Rest

Well, hello everyone! Did you miss me? I know, I know, I have been away for over two weeks, but I have a good excuse: it was busy. First it was busy with work and I worked all day every day it seemed. It was quite tiring and I really needed the holiday that was coming up. But when work quietened down, it was home life that was busy. I always make the family newsletter and it's always quite hard to get everybody to send in their stories and things. Which is quite annoying, but in the end I had something that looked quite like a newsletter.

When it finally looked like a newsletter, I had to print it out, staple it together and send it to the family! Which was another day's work and finally on the day before Christmas I was finished with that. Earlier in December there had been plans to celebrate Christmas with some friends of mine, but my head was too full with busyness that I decided to cancel that and just stay home. And apart from the one day where I visited an aunt celebrating her birthday, I did just that: stay at home. Go to bed late, sleep in, eat horrid food (do Smarties count as a food group at all?) and watch television.

For the new year, other things are causing my head to be full of busyness: learning a new language, finding another job, moving to another country, it all needs to be placed somewhere in my head and on occasion I feel it might explode.

Anyway, for now it's quietened down a great deal and if the neighbourhood doesn't go overboard with all the fireworks in the next few days, I shall be fine.

PS: if you were wondering what that photo has to do with this post: absolutely nothing!

Head spinning

For some reason my boss or the planner or whoever it is that gives me the work, has decided to give me a lot of work. I was off one day only last week and worked both Saturday and Sunday. Long hours as well. On Saturday I had to go to a Yule Market which is big business in Germany. I was headed to Düsseldorf, which is quite close to the Netherlands. I had to leave from a nearby trainstation at 8am and here's how the conversation went when I arrived there:

Woman 1: Is this the bus to Düsseldorf?

Me: Yes it is.

Woman 1: Is this number 21?

Me: No, it isn't.

Woman 1: But this is the bus to Düsseldorf?

Me: Yes, it is.

Woman 2: Is this the bus to Düsseldorf?

Me, Yes, it is.

Woman 2: Is this number 24?

Me: No, it isn't.

Woman 1: But this is the bus to Düsseldorf?

Me (getting quite exasperated by now): Yes, it is.

Woman 1 and Woman 2 simultaneously: So, is this number 21/24?

Me: NO, IT ISN'T!

Man 1: Is this the bus to Düsseldorf?

Me (grinding my teeth by now): Yes. It. Is.

Man 1: Is this number 21?

Me: NO!

Woman 3: Is this the bus for FNV to Düsseldorf?

Me: Yes, it is! Welcome.

Man 1: But you're going to Düsseldorf?

Me: Yes, with the union.

Man 1: What's that?

Me (being helpful even though I was fully fed up with them): Which company have you booked your trip with?

Women and Man: GEBO.

Me: This is Connexxion Tours. (and I won't write down what I was thinking at that point, but I give you a clue: it had something to do with sods)

Anyway, the trip went off without a hitch. I was early everywhere and the return trip was good as well. On Wednesday I am off to Cologne. Another Yule Market!!

Did I tell you?

I am learning Norwegian and at the moment I have a vocabulary of about 400 words and phrases. I know what a 'bil' is (car), I know how to count to a hundred, although it does take some time to get the Norwegian answer to Norwegian sums and I am about to learn about verbs and their perfect tense and the past tense and the other tense that uses to have. And I can tell you: it's not easy!

So far, the words I have learnt (with a few exceptions) have something to do with either English, German or Dutch and sometimes it's completely alien. And then there are verbs. Those dreaded verbs. And having to learn about those tenses is in some cases the complete opposite to Dutch.

So, today I set myself a task. Every single verb I should know by now I had to write down the present, past and past perfect (is that it?). The first page was more red lines than any other colour, by page two I had figured I was doing it all wrong and went with my gut. By that time the red became less and less.

To prove to you that I have learnt something more than 'God Jul' and takk (which means thanks): here's a little story about me:

Jeg heter Mara et jeg bor i Nederland. Også har jeg bodd i Frankrike, Italia og England. Jeg er førti år. Jeg har to katter som heter Wuppie og Linette.

Easy! Right?

Nothing

Just so you know I am not lying dead in a ditch somewhere. But I don't really have much to say right now. It's busy at work, the weather is awful (wind, rain and more wind) and I spend most of my time off learning Norwegian, doing laundry and watching television. I was supposed to go to Brussels this weekend and planning on contacting Gattina to see if we could meet up, but that was changed this morning, so unless Gattina wants to come to Düsseldorf in Germany...

Friends

Grateful for friends who make me laugh! Even if it makes for wobbly photos!!

Well...

I did it: I sent my resumé to a Eures consultant in Bergen, Norway. I don't know what will come of it, but I am keeping my fingers crossed. Wish me luck!

