Never enough time

Song of the day: “Flashlight” by Jessie J…I know, a tad embarrassing to have this little ditty in my head, but it is incredibly sweet. Hah.

Well, life has changed dramatically, but oddly enough it is still incredibly busy, regardless of the sudden lack of a job. Guess I’m just not any good at not having anything to do except what I chose to do. When I chose to do something, it is simply just as time consuming as a job. Hah. Am still looking, so keep yer fingers crossed.

Anyways, the study is going steadily. Gotta admit that the book of law that is covered in the beginning is both frustrating and fascinating. The latter because knowledge in any shape or form always is, and the first because there are typos in the lesson material, and several of the test questions that I had to answer in my first test, were not covered adequately in the material. I checked. In fact, I had to go online to find explanations of the material, because it wasn’t there. Grrrrr. Contacted my course source, conferring with them about this particular problem, and they suggested that I keep checking online until they have looked into the matter. Hah. This made me laugh, not only because it was funny. But no matter, I’ll muddle my way through, I assure you.

Sent out manuscripts to 11 different publishers, so I’ve been pretty busy with that, and yes, we’re still editing A.I.L. which is a serious source of frustration to both of us. I remember this part of the editing process well, I tell ya. We had it with NERFS:SN, CH and ATOL, and now we have it with this one too. Some of the texts just don’t flow to both our satisfaction, meaning that we get into heated debates that have either of us walking away to cool off at the drop of a hat. It has no use to get so frustrated with it, really, since experience has taught us that after we struggle through this stage the improvement will be noticeable, but still it is difficult time for both of us. Nothing gets your spirits down as a few pages that you get stuck on for an average of 1-2 hour per page. Grrrrr.

Been to the gym a few times since the last blog. Yay. Didn’t have much time for it in-between study and editing time, cooking meals, normal daily chores, the inspection of our house yesterday (all is fine. We made the place look good, so we won’t be seeing much of our handler. Yay! No matter how friendly he is, it is a stressful idea that someone is checking up on you) and working the yard, as we’re semi-obligated to do every now and then. Considering we’re often short on time, we went for a walk into town the other day after we discovered that we were too late for the gym, and yesterday evening for a nice long bike-ride so we’d have at least some movement. The problem is, we have a cheap membership with the gym, which limits our arrival time to five in the afternoon, this doesn’t always work out when we are elbow-deep into an edit.

Had a cozy get-together at and with the neighbors. Six adults, two kids and a handful of cats. Was a nice afternoon-evening with beer, wine, finger food and soup where we all got to know each other a little better, because, let’s face it, there is not much time for that with everyone being incredibly busy. We got the busy parents, both working on our left, and the young couple, a professional drummer and a waitress-looking-for-work-in-the-neuropsychology-branch behind us. Add the brother and sister writers, looking for work too, and you’ve got an interesting bunch. Hah. Was a nice evening, though, which resulted in coffee later in the week with the mum and dad while we discussed the chores that had to be organized around the yard on the rather splendid autumn day.

Weather-wise things are looking bleak. We had a few sunny days, but on the overall things are starting to look gray, gray and…well, you guessed it, gray. Not that much rain yet, but I’m guessing that will come soon enough. Also, trees are starting to lose their leaves, and by now we need central heating because the temps are rapidly dropping, especially up north here, where the ground is flat and the wind comes rushing in off the sea. It’ll be interesting to see how winter will be, eh?

Lately I’ve had a serious case of the nibbles later in the day, so I’ve made a nice healthy batch of oatmeal cookies with raisins nuts and the likes, rather than risk buying cookies of undetermined origin. Works well, and it’s healthy at least. Also made lasagna the other day, loads of veggies, for visiting a friend. Otherwise I’ve been making lots of soups, which work rather well in this weather and a rather nice red cabbage risotto last week. Was surprised how well it worked, actually.

