July 2nd, 2024 Update

I am not even going to make an excuses anymore. Let's juts say we've been on a holiday (we actually did). Like the Dutch football team last week; not good enough. Anyway, here is the update. See here my beautiful design retaining wall creating a path around the new garage and a space to clean the fish. Now I only have to catch fish.

Some news from the tennis court. Here we are playing against Wellington, in Wellington's tennis stadium. It appears no one got our invitation in time, as the stand were quite empty. Too bad, you will all get a second chance. We got promoted to the 1st level in our region. Only a few years ago we played Men's 4th. I guess a bit more opposition next year......... So, anyone who wants some free tickets, just let me know, we're very generous.

Nienke's head only just pops up between the weeds on the hill of our waste water dispersal field. With 50 houses we have our own waste water treatment scheme. And we needed a new consent from the Regional Council. You may remember we were surprised by our neighbours who suddenly took all the trees away. Well, some of hem had fallen on the driplines in our dispersal field. Just when we needed the new resource consent. An awful lot of admin and a big job cleaning the site.

We removed all the driplines so the trees and slash could be removed by one of us with a digger. A big job, but lots of hands to help.

And a BBQ on our deck afterwards. Job not finished yet. More admin, fights with so called experts and pen pushers. More remedial work to be done in the near future.

It all started with a normal check. The dentist saw just a tiny spot which could be decay. "I'll just remove it quickly". That resulted in a root canal infection, pulling the tooth out (just before our trip to Vanuatu) and in the end; an implant. Here I am in the car, just after the dental surgeon removed a wisdom tooth (necessary to be able to place the implant) and pulling out one root the dentist could not recover. Not an easy job at all. I literally had blood on my shoes! The icepack was a necessity. Saw some fellow drivers who clearly did not think this was going to be a new fashion.

Nienke had to represent the two of us at the local pub quiz, a fundraiser for our local community hall, which is at danger of falling down during an earth quake. A good idea to organise many meetings inside that very same hall to raise money. What could possibly go wrong? Anyway, no earthquake. Oh, and no win either. We simply can't answer detailed questions about ancient rugby and cricket.

That time of the year again. Nienke bought heaps of tomatoes to make tomatoes sauce for our home made pizza's. Far less sugar according to my 'chef'. And just as tasty. Once day she'll make her own pizza bottoms as well.

Half march it was time for our traditional trip to WOMAD again. 3 Fantastic days full of music and fun. For a moment it looked like protesters were going to disturb Ziggy Marley's performance. Ziggy has, like his father, a strong connection to the Jewish culture and is married to an Israelian woman of Jewish-Iranian decent. According to some people he is therefore guilty of what other Jewish people have done. Luckily Ziggy started his program with the song 'Shalom Salaam'. And the audience did not want to know anything of it either.

Lots of great artists again, foreign and from our own little paradise. Here we are at the Dell stage watching Tio, an artist from Vanuatu. A beautiful emotional voice. There we're lots of other great artists, like Gilberto Gil, Ibibio Sound Machine, Morcheeba, the Strawpeople, Mari Kalkun, Baaba Maal, etc. Unfortunately my favourite, Nitin Sawney, had a heart attack in London and could not make it. He was replaced by the Dutch band the Mauskovic dance band. Haven't met a Dutchmen who had heard of them and we were not impressed, especially as they found it necessary to smoke at this smoke free event, marihuana even.

A minor drama had taken place at our home. It is wintertime, so mice do go into houses. We've trapped quite a few. During our absence one of them fell during the search for food into our bath. Could not get out anymore. Died a tragic death trying to get out via the bathtub drain. 

And then it was time to visit our friends and family in the Netherlands again. Leaving the nice summer temperatures for the bitter cold in the 'low lands'. The moment we walked through the revolving doors of Schiphol airport we were welcomed by an icy hail pouring down on us. And that after our horrible experience at Shanghai airport. To be honest, we knew, but we'd forgotten. If you fly from New Zealand to Amsterdam over Shanhai you have to get your suite case, go to immigration, go to the other building and go through immigration again. Many years ago an immigration officer there made a photocopy of my passport, scanned it in and then took minutes to compare the scan with the original. A very serious job. Again standing in long queues, no internet, no music, everyone silent. Initially it looked like things were going more smoothly. There was a hall with fingerprint machines on either side. After you had scanned your fingerprints and passport, you were given a numbered voucher for the immigration officer. Smart ay? Unfortunately the officer did not do anything with the voucher and asked us to do our fingerprints again on the machine at his booth. After all, in the 50 meters between the machines and the immigration booth your fingersprints could easily have changed....... A bit of a weird form of Chinese entertainment. So the moral of the story is, do not fly over Shanghai coming or going to New Zealand!

We had some nice catch-ups with friends in Amsterdam and the Hague. Nice to see some old buildings again as well. Here are the Dutch parliament buildings in The Hague.