PS: I am having severe problems with uploading photos. On occasion it works fine, but most of the time it just doesn't. As you can see, I did add a photo to this post, but it should have been included on another post! Which didn't work... Anybody any ideas on how to solve it?

Birthday

And there I was on Friday, sitting in church when all of a sudden my phone went off. Fortunately it happened before the service and I turned it off immediately (others hadn't been so clever or thoughtful). When I finally remembered I had received a text it was well after the service and it was from my sister-in-law: whether I would like to come to the birthday party of her youngest. Which of course I had completely forgotten about, since I forget about a lot of birthdays.

Anyway, I phoned my parents yesterday morning to ask whether they were taking the train or car and when it turned out the were driving, I asked them to come pick me up as well. So, off we all went to my brother and his family.

My youngest niece had turned three and was very happy to receive all those gifts. Although at first she was a bit confused 'because she hadn't put her shoe out the night before'. In the Netherlands we celebrate St Nicholas on December 5th and in the weeks leading up to that day, children all over the country will put out their shoe, containing wish lists, carrots and hay (for his horse) and the next morning there will be a little present in said shoe. But she wasn't one to shy away from presents and when there were none more coming, she found a mug and some wrapping paper to make her own present! So cute...

Unfortunately my parents couldn't drop me off at home at night, so I took the bus home, which of course had left five minutes before I arrived at the busstation! Or so it seemed to me. Never mind though, I had to get some money, find a toilet and I wanted something to drink anyway. And I did make it home in time for my favourite Saturday show of the moment: Strictly Come Dancing. Yea...

Laurens

Late August a colleague of mine went to see a doctor about some swelling in his groin area. A few days later he was diagnosed with colon cancer. Unfortunately not in the early stages, because it had already spread to the blood and bones, but the doctors still gave him 9 months, more if the medication would work. His weight kept dropping though, since he couldn't keep his food down and he was admitted to hospital with severe dehydration.

While in hospital they discovered it had also spread to his brain and the nine months was quickly changed into a couple of weeks. He passed away on Monday. Today all the colleagues from our lot said goodbye to him for the last time. He will be very much missed.

Busy

A few weeks ago I was told by my manager that I wasn't working enough! Since we don't have nine to five jobs, it sometimes makes it harder to actually reach the 173,3 hours of work needed in a month. Especially when work is very thin on the ground. But to then blame me is a bit much I thought and I told him so as well: if you want me to reach the hours, plan better! I will work!!

So, over the last few weeks I have been working more than 'normal'. Last week was a six-day week for me, filled with school runs, army rides, more school runs and yes, even more school runs. This week it was going to be more of the same, even if today is an easy day: just the hither in the morning and the tither in the afternoon.

To top it all off, it has been extremely tiring to drive lately: we have had a persistent fog for about a week now and on Monday especially, it was hard going: visibility going down in some cases to less than 50 meters! Very tiring on the eyes, even if I do sport a fancy yellow pair!

Whenever I have a few minutes in between runs or even during a run, I am cramming my head with Norwegian words. I thought it would be easy, but I don't know whether I underestimated the language or overestimated my ability to learn a new language, but it is proving to be harder than I thought. The reading and writing and even the hearing are okay, but the speaking? Ten words on paper and you can just hear one single sound! Incredible. I've found a solution though: Norwegian radio and every time I recognize a word or phrase I whoop. Not much whooping yet though, but it will come! After all, I only know about three hundred words so far! And according to the dictionary I just got there are a few more out there!!! Just a few...

Anyway, my head is just about swimming with Norwegian words, fog and work and (og) unfortunately (dessverre) there hasn't been a lot (mange) of time to write (skrive) my blog or read (lese) any other blogs.  

144

We have a new emergency number in the Netherlands: 144 to save an animal. If, for example, you see a horse in a ditch, you can phone them and they will put you through to the emergency service needed.

So, when I saw a horse in a ditch, I phoned 144 and was put through to the police. I told them where I had seen the horse in the ditch and that I didn't think it would be possible for the horse to get out of said ditch by itself, since the banks were too high. Fortunately I wasn't the only one who had phoned in and I hung up, relieved something was going to be done to this poor horse.

When I got back at night I wondered what had happened to the horse and after a bit of searching I finally found it. Now, I phoned at 11.15am or thereabouts and somebody else had already reported it before me. The fire department got notified at a little before midday! Anyway, the fire department made their way over to the horse, where a car rescue service and highway patrol were already on site. The fire department tried to put a harness on the horse, but that didn't go as smoothly as they had hoped.

Then the owner of the horse arrived and told the fire department that he didn't need help, he could do it himself. First he used a rope to get the horse closer to the field, then the harness was put over the head and using a tractor, the horse was pulled into the field. However, the horse was quite dizzy and actually fell back into the ditch! So, the farmer tried again and this time he was successful! The fire department did not assist and distanced itself from the method used by the farmer.

If you click on this link, you can see the photos that were taken.