Went to visit tenant, who seems to be doing well at the senior home. She is starting to notice that her stubbornness is not doing her any good, because her memory is not as good as it used to be. Had several instances where she threw up a lot of fuss about certain subjects, only to realize later that she remembered wrong, which startled her. I found it a little sad to see, especially her confusion about it but it can’t be helped. Can’t protect anyone from reality, can you. Anyway, the place is good for her. She gets stimulated to be creative, as in drawing and painting and the likes, meaning that her motor skills in her good hand have improved, and because she always has to wait her turn if she wants to get around the building, and can’t stand that, she has started using her own feet as propulsion when she’s in her wheelchair, hah. In fact, she is basically going from one room to the next in the home, and that is really good for her.

She was very excited about her granddaughter’s 18^th birthday coming up this week, wanting to give the girl a present, but not knowing where to get it, so I found a rather nice bracelet for her, with a card that she can give as a present the next time she sees her.

Yard work has been rather wonderful, despite the scary amount of nettles all over the place. Yikes. Had one slither its way under my sweater and doing its worst on my belly. Hah.  But we did quite a bit. Cut away lots of dead stuff, revealing loads of little treasures underneath the piling masses. Found bushes, flowers and whatnot, which made it very satisfying. Will have to get our hands on some better garden tools soon…especially since we’re going to have to cut back the pollard Willows somewhat desperately. Poor things haven’t had a proper trim in years, so that’ll take some time.

Also filled the potholes in our drive sweep, for which our car is tremendously grateful, and had a repair done on the car, which, thankfully wasn’t so expensive that I had to sell my kidney, or something. Hah

Well, that about sums it up for today. Gotta bet busy.

Busy, but some pic updates again. ;-)

Song of the day: “You don’t own me” by Grace. Cool song. Heard it at the Suicide Squat trailer, knew it from a long time ago, and now have it in my head together with, “I spent the summer on you” by, well, a whole bunch of fellas. Hah.

So yeah. I’ve been busy. Most of it involves editing, so in that regard, YAY! Been prepping quite a bit of material these past couple of weeks, because we have about two months to spent on prepping stuff for publishers and we want to use every second of it. Are about four chapters into an edit. Sent out two manuscripts, a query letter have another one ready to send out, hopefully, today, so keep yer fingers crossed, please, we only have a few months to invest in this round, then the basic job search has to start becoming serious job search. Until the time comes of the hopefully good news, we are having a nice time editing “Accidentally in Love” which contains a lot of good stuff that I forgot to remember over the course of the past few years since writing it. That is good news, right?

Well, what’s been happening? The house is basically in order now.  Bedrooms sorted out…well mine anyway, big brother still has his open suitcases in there, clothes in messy piles on top of them, nightstand basically in front of the door, hah. But that’s his problem. Thankfully I can just close his door and not see it. I know it is there, but I can keep myself from doing anything about it, don’t you worry.

Had some time to work on my house plants. Poor babies had all outgrown their pots, so basically I spent an afternoon putting them in new ones, which made them looked better almost instantly. Was so nice to get my hands dirty that way, especially because the weather was cool and sunny and I could do it outside for the most part. Actually found some really nice affordable pots of some of the transplanted plants yesterday at an attic clearance sale in town. You can find the nicest stuff at places like that, can’t you? They were even cheaper than our usual thrift stores.

Met the father of our neighbors, who was born in our house. He had some wonderful stories to tell over coffee in the kitchen, including that the farm had been his great grandfathers in the late eighteen hundreds and that some years the entire top of the farm burned away due to a mistake from the power company. And he said that the small house beside us was the summer house where they used to live during the summer months until they were a family of 11 children and there simply wasn’t enough room in the small place. Hah. I’m not surprised that it was too small. 11 kids! Yikes!

Anyway, he comes here a lot. I think he’s missing the place somewhat fierce now that he lives in a senior home in town, and therefore comes over to work in his son’s yard, and work on their future shed, which is a project they’re busy with during whatever free time they have.

