Done!

Paula spend the last 5 weeks studying for het final IB exams, and these are done now! Although the results are not expected before early July she feels pretty good. There is no doubt that she will pass her degree, the only uncertainty are her final marks. As there is no selection for her study she can really relax now. She will spend the whole summer in France, but most of the time she will be working in the local restaurant, to build a financial buffer for her future student years.

Beau's best friend Jim has retired. He was getting quite old (23 years) and the only thing he seemed to enjoy were his easy rides with Beau, and spending time together in the outside paddock. As he was suffering a bit from old age ailments his owner decided to move him to a horse retirement home, in the green open area east of The Hague. He was taken there by all people involved, including Mary, Paula and Dorien. There are large pieces of land with different groups of horses, and Jim was put with some other equine pensionados. Mary and Paula came back a few days later to check on Jim, as he had suffered a bit in his new herd. He is doing fine now.

Beau hasn't noticed so far, his brain is apparently unable to process Jim's disappearance. A distraction was a jumping event at a nearby stable, with Dorien. They decided on relatively low jumps, as it was the first time for us. Beau obviously liked it, and the second round he was really racing around the course. He made no mistake, and could pick up two rosettes at the end. Everybody was very pleased, and is looking forward to the next opportunity.

 Paula studying in the front garden

Beau acting as lawnmower in our front garden

Dorien at the start a practise ride for International Award

 Beau and Dorien at the jumping competition

Paula and Jim at the horse retirement home

Cross country

All three ladies are very active with Beau, and are improving their skills continuously. Beau is in good shape, and they have slowly been increasing his workload. Paula and Mary are coaching each other at the stable, and all three are doing a lot of outdoor rides as well.

This weekend they registered for an outdoor cross in nearby Madestein park. Dorien was the lucky one (together with Beau of course). They loaded Beau in the trailer and drove over. After a warming up they had to complete a jumping course as a test, and then they could start. Despite the short distance, the foul weather (rain and wind) and Beau's somewhat erratic ride they had a lot of fun, and are keen to repeat the exercise. They drove Beau back, cleaned him up and had to go home for study and other chores.

 Beau and Dorien during the cross country ride

Beau and the girls afterwards - and a lot of grass to eat

Piet is still spending a lot of time in London - the Tower Bridge

Easter break in France

We drove out early morning this time (allowing Paula another evening with friends, and Mary a horse riding lesson). On the way we picked up Coline in Dijon. She is a friend of the girls who has been in our village several summers visiting her grandparents, and they have kept in contact on Facebook. As she is in between studies and looking for friends who enjoy the outdoor life she combined an entry exam at Grenoble University with a stay with us. Their main activity was building a tree house, and it remains amazing to have a 16-year old and two 18-year old girls enjoying this type of activity. In the summer it will be completed, and used for overnight stays.

The rest of the time was spent in the garden, doing some cycling and a first ever visit to nearby Briancon, which has a lovely old part of town on top of a hill. The planned reconstruction of our terrace wall had to be postponed (again), and we were promised that it would be ready before the summer holidays. Paula spent time studying, but managed at least one outdoor activity every day. Piet got some serious training rides in for La Marmotte early July, including 114 km ride in the Vercors, without a single flat stretch. As always the break was too short, and on Sunday morning we drove back home, to Beau and his 13th birthday celebration.

Dorien and Mary in Briancon

Lunch in Briancon

Mary and Dorien walking in the outskirts of Briancon

Paula and Coline on Col du Lauteret

Coline and Paula in the Via Ferrata of St. Christophe 

Paula studying in the garden

Catching up

It has been an extremely busy period for us, and it is time for a catch-up. Mary has been taking care of the renovation in her parents flat, doing her part-time job, acting as secretary for a horse riding club, and managing the Lambregts household. The end is in sight, as the flat is nearly ready: the bathroom, floors and walls are done. Mary’s parents are very happy to be close to us, and we all drop by regularly.

Paula has been ending a phase in her life; she had her last day of secondary school. Her year group organised a whole week of activities, and Paula has turned up on horseback (on Beau), as the Mad Hatter, and as a castaway. This was mixed with many social evenings, as her friends will spread over the world to go to university, and many she will not see any more after the summer. She also completed her pre-Uni course at Leiden University, with a distinction for her research project.
After long deliberation and several introduction days at different universities Paula has decided to start an Applied Earth Science Bachelor program at Delft Technical University, which is a small town next to The Hague. She abandoned her long term dream of becoming a vet, due to the very limited flexibility of the study, and your working life afterwards. Early May Paula will start her final IB school exams, and on the 23rd of May it is all over! In addition she has been taking driving lessons, passed her theory exam, and is preparing for her first test.

Piet has been extremely busy in the office, running a project in Rijswijk and London, and having 7 consecutive weeks with flights back and forth to the UK. In two months he has been only 3 days at his own desk in The Hague, trying to keep his regular day job running remotely.

As you can imagine we were ready for a long Easter break in France!

 Beau and Dorien are jumping without saddle, stirrups and bridle

Paula and Beau on the way to school for stunt week

 Paula (the Mad Hatter) and Charlotte (the Cheshire Cat) at stunt week

 Paula's group at the diploma ceremony of pre-University in Leiden

Find Wally (or Paula): the whole pre-University crowd

Cape Town (V)

For his project in South Africa Piet went to Cape Town again, for the fifth time already. He is always enjoying these trips: working with the local team, the (generally) good weather, and the possibility to see the surroundings.