This is 'the Labyrinth of Memories' an exhibition by Levi van Veluw in the Singer museum in Laren. We met Nienke's fraternity club there. Definitely worth a visit, the museum that is.

We were all invited for dinner by Juud. I have tried to make a club picture. This is probably the best one out of 50 shots. Trying to get a bunch of women to keep their eyes open and look at the camera simultaneously is a hell of a task. Great night, thanks Juud.

My family is getting bigger with all the new partners. We just fitted in a nice farmhouse in Limburg. Lots of food (here our Indonesian rice table) of course. The bad weather kept following us, but we had a lot of fun. The many hills around nearby village Mechelen invited many of us for walks and cycling. Trying to get rid of those extra calories.

Cycling, on electric bikes. My very first time. You'd think that is necessary for us oldies, to keep up with all the youngsters, but it was more the other way around. Unfortunately we took a wrong turn right at the start, making the whole trip a bit longer than expected. I have to admit that an electric bike does offer some extra's. The 'help' means you can explore cycling tours over hilly terrain. Mmm, we may give this some thought for when were back in NZ.

There was even a winery were we could soothe the saddle pain. Cycling with a wine tasting and a nice platter, who would have thought that was a great combination. 

And we played 'padel'. A first for me. What a great game. A combination of tennis and squash. This is the future. I'd say that anyone with a reasonable level of fitness can play this. And because you can play inside you can do it any season and at any time of the day. Slight problem for us, there is only one court in New Zealand. A business opportunity therefore. Unfortunately nobody thought of filming our fantastic rallies (here I play with my brother Geert Jan), but here is a link to some fantastic rallies, showing you how great the game is.

We were able to enjoy a few moments of sunshine outside, but the party area, including a fire and barbeque, remained hardly used. We did have a late night session around a fire pit one night, but the neighbours informed us that it was not appreciated........ 

Catching up, cooking, games, gossiping, wine tasting, lots of fun inside.

Helped my mother clean up a bit at home. Discovering some priceless items in the attic. Found some old pictures amongst them, like this one of me with my two sisters and brother. Must have been around 1980. Made a start looking into my dad's stamp collection. So much stuff, including my granddad's stamp collection. Not sure what it is worth, not a big market for it anymore. I'll finish categorising it next time. 

Nienke's parents had organised a cosy little cottage on a Frisian lakeside again. And a visit to the Elfstedentocht musical 'de Tocht'. We really enjoyed that. Unfortunately we were not allowed to make pictures during the show, but it was fantastic. You were basically sitting in the middle of the skating rink. The story was partly historical and partly fiction. The the stadium for this show was purposely build. Amazing. 

Stretching the legs in Sneek, here with Nienke's parents and brother Pim.

In front of the iconic 'Waterpoort van Sneek', the water gate of the town Nienke's parents live in. Part of the city wall, build in the 16th century.

An Indonesian rijsttafel tastes just as good at home as in the restaurant. And the benefit is that you'll have delicious food for a few more days.

Looks like the right plane for us to fly back to New Zealand with. Unfortunately we had a flight from hell. Terrible turbulence on the plane to Shanghai, over Mongolia we dropped several meters, a few times, people screaming, the wings going up and down, not a pleasant experience at all. Seems to happen a lot nowadays. Climate change as well?

We were quite happy to be back home again. Winter always brings the most beautiful sunsets.

We finally had time to catch up with Anneke Borren, the daughter of Ab Borren. He was one of the men I wrote a chapter about in the Sphaerinda book. Of course I presented her with a copy of the book, as thanks for her help. Nienke and Anneke (Nienke as an enthusiastic amateur potter) shared some good technical advice. 

I have been working on my next project, creating an area for the new hot tub. Been digging into the dune and will have to make a retaining wall for it afterwards. Unfortunately a small digger would just let everything collapse as it is all dune sand. So everything needs to be done by hand, even getting rid of the wheelbarrows of sand (pulling them uphill!).

Some typical kiwi blokes extended our community hall many years ago. They just cut some poles away and moved the side wall a few meters. "She'll be all right!" Since the earthquakes in Christchurch and Kaikoura rules have tightened and our Community hall is not deemed safe anymore. So we needed money to strengthen the building. There were all kind of fund raisers, from pub quizzes to auctions and from raffles to farm walks. Here we are doing one of the farm walks. Great way to discover your region and meet new people. They raised almost half a million dollar by the way, enough to do up the three tennis courts behind the hall as well.

OK, just one more because they are just beautiful.

Yes, we've been out fishing. One of the few days the agenda was clear and the waters were calm. The water was pretty cold though. 

Did not stop the gurnet and snapper from biting. A whole bin full. And the motor was working well! No paddling or swimming involved this time. Poor Dick, had to fillet all the fish and prepare the meal, while I played tennis. Nothing better to come home to homemade fish'n'chips.

Two woofers enjoying a nice break at the fire. These two are the third couple we had this year. They were from Austria, the others all from Germany. Nice to have some young folk around and they did quite some work too. We just have to get used to the fact that they are all vegetarians.