As for news…Big brother and I have finally decided on a study, so we’ve been pretty busy with that for the past few weeks. It is one that you can do at home during the studying part, but at some point we will have to do theoretical and practical exams elsewhere. So far I’m finding it rather interesting, in particular there is lot of law involved in the study. I’m getting to know the constitution, privacy laws, the roles of government officials, what they ARE allowed to do and what not. In how far are you obligated to cooperate with the law, and when are you allowed to say no, etc etc. All very fascinating, and if nothing else, it will be an excellent source of information for the writing. Already there are loads of ideas playing in my head.

Our other neighbors are a young drummer and his girlfriend who studied Neuropsychology, and is trying to find work in that. A very nice couple that have a very social life, from the way they come and go during the course of the day. She came over yesterday to introduce herself (had some cookies with her and everything) and we had a nice cup of coffee with the three of us before she returned to her place for dinner. She and her boyfriend were going out later that night, so she didn’t have a lot of time.

I finally found a rug for the corridor and the living room. I had one for the living room, but it was old and worn, and the red (it used to be in big brother’s apartment) clashed with the Spanish tile. So I found a very daring one. It is a bright grass green, which oddly enough works with the coconut rug in our office corner and the anthracite rug of the sitting corner by jumping right out of the red Spanish tile. Brightens the place right up…which I had hoped for, but doubted about due to the fierce green. The red rug is now on the blue kitchen floor, so that gives a nice contrast too. There it doesn’t look all that worn, thankfully. In fact it looks rather cool there with all the blues and yellows.

Next I’ve spend a few bucks on cover foil for the kitchen cupboards. They were of this rather worn and ugly, dark brown oak, and I wasn’t allowed to paint them, so I got the idea to get this fake beach wood pattern vinyl plastic of a light-ish white, gray color and covered the center of the cupboards with it. At the very least, it looks lighter, and that was my aim. Still have to get another role, but they didn’t have the stuff in stock, so I’m going to have to look for it at other branches of the store.

Applied for a few more jobs, on as a research person at a PI firm, which I don’t think I’ll get a response to, but which should be fun, at the very least. Another job I applied for is night reception work at a hotel, which held some appeal at least, since the unusual hours usually pay well round these parts.

Visited our father and stepmother a little while ago. They too were moving house, they’re going down south which is going to make visiting in the future a little difficult, but what can you do. We had offered to help out with the move, so after we arrived we spent some time going through stuff on the attic (where we found some pics from our childhood and such, which was fun) and then we loaded up their mattress, bed, some yoga supplies and some stuff that we could still get in and drove it 180 miles south. Was quite a ride, especially we were there just before rush hour and things started to pile up. Unloaded everything, set up the bed so they could plop in bed without effort once they were done moving (seemed a nice thing to do) and then started on our way back. There was a massive pile-up near Boxmeer. Some odd fifteen miles of congestion resulted, but luckily it was on the opposite side of the road. We just got to marvel at the miles and miles of cars waiting impatiently to travel on. Considering we had to return the key, and pick up a cupboard that I just loved for our office, we spent a whopping seven hours on the road that day, meaning that we were pretty much road-weary when we finally got home around eleven in the evening.

Been to a couple of fitness clubs in the area, more or less trying out which one we like. First one was a tad dank, if you get my meaning. Didn’t like the atmosphere all that much. The second one was rather busy, dirty, and what’s worse, their boxing bag was broken. The hard core of the bag had somehow been dislodged, meaning that everything was fine when I was doing my punches and jabs, but when I did my high kicks, and the sideways arm swing at neck height, I damaged both the top of my foot and my wrist. Seriously, I punch and kick hard, because I have a massive bruise on my wrist (swelled up like mad the first day) and I had to bind my foot and add cream from fear I’d done some serious damage. I didn’t because later the next day I stepped (limped, really) onto the threshold of the living room, putting my foot down wrong when something inside there popped. After that the pain quickly started to subside, leaving now only a slightly pinched feeling that you have when something’s been bruised a bit. Much relief there.

