Week 26 Fat Bastard

Week 26

Fat Bastard

(I think there was also a Dirty Pig to choose from)

Robin, Joy and Therese have been left to their own devices on the boat and managed to make their way down to Blokzijl, one of our favourite destinations.
The red dot is their location on Thursday morning. I've been able to follow their progress using Google Maps (Location Sharing). It's not quite the same as "being there" but I'm enjoying it nonetheless. It has been raining heavily in the north - we had 43mm at our place on Wednesday and I rather fear that they had almost as much on the boat!

Blokzijl

On Friday, We drove down to see the boat  Robin, Joy and Therese at Blokzijl. They all seemed to be in good shape and Therese was pleased to get a bag full of English books!

In good hands at Blokzijl

Rain photos - Drachten, Zwolle (including shameless plug for the Fire Service).

We had 7 kids on Wednesday and despite the rain, we managed to keep them outside for a while... Janny has arranged for a few new kids - I don't even know their names yet!

Janny's charity Sports' Day had to be cancelled due to the rain and forecast of more to come. For once, the forecast turned out to be accurate... to be rescheduled for September.

...and I spent a full day on Friday, trying to fix leaks and spouting! I used to get really upset with leaks; guess I'm used to it now.

Invasion of the Herons

We have them occasionally at our place and we always see them fishing along the canals when we're out in the boat. But apparently, they are becoming a pest in some city areas. Storks are also becoming more plentiful and are slowly getting closer to us as their numbers increase and they "claim" more territory.

Had to laugh at this one....

http://www.dutchnews.nl/features/2017/06/spreek-nederlands-met-mij-a-week-of-eschewing-english/

(in English)

about a woman who wore a "speak Dutch with me badge" in order to stop people automatically switching to English and so that she would presumably learn Dutch more readily.
My own experience is that people do automatically switch to English - I have always thought that they simply couldn't stand the sound of my (tone deaf) Dutch!  I remain convinced of this - sometimes they actually "cringe" when I speak, but luckily not too often.


Kids at work, Saturday

From the newspaper...

Wallabies

Saturday afternoon 24 june. The train from Leeuwarden to Zwolle had to stop.... A wallaby was jumping over the train line. The police couldn't catch it, but a couple of young guys managed it with a lasso. Over the years, there have been reports about wallabies/kangaroos not far from us... yet to see any, though.