The first week after the holiday

After having three weeks of holiday I was back in the office last Monday.The first day is always difficult. After having weeks of doing nothing, no alarm clock and just go with the flow, you have to adjust to the workpace and waking up in the middle of the night.
A mailbox full of emails has to be read before you can throw them away because most off the questions and problems in those emails are already done by someone else.
Emptying the email box and a bit of chitchat with colleagues is all you can do on day one.The second day is just a little bit the same as the first day and from day three everything is business as usual. It's now Thursday evening and just one day to go and the first week is done. I have to be honest I'm looking forward to the weekend.And for as far as I have something to say about I will do nothing.

Almost Christmas

Although it's almost Christmas and my holiday started yesterday I'm not yet in the real Christmas spirit. Still busy with the last Christmas decorations. My house is a real mess and a lot of things still need to be done. At least the Christmas cards are already sent.
On my last day at work I've got my speaking recognition software installed with which I now posting my blog. It seems weird that if I use this in Dutch all-new sentences starts automatically with a capital letter. However in English new sentences all needs correction on the first letter to make it a capital letter. In a way it's good practice because I have to make a lot of corrections. The speaking part is really easy the correction part is still a big challenge.Furthermore, it's funny to see that there is a real difference in typing your message or speaking it. I don't understand a lot of the human brain but I'm sure that you use different parts for both of it.I realise this is a strange's blog post but this needs to be done to get a real expert in using this software.

Holidays

Every year again we have problems to decide where to go. To avoid all the discussions we made a choice for camping months ago. This kept us calm until a week ago. Last weekend we started to look for the ideal camping spot. We put all our wishes in a list and started to search the internet. After a whole weekend of discovering almost all camping’s located on the French coast we found one who seems to fit. After waiting for a day the disappointing answer came, no pitch available. Then we started again with fewer criterions, we even looked in Italy and we’ve discussed possible countries for an all-inclusive holiday by plane. Today we received an answer of two camping’s that they have a pitch available. One camping is very expensive and the other one too far away. We have still one request open and we keep our fingers crossed that their answer will be positive. When this will be a negative answer we definitely going to search for a flight to an nice warm and sunny country.

The worlcup footbal Brasil

And how a country gets mad....  

It’s amazing to see how a big part of the Dutch people change into weird strange creatures during a World Cup or a European Cup football. Everything is orange such as houses, cars, pets and even food. To be honest I’m one of those crazy ones. I’m not wearing orange all the time but when “we” have to play I’m in front of the television in my orange shirt and orange with red, white and blue striped nails. Together with my dog Basil who is wearing a nice orange polo shirt for the occasion, decorated with the text “effe scoren”. 

The match of yesterday was a real thriller to watch, it really looked like we were going to lose that one. Fortunately they managed to change to possible outcome and now we are already sure of playing the next round. This will be a knockout game so then it’s really important to play amazing direct from the start. Before this we have to play one more match in our pool against Chili. I’m looking forward to this game because this will definitely be a real exciting game. Chili is really playing very attractive football, so this has to be fun to watch. Luckely for us it doesn't matter much if we lose. About the strange dressed people I want to make one thing clear, we Dutch are not the only ones who are dressed like idiots. I've seen a lot of different ways of wearing the nations colours the last days.

Summer

Not yetL However, it is nice for the time being. I had a wonderful weekend which started early. Jan Cees went to his daughter’s house last Friday to do the renovation and therefore he was not able to go home during lunch time to walk Basil. I was a happy volunteer to take over his job and took the afternoon off. So I spent the whole afternoon in the garden with an audiobook. We spent the evening quietly in front of the television. The next day Jan Cees had to go back to the renovation job and I spent the morning at the gym. As soon as I was back, Basil and I had a nice walk and after we got home, I took a shower and then it was garden time again. The audiobook was not finished yet.

By the way, I’ve never tried it before, but it is a very relaxing way to have a sunbathe without holding anything!

To be honest my Sunday was not much different from the other two days, so I will spare you the details of me sitting in the sun with a book.
My week started with my health check at the Sparta Sport Center. I have to wait for two weeks to find out the final results, but for now I can tell you I’m not in really bad shape!

Unfortunately, the weather is changing as from today. That’s always the problem in our country. The temperature rises too quickly and then we have to cope with thunderstorms and rain again.
Let’s see what will come out of the code yellow we've been warned about today.

Longing for a few warm and sunny months

Once in a while there is a moment in life that makes me regrettmy mother didn’t fall in love with a gorgeous Italian guy instead of my father. I hear you thinking why is that. Now just look out of the window- (at this moment when I’m writing) it looks outside as if someone has pushed the wrong button and pushed us back to November. So in the ideal world: my father was Italian and I grew up in a nice sunny Italian village and of course; I still live there. Imagine, every morning waking up with the sound of the sea, and the rising sun in your face. Having breakfast and your first coffee on the terrace outside. I think when your day starts like this, all chance on stress related diseases will be reduced to zero.  Yep, dream on girl, I’m stuck here in the Netherlands with all the seasons in one day. For now my hopes are on the future, to live somewhere in Spain as soon as my working days are over. Or at least, to stay there from October to March. First of all, we must see that we get that age in good health and then we can see what is still possible for us.

Following

Hmm, I've just checked the only blog I follow, and again nothing there to read:-( Okay, I know she's busy and has a different drive in improving her Dutch writing skills than I have for improving my English so I won't blame her. As we all know we have a lot to keep up with, Facebook, Blogs, Twitter and what else there is nowadays to keep us busy informing everybody about our actions during the day.So therefore we need to have some understanding that we sometimes just have no time at all to do everything.