Went to visit one of our colleagues in our old town when we had to go there to give back my keys and get the last bits and pieces that we had left for this occasion at my former apartment. Took us about forty minutes to gather the things, clean up what still had to be cleaned, and say our goodbyes to the former neighbors, and then we were on our way. Later we visited with our friend, had something to drink, talked a while, including the latest rumors about the sauna. Things are apparently going poorly with the cleaners. They’re making a mess of things. Not cleaning things properly, adding to the bill, which pisses off the new boss, of course. Makes me a little smug, I’ll admit. We were keeping up the cleaning despite the shortage in staff…and what’s worse, I warned the cleaning company that he wasn’t going to manage the cleaning in the time he’d allotted for it, with the amount of people he’d assigned for it. So, well, than you get war at the sauna between the cleaning company and the sauna itself, exactly as I’d feared. In that regard I’m very happy not to be working there anymore. In another regard, as to the fun parts of the work we did, I still regret the whole thing, but being in the middle of a war is definitely not something I would have wanted to deal with.

So, this brings me to the last bit of today, a few more pics, right?

This here is the before and after of the kitchen...

 Isn't it possitively hideous. I mean, I have nothing against oak, but I'd want to see the original color, not this dark stuff. Grrrr

Not too bad, right. Better than the dark stuff, anyway.
This is the front of the building, after I took away all the messes and washed the windows and frames.

Part of the view.

 The drive sweep we share with both neighbors.

 The backyard that we've been doing some stuff in. That gate wasn't visible, in case you're wondering.

 Neither were these bricks, before we started taking weeds away. Hah

 The living room in the evening. I find it wonderfully cosy.

 The office, with big brother hard at work.

 And the cupboard we got from our father and stepmother.

 

The bedroom. I know, the lines are totally not my thing, but who cares. I sleep there, read a bit sometimes, other than that, I'm mostly puttering around the house anyway. Hah

 Lastly some old pics that I took pictures off...my mom and me.

 And lastly with big brother and me on the right together with our cousins.

 

That's it, folks. Time for me to get to something else. I'll be back.

The new place!!!

Song of the day: “Things” by Nancy Sinatra and Dean Martin. Such a cute song, right? Never bores me, this particular song.

Sooooooh, I don ‘t have a lot of new news, since the past couple of weeks basically evolved around moving house and dropping half dead from exhaustion. Hah

But I survived the ordeal, and as of last night we are basically comfortable at the new place. Yay. It’s a gorgeous place, really, despite the fact that I was a teeny bit shocked when we first walked in (it was a friggin mess, I tell ya!) there was this old (strangely familiar) scent of old farm houses wafting from every corner, the walls were covered in cobwebs, the windows (which I still need to do, btw) are partially obscured by the same webs, there was black dust everywhere, and did I mention the smell? Hah.

The worst of it was, the first day we didn’t have enough time to do some actual cleaning, except for the kitchen cupboards, which you could simply not touch due to the greasiness. Eeeeewwww! First of there was the tour of the place, right after meeting our new handler for the first time, that is, which took longer than I would have liked. Was pretty tired already, you see, considering we had spent the previous evening loading up the rented trailer with as much big, unmanageable stuff as we could get in it. Then we’d gotten up around six thirty in the morning to stuff as much little bits and pieces in as well, before heading towards the new town in time for our eleven o’clock meeting…were late, too, considering we had to get off the highway because the friggin’ trailer started dancing on the asphalt like some bouncy puppy, almost tipping over due to fierce winds. Simply didn’t want to risk it, so we ended up taking small roads, protected mostly by houses and trees. Grrrr.

But anyway, we arrived only ten mins late, so within no time we were signing contracts just as soon our handler was gone, we started unloading. This was a lot less frustrating than loading up, if you must know. During unloading we had the trailer right beside the front door, meaning we could basically get the thing empty within thirty minutes…good thing too, considering we had our meeting at town hall around 16:00 hours so we could register…that’s one of the requirements of this type of living. FYI.