This time there was an added bonus: the Cape Argus, the biggest organised cycling event in the world. Two of his colleagues from the Cape Town team had asked if he wanted to participate, and as you can guess convincing was not difficult. So he borrowed a cycling transport bag and took his own bike with him on the plane. Piet flew out on Friday, on Saturday was the registration and on Sunday the event. Piet even got a Shell cycling kit, and was ready to go. With more than 35,000 cyclist one can imagine the size of this event; all the roads were closed for traffic, and the start was a well-organised schedule that took 4 hours! Unfortunately Piet couldn't cycle with his colleagues as the start groups are strictly regulated, and he only saw them at the finish. The ride started downtown Cape Town, and went southwards towards Cape of Good Hope, on one of the highways. Then the coastal road was followed, and the peninsula crossed from east to west, returning to Cape Town along the Atlantic Ocean road. There was a very strong wind, which made the ride tricky in places, and Piet finished the 108 km in 3 hrs and 45 minutes. Time for a beer with his colleagues!

The week afterwards Piet spend time in the office, did voluntary work in Kayelitsha township, gave a lecture at a university, met the South African authorities and also did some more bike rides early in the morning, to benefit from the hills behind the hotel, and of course the nice weather. Next stop: Ronde van Vlaanderen.....

The Castle of Good Hope, an old fort build by the Dutch

Cape Argus: the coastal road towards Simon's Town

The climb at Smitswinkel

Chapman's Peak: a beautiful stretch of road along the Atlantic Coast

Descend from Suikerbossie

The home stretch: cycling towards Camps Bay and Cape Town

 Andrew, Peter and Piet after the race

Piet teaching at the University of Western Cape

Early morning cycle: Lion's Head and Table Mountain (left)

A short skiing trip

The drive from the Champagne took longer than expected, due to the busy holiday traffic. We normally drive down through the night, and don’t notice any queues at the tollbooths or petrol stations. We started our week with a day of rest, organising the house and sorting out our ski gear. The weather was beautiful; we had a full day of sunshine and reasonable temperatures. Piet even went out on his bike and rode up his training mountain Col d’Ornon. Mary did some work in the garden, and we sat outside reading our books. The next 5 days we went up to Alpe d’Huez to go skiing, with 3 very nice, sunny days and good snow, and 2 days with snowfall and limited visibility. Our last descend was in a whiteout–blizzard! The girls were always leading the pack, and managed to do a number of black runs without their parents. The week ended with another day of rest, cleaning the gear and the house, and Paula’s first “real” job: as a dishwasher in our local restaurant. This is a preparation for a potential summer job, which she really would like to do in France.

On Sunday we had the usual trip home: leave the house around 6, arriving in The Hague late afternoon, with plenty of time to visit our lost son: Beau (now nicknamed "the granny killer").

 Beautiful weather in Bassey on our first day

The ladies on the Sarenne

 Dorien stylish on the Sarenne

Paula and Dorien at the entrance of the infamous "Le Tunnel" black run 

Paula skiing moguls on Les Balcons

A raid in the Champagne

The annual trip of Piet’s wine tasting society “Het Derde Glas” took some time to fix. It was decided early on that everybody’s stock of Champagne needed a major boost.; especially us, as we drank our last bottle on New Year’s Eve. The main difficulty was the alignment of everyone’s busy family and work schedule, and finally a date in February was chosen. Unfortunately this coincided with the first weekend of our skiing holiday, which we had postponed to allow Paula to prepare for some of her final exams. But the need was high, and a compromise was quickly found. Piet got one of the first trains to Utrecht on Friday morning, where he met his friends, and drove off to the Champagne in an empty mini van. The girls went to school, left early, and after lunch Mary drove off in the same direction.

The fellowship had lunch in a Michelin-star restaurant near Reims, but had to urge the waiters as the first appointment was at 2 pm. When leaving we experienced the French way of parking: no space to manoeuvre (the rest is history - we used the Paris method to get out). At Barbier-Louvet, in the village of Tauxieres, the lady of the house received us, and she made her intentions pretty clear from the start: she would only open two bottles for tasting. In a very efficient manner she (now the “sour witch”) worked us out of her house, with a small score of bottles only. This looked again like the traditional misjudgement of our appearance. We drove to Theophile Petit in Ambonnay, were we stood for an empty door, despite agreeing a visit beforehand. We rang their mobile number and heard it ringing in an empty car. Ready to leave, we wandered around the garage, and found them (hiding?) in a cellar, oblivious to their guests. All was forgiven after another efficient, but friendly tasting. At our third address (Simart-Moreau, in Chouilly) the most remarkable was the promo-video, with the owner as lead actor, and badly chosen background music. Then we rushed to Grauves for our last appointment at Le Royal Coteau, which we already visited in 2011. They had called us a few days before, got the chairman to receive us, and even dug out the 2011 invoice. What followed was unlimited tasting (and a large purchase) and a very animated discussion, about selling your grapes to the devil (the big Champagne houses), the system of Millésimé and numbers of bottles and hectares, all badly translated in English by the assistant. In the end it was difficult to leave, the chairman was hanging on the van trying to direct us to the hotel in Epernay.
At the hotel we met the ladies, who had arrived as well. We all went out for dinner, the restaurant a pleasant walk away, through the impressive Avenue de Champagne, where all the main brands have impressive mansions. The next morning we drove off to Bassey for our week of skiing, the others continued on a Saturday of tasting, discussions and buying bottles.

 A large sign welcoming guests...not

The village of Grauves, with the barren vineyards in the background

Tasting at Le Royal Coteau