done. It was a job which made me nervous beforehand. Afterwards it seems not as scary as I thought. I think this proves my practice sessions with Valerie are paying off. By the way, I really did enjoyed this morning’s session. It was fun and difficult to explain Dutch grammar in English.

Weather

This morning I woke up with the radio news which was telling us that the month August will be warmer than expected. So no worries about our painting work. Or in case it will get really hot we have to face other problems. Most of the work has to be done on the south side of our house. And I suppose you can imagine this could be end in a lot of burned skin. What an country always something to bother with the weather.

Rain again

My stories here are as booring as the weather I'm afraid. I understand, it's just that in this last week before our holiday starts we want to prepare as much as possible. Because of the brillant weather conditions we had to change our plans. Therefore I put on my rain coat and made an start with cleaning the stones (gevel in Dutch) from our house. It's an wet and dirty job zo it doesn't matter that it was also raining. After a few hours cleaning half of the job was done. I had enough of it and reward myself with an nice warm bath. The next mornig the weather was much better and when I went outside to admire my work it was not bad at all.

Summer in the Netherlands

Due to the terrible weather conditions yesterday everybody was a bit upset. First we had the extreme long dry weather with more than normal temperature. Farmers did complain a lot; their harvest was at risk. Water was what they needed, and now we have water and it’s too much. Yesterday there was a farmer of fruit in the news and he was complaining that his plum couldn’t gather. Too much or too less, there is always someone who is not satisfied. 

(Valerie I suppose a farmer of fruit is not correct, but I couldn’t find an translation for the Dutch word fruitteler)

Day two

Why on earth did I make this promise to write an English blog? Write a blog in Dutch is not so difficult, just a few stories about my little dog Basil what he’s is doing and what I think of that and done is the blog. If I can do that in Dutch why not in English you should think. This is so true and I can start this blog with this morning’s round outside. We start the morning like almost everyone today with a lot of rain, the typical Dutch summer. Our Basil who is a small very hairy dog doesn’t like the rain much. However rain or not we have to go out for the morning walk. In about 5 minutes our Basil looks like a floor cloth, I was totally wet through and we ran home in a new world record. To avoid him getting over energetic   I really hope it will be dry later today so we can have a longer walk.

How to start?

How to start? This morning I promised someone to open a blog and to make it difficult, it had to be in English. What have I done! I suppose Valerie has the same feeling when she will start her Dutch blog :-) We promised each other to read it and make comments were necessary. All of this to improve our English and Dutch. For now I think this is a start and if I get more self-confidence the stories will become a bit longer.