Week 21
From the Newspaper
70 million travelers expected to pass through Schiphol this year!Learning new words...
Perspicuous. As in, "I hope my weekly offerings are at least perspicuous, if not always engaging or interesting".
And a comment on the use of English in Europe (made by a British MP). He also noted that 83% of the Eurovision Songs used English this year. (compared with 75% in 2014).
"Euro-English is a meager dialect – functional, short of adverbs and largely present-tense. It has its own peculiar vocabulary and syntax, generally lifted from other European tongues. For example, the Euro-English for "current" or "contemporary" is "actual," borrowed from, among others, the Dutch "actueel" and the French "actuel." Similarly, when a speaker of Euro-English says "foresee," he doesn't mean "predict," he means "plan for" or "anticipate" (again, based on the French "prévoir," the German "vorsehen" and others).
I have heard native English speakers, once they have been in Brussels long enough, dropping into the dialect. Where they might say, in standard English, "Shall we have a coffee?" they will, when speaking Euro-English, say, "We take a coffee, no?""
Around the farm
My brother in law is mowing some of our grass this year. They get to include our land when calculating how many cows they can have (I think!). In any case, I don't have to mow it! (It's not as tidy, but strangely, I am past caring).
Sitting outside as often as we can....
"Leftover" wood!
A large timber supplier lets us rummage through their waste container, which we try to do at least once every few weeks.
This week we had a bonanza, even going back for a 2nd load!
Janny's Dad, shifting the sheep...
and still mowing at 80 PLUS! (and other helpful things, including wielding a scythe!).
Google Maps satellite photos has our new apartment....(from 2016)
and finally, on the boat.
Janny, complete with a hangover from the yearly Music Festival.Heerenveen to Gorredijk via De Deelen (a water/nature reserve left over from the peat extraction of the 17th and18th Centuries).
and on Saturday we went from Gorredijk to "our" mooring at Felder's Boskje.
This took 3 hours due to the 4 locks and several bridges along the way. But we are nearly home... Wijnjewoude in the top right of map. This will make it easy to load up with Frank and Pam on Tuesday as we head off for the epic voyage of 2017! (and we had 30 degree temperatures! - I am always wary of good weather too early in the season - there is always the chance that it may be the last of the year!).
Felder's Boskje
One of the locks along the way... (the lock operator said I should stay a while so he could listen to my "nice accent" - Janny thinks he is probably gay... haha). We also said "g'day" to some Aussies on a hire boat - the lock keeper said they had had some difficulties - probably tied up when the water was let out of the lock. (Shouldn't be tied at all - just held in the hands).
and lastly, on Ben.
He seems to have settled into his 5 square metres of Amsterdam. He has finished a project that he missed while he was in Hong Kong. His mentor said that it was "probably good enough to sell" - I guess that is what journalists have to do, at the end of the day?.
He is heading off to London next week to catch up with some people he met in Hong Kong. He is also managing to fit in a bit of paid work - yes, it all has to be paid for, somehow!
From September he will begin the final stages of getting his Batchelor of Journalism - I'm not sure yet what that involves.
Week 22 will be late!