Be that as it may, once we had everything from the trailer we organized some in the living room, of which we had quite  bit of furniture along, so we had a relax spot in the house. The smell still bugged me, but that would have to wait until I had time to take out the cleaning stuff and attack the dirt. Got everything done that needed doing, had a very late lunch, or more accurately supper after having skipped lunch, hah, and then dragged out tired butts back to the apartment so we could prep for the next day by taking apart the last things that could be taken apart for transport.

A couple of weeks ago we already reserved a moving van for our actual moving day, and we were once again up around six to get ready to go pick it up in the nearest big town. We were a bit on a schedule so what followed were six harrowing hours of hauling stuff down from the third floor (using an aggravatingly slow elevator that was also, of course, being used by our senior fellow residents) and stuffing it into the van. We had to be at our new place at five fifteen, at the latest, for an appointment and due to that we ended up stuffing some final bits and pieces into the van somewhat haphazardously, and leave what was left of smaller pieces, at the old apartment to make it on time. Grrrr

You know what is the most frustrating thing of the whole thing? That which took six arduous, exhausting hours to get into that friggin’ van, was unloaded within one hour due to the fact that we could just lift it out an carry it into the house! Seriously, a slow elevator, two stories, several electric doors that were on timers rather than movement sensors and a effing load of thresholds aggravated the loading up tremendously. Hah.

No worries, though, the ordeal is over and done with, and now, after spending a day of cleaning, walls, ceilings, floors, doors, stairs, windowsills, a fireplace mantel and everything inside the kitchen, the place is looking pretty darn good! Both our furniture integrated perfectly, meaning that our office area is in light hues with fresh greens, turquoise, beige, birch wood and white. The dining area is rustic white, while the sitting area is in warm reds, browns, highlighted by plants and some light yellows. I like it.

We both have our own bedroom upstairs, with an extra for sleepovers, such a T. Strangely enough my bedroom, at the moment, looks like that of a teenager. Somehow I ended up with all white and birch wood furniture, meaning that everything is very light with dark blue carpet (now contrasted by my bright red knotted rugs), gray and white striped wallpaper and white ceiling. It looks cute, but hardly my age. Hah. Big brother’s is much simpler in that regard. His are mid-dark woods, same carpet, and blue and white striped walls. Both rooms are nicely spacious, however, which is all that matters for as far as I’m concerned.

Did finally get around to cooking a proper dinner again last night. First time round that I did that in the new kitchen, by the by, and boy did it taste good to have fresh veggies with tomato sauce and macaroni. Sometimes you just need a dose of carbs after several days of surviving on snacks mostly. I get that gnawing feeling when I don’t have proper food for a while, making we want healthy stuff, nutritious stuff, makes me wonder how people manage to survive on fast food…personally I can’t stand it for more than three days in a row. Hah.

First night at the new place was a tad fretful. Didn’t help that I was achy and extremely tired, I guess, and a bit worried about the fact that the bathroom is on the bottom floor, and the stairs are one step up from a ladder leading to the second one. A bit scary to go down and up that while you are half asleep. But I managed without mishaps and now, after going up and down there a gazillion times with clothes, any small closet I could find (can’t have my fancy big closet, because we simply can’t get it up the stairs) and all else that needed to go up to the bedrooms. The biggest problem to get up the ladder…ehm, stairs, were the beds. Seriously, that took some maneuvering!

The kitchen is the least nice place of this here, especially since the old, dark oak cupboards are, like, forty years old, and even though the doors are good material, the insides are basically falling apart. In regard to this, I have opted to acquire a very nice, 2^nd hand, classic commode that will serve rather beautifully as a commode. I love it. Makes cooking a rather pleasant experience. I was forced to use my antique glass and lead cupboard in the kitchen as well, but it looks rather lovely there, so I don’t mind no longer having it behind my couch. Hah. I’ll let you have a look at the primary pics of the main living areas.

I’ll spare you the pics of the ancient toilet, the somewhat basic bathroom, and for now the bedrooms, which still have boxes and suitcases in them. Those will be for the next blog.