Another fund raiser, an 'Eighties disco'. Exactly the thing Nienke likes. She had a great night out.

I was a bit less fortunate the next day. While putting mulch on the newly planted areas a dark cloud, accompanied by some fierce winds, surprised me. It is not just the fact that you need to run for cover, but most importantly, saving the radio.... And the tools of course. By the time you get everything under cover you are soaked.

We thought we deserved a weekend away. So we booked a quirky hotel in Wellington and checked 'under the radar', the gig-guide for New Zealand. Plenty of music on that weekend. Made a list of the bands we liked to see and walked into town. We were to cowardly to give the lovely Indian people who started a wine bar some advise. No atmosphere, overpriced wine, under par food. The 90+ man on the harmonica tried to make it all better, not an easy task. We politely stayed for half an hour. More success at the Rogue and Vagabond, two consecutive nights great local live bands. We did feel a bit like we were the grandparents picking up the kids though. Who cares..

Lovely quiet corner in the very cosy bar in the hotel. Needed to be explored of course. Can't remember what tropical name Nienke's cocktail had, I can just remember the price....... Ah well, we promised each other not to check the bank account to see what the weekend had cost us.

Entering the restaurant for the night it turned out we had arrived during happy hour. Two cocktails for the price of one. Anyway, we're Dutch, so...... Delicious food by the way, Asian fusion.

The weekend included a short visit to the Te Papa museum, the Wellington museum, the art fair (we could not agree this time, so we did not buy anything) and the City gallery where this amazing exposition was going on, called Turbo croc 2.0, by Ashin Ashin.

And Julia's Morison's ode to Hilma af Klint. Some spectacular pieces. Very inspirational. Swedish Hilma af Klint was the artist who had an exhibition here the previous time we visited the City gallery. 

A weekend in Welly was also a good chance to meet up with our Wellington based friends Jules and Gareth. We decided to go for lunch at Dragons, a Chinese restaurant, with quite a reputation. It was packed with mainly Chinese families. You get a table and then staff comes by your table with endless trays and trolleys of food. You pick what you want and they'll put it on your tab. We left the chicken feet and goose livers for the Chinese, but it was all delicious, and plentiful.

Doesn't my tennis club look nice? Arriving early for the Wednesday night competition, just in time to see the sunset behind Kapiti island.

Mount Ruapehu and on the right, just sticking it's head through the clouds, Mount Ngauruhoe (known to the Lord of the Rings lovers as Mount Doom). I'm on my way to Rotorua for the yearly medical conference. Yep, still not fully retired. At the annual '80 Harakeke road' board meeting I was told my pension was not yet in sight. So I needed to get my education points for recertification.

Getting up very early for the breakfast session, walking past the smelly sulfur ponds on the side of Lake Rotorua. The conference was interesting, but advertisement has increased quite a bit. Lots of doctors shamefully collecting beads and mirrors again. 

Back at home, still working on the consent for our treatment scheme. Trying to find arguments to proof the council's hydrologist wrong. Although they did not want to acknowledge it, in the end I (and common sense) won!

On June 16th lots of volunteers from the Friends of the Otaki river, and many of our own friends, helped us planting native trees on our adopted piece of river bank.

We thought it was time to have some kind of a memorial site for our children on the other side of the world. Helping the Friends of the Otaki river by adopting a site seemed like a fitting way of doing that.

Heart-warming to see so see so many friends turn up to do it with us.

Here with Andrea (our neighbour on Sims road) and James (who bought our house on Sims road). Since Metservice had planned rain, lightning and winds we were assured of a nice sunny day.

Here is a video Rutger made of the unveiling of the sign for our plot. The organisation was so kind to make an exception for us, and allow us to have a slightly bigger sign that the others, because otherwise the names would not fit. The man who did it was a bit nervous, afraid of having made a spelling mistake. We are truly happy and grateful to all our friends, a memorable afternoon.

A week later Nienke and I walked along the river to 'our' site. Here you can see how peaceful the area is.

The views from our house are not limited to the island and the sea. To the south you sea Te Horo village and the rest of Kapiti. Sometimes even the Kaikoura ranges. This morning we saw Te Horo amongst what we'd call 'de witte wieven'. In the folk beliefs in the east of the Netherlands they are female ghosts (white wives), who punish meddling merciless. I think I won't try to explain that to the locals, a foggy morning is good enough.

Finally installed the Dutch houses in our bathroom, should have bought a bigger roll though, now it was a bit of cut and paste work. Looks good though. That is it for now. Have seen a few Euro2024 games. My impressions so far? The Dutch players are too arrogant, the VAR is ridiculous and the UEFA wants the Germans to win. Like always, money is more important than the sport itself. Hopefully the Dutch will avenge themselves tonight because I'm starting to lose my interest in the football game. More exciting news next time; we're thinking of a tour through Scotland and Ireland.