At that time, I will also post some pics of our outing to grandpa’s family homestead, which is also incredibly cute. Until then, I’ll leave you to it…

The kitchen...duh. Once it was clean, it became nice and airy. Do you see the mantel there over the fridge? Used to have an old cooking stove there, I think, but the fridge fit in perfectly. Love the plants on there, btw.

Over by the far windows is our office. Nice big table, enough space for both of us, and on the right behind the red couch the nice table for when we have people over for dinner, or when I need to do sewing, or something. Seperated the two areas nicely, I think.

Love the high ceilings, and the all the light from the big windows.

Well, I gotta go now, so...seeya!

The best laid plans...

Song of the day: “Zombie” by the Cranberries. An oldie, right? I know, but it used to be one of my favs way back when, so when it came by on the radio the other day, it got stuck in my head occasionally. Blasted earworms!

Anyways…I’m a wee bit late with my blog again. I know, Bad Sammie! Bad Sammie! But in my defence I have been very, very busy, regardless of the fact that I had that two weeks of house sitting. I would have thought I’d have more time for the stuff I’d planned to do, but regretfully some necessary things took longer than expected. The best plans have a way of doing that, don't they?

There was all the legal mumbo jumbo regarding the sauna going broke. There was so much paperwork to do, so many calls to make, forms to file, calculations to make, facts to check, that took us five to six days alone while we got settled in the office.

Then we had a couple of friends coming over, which meant another couple of afternoons gone. Hah. No matter though. I did get quite a bit of editing done in the last week, and I got in five and a half workouts (the half was because we got interrupted by repair folks knocking at the door, grrr), yay.

Best yet was that I got some serious sleep during the two weeks. I decided that I was going to catch up on the last year shortage of sleep for once and for all, and just went to bed whenever I was remotely tired: I was tired a lot!

The plus is that I don’t have the big bags under my eyes anymore, and that I’m no longer cross-eyed with tiredness around eight in the evening. Hah. So the housesitting was definitely a good thing. It was basically a forced vacation, that tided us over for part of the days that big brother didn’t have a place to live.

Which reminds me; we did manage to get big brother’s apartment empty on time. This means that my apartment is now basically a storage facility, since I had to move a lot of stuff out of the way to accommodate boxes and furniture, and therefore decided to start packing early as well. This means that except for the living room corner that I use for seating, the whole place is a bloody mess that is driving me insane. Everything that needed to be packed is packed in boxes, bags, suitcases or plastic. Furniture that could be taken apart is taken apart, rugs have been aired out and rolled up, and plants take up every remaining horizontal surface. Poor babies.

Also did some of the cleaning already, since we have to leave the apartment in the same state we got it, with everything nice and clean, as our contract states…not that I would dare to leave it any other way (the horror!). If there is one thing that the cleaning job caused is that I horror at dirt now. Hah. Added to that, holes in the walls, like for light fixtures and paintings and whatnots, have also been neatly closed, giving a clear view of the place’s large stretches of wall. What a difference things on the walls make, right? All the homey-ness is gone now, darn it.

Had a birthday…well, two actually, of former colleagues, which was a good excuse to come together. Made a rather nice (albeit a tad too sweet) apple pie with small pieces of sweet potato through it, cranberries, raisins and pecans. Really enjoyed that over a cup of coffee and talk about books, movies and everything else we could think of.

The weather has been downright summery the past three weeks. Today was the first night that we had rain again in a long time. We had temps mid to high nineties, and on the radio they called it tropical weather…which was factual, considering the humidity was incredibly high. Been sweating more than I did even while working at the sauna.

Since being back from the house sitting thing, we had been going to the gym again, which has been wonderful. Had some serious workouts and that included some serious kickboxing for me…that ended with me being barely able to move the next few days, if for no other reason than the fact that I hadn’t done any actual boxing in more than four months. Yikes! Seriously, you did not want to see me shuffling around afterward, like some old crone. Luckily now that has passed and I am almost back to where I left off before work got too demanding for me to go to the gym.

Been applying for work lately, as I am obligated to do (and want to do. Discovered that I am not the kind of person who would willingly take welfare. I just don’t like not working for a living, so let’s hope I find something fast) and have been trying different types of things to see where I can slip in, so to speak. I applied for a cleaning job, duh, night reception at a hotel, which included making breakfast for the early guests in the morning, independently working cook at an Italian place where they wanted someone creative and willing to teach youngsters at the same time, with some experience in vegetarian dishes. Keep yer fingers crossed.

I’m still thinking about starting something myself, but that will depend on whether I can find a market for my type of cooking in the new area we’re moving to. It’s a college town, so I’m thinking yes, but you just never know. I’ll keep you posted.

Like I said, I’ve been editing. So I couldn’t find the inspiration to do new writing, but the editing needs to be done too, so I don’t beat myself up about it. Am over two thirds of the book now, meaning that I’ve almost finished the first edit. That means that after I’ve added some additional scenes, big brother and I can start going through it together without the risk of him getting completely frustrated with stream-of-consciousness writing.

Managed to finish quite a bit of storage foods during the past three weeks, including what we had in the freezer. What the with the move coming up this was essential. Got two of three meals left there, and considering we’ll be starting moving things four days from now, that should work out just fine.

My father and stepmother finally got their vacation to France this week. For a moment there it didn’t look like they were going to manage, first day they basically missed the plane and had to reschedule for the next day. And then dad bruised something in his foot, making nice long walks a no-no. Bad luck, I tell ya…but I think they’re enjoying sucking up the culture regardless, so that’s okay.

Yesterday we finally met up with Cousin Ed and Tenant, to go to the place where grandpa was born and spread his ashes. It took a long time before we could arrange for a date. First our work, cousin Ed’s work, tenant’s health, there was always something getting in the way. But now we got to it, and the weather was hot, but still splendid for the occasion.

Went to pick up Cousin Ed and Tenant at Tenant’s senior home (she’s really enjoying her time there. It’s in the town where she claims to have been very happy for many years, so that’s definitely a relief. It’s a cosy home for staunch vegetarians, right in the middle of the woods, and her room looks out on a courtyard with a pond, so it is really up her alley). The latter had just returned from an arranged excursion to a local museum, so she’d already had fun. We packed her, her wheelchair and Cousin Ed’s dogs in the car, piled ourselves in as well and started on our way.

Luckily I’d thought of preparing a potato-veggie salad with garlic bread for lunch, because with all the excitement Tenant hadn’t had time to have lunch.

We arrived at grandpa’s childhood homestead around four in the afternoon, parked the car across from the castle, and took tenant out for a stroll over the premises. Luckily the present owners didn’t mind us wandering about the place once we explained that we wanted to look around the place that had once been to the home of grandpa. I think the fella even recognized grandpa’s name, considering grandpa’s parents used to maintain the castle for the man’s father after the war.

It was very cool to see the place grandpa was always talking about. The pictures just didn’t do it any justice.

We finally agreed to spread his ashes under a line of poplar trees that grandpa claimed to have planted some sixty or seventy years ago. Big brother did the honors, with us standing at a slight distance, only to have us all start laughing when a fierce gush of wind swept a big bash of ashes along straight for the old homestead off to the west. For a moment the entire place was surrounded by this ghostly white mist and then another gush of wind made the ashes disappear entirely. We all found it rather poetic that he went back to the place where he literally was born. He would have gotten a kick out of that, I think.

What was left of the afternoon we spent in a nice patch of shade, in the grass, eating our lunch and talking some about grandpa, and all our plans for the next few weeks.

We didn’t get tenant back home until seven in the evening, at which time she was pretty tired and wanted to go straight to bed. It had been a long and exciting day for her for sure.

We, on the other hand, went home with cousin Ed where we had beer and a snack before we headed back home. It was already late by the time we arrived, so there really wasn’t much left to do except unwind from the day, a glass of wine, and getting ready for bed.

Which about sums this update up, I think. More to do, stuff to prep and…well, you get my drift.