Autumn break in Belgium and France

For the autumn break we planned to go to our house in France again, to get everything ready for winter and to take a break after the hectic weeks with the funeral and the seemingly never ending renovation upstairs. A few months earlier Piet proposed a change to the regular schedule: a long weekend stopover in the Ardennes on the way down. He found a very nice 4-person room in a renovated 17th century farmhouse, in the beautiful village of Furfooz, a few minutes’ drive east of Dinant. The weather was great, and we did some of the classics…

The first day we went to Dinant and climbed the citadel, located some 100 m above the town, and with a great view over the Meuse river. We enjoyed the guided tour by an old, tri-lingual Belgian man, especially his English translations. In the afternoon we did a walk from Furfooz, past Chateau de Vêves, another Ardennes classic, and ending up at the Lesse river. The next day we drove to Han, to visit the caves, which is one of the oldest tourist destinations in Europe. Despite going in with a lot of people the 2 km underground walk was very impressive and enjoyable. In the afternoon we did a hike around Han. The 3rd day we walked to Parc de Furfooz, a small archeological area next to the village, with some Roman remain and pre-historic caves. After lunch we did a trip along Mary’s memory lane: the climbing rocks of Freyr, at the Meuse river, just south of Dinant. During her university days she used to come here a few times a month to go rock climbing with fellow daredevils, and it was impressive for us to see these near-vertical, 100 m high walls she used to tackle. We descended to the river and walked along it to the Lesse, and back up again. Unfortunately their old hangout “Chamonix”, where they used to eat chips after a hard day of climbing, was closed for the day.

The next morning we drove to Bassey (Paula turned 16 this day!), and we arrived late in the afternoon. We had a few presents and dinner in the local pizzeria to celebrate. The next day it rained, so we did some shopping, and pottered around the house. This was followed by 3 glorious days of sunshine, and work in the garden. Mary finally managed to convince the rest to dig up the drainpipe, which has been blocked for some time, and was overflowing during rain showers. It looked like a daunting task, but with the 4 of us we managed fine. We replaced the pipe along the house and in the garden, dug a drain hole at the end, and filled it with gravel from our local river Sarenne, and then buried the whole thing again. Now we have to wait for a heavy rain storm to see if it all works.

We also had some time for our favorite pastimes: Piet did two bike rides, freezing his body parts on the descends, Paula and Dorien went twice to Cecile to do some horse riding, and Mary used the chainsaw to prune the old apple trees in the garden. The girls also picked a lot of apples to make apple crumble and compote, and there were plenty left to take home for some more batches. It was all finished off with a record drive back to The Hague, ready for the winter.

The next morning we found out that the contractor doing the renovation had gone belly up...

Dinant and the river Meuse

Walking near Furfooz

In the caves of Han sur Lesse

The climbing walls at Freyr are rising straight up from the river Meuse

Digging up the drainpipe in our garden

Family matters

We have had an emotional week, as Piet's mother has suddenly, but not unexpectedly, passed away peacefully in her own house. Her health had been deteriorating the past few years, and her body had just given up. Piet, Mary, his two sisters, his brother and their partners have spent the whole week at the parental house planning the funeral, starting organising some of the household and paperwork, and mainly being together to support each other and share memories. Piet's mother was a very warm and caring person, who has supported us through our years abroad, and she also had a very close bond with Paula and Dorien. Her passing is a great loss for us.

The week ended with a funeral service in the church nearby, and afterwards she was placed in the graveyard, next to Piet's father. This was followed by a reception in a nearby restaurant, where we met a lot of family and friends that we hadn't seen in a long time. Everyone had the same positive stories and memories, and it was a very satisfying ending of a hectic week.

Piet's mother with Paula and Dorien in the desert near Cairo, December 2007

Paula's Personal Project

As part of her IB MYP (middle years program) Paula has to do a personal project. This is something completely undefined, with a subject you can determine yourself; the only requirement is that a product is delivered and a final report is written. Choosing the subject was not difficult, it had to be something with horses. But what..?

Before the summer Paula and Mary stumbled across someone on Internet with a veterinary background who was painting on horses to indicate organs and bones. Thus the idea was born to give a lesson at the local stable on the internal organs of a horse, using a painted, real horse for demonstration. Then the search for the right paint started, and, after a few trials, Paula got in contact with a horse chiropractor (yes, they exist), who pointed her to the best paint to use. After a few trial sessions and practicing her lesson with us, Paula was ready. She delivered her lesson with confidence, using horse Vera as prop, in front of some 20 people at the stable. And everybody learned something!

Paula has kept her own blog as a journal of the project, so if you want to know more: http://horseanatomypp.blogspot.com/

Working in Italy

Piet went on a nice business trip last week: a geological excursion in the south Italian Apennines. These trips are offered occasionally for people in the office to "reconnect with the rocks". The aim is to study oil or gas producing reservoirs in the field, and not behind a computer, and to get an appreciation for the variability, scale and detailed properties. This trip started in Naples, then towards the south, back north along the Adriatic coast, and returning through the mountains to Rome, 6 days in total. The weather was beautiful, the food was excellent, the company enjoyable, and Piet even learned a few things! What more can you wish for?

In the end Piet had half a day before returning home, and he took the opportunity to visit Ostia Antica. This is the ancient port of Rome, now some 4 km from the beach, and a huge site with remains of a large city. There are hundreds of houses, temples, baths and a well-preserved theatre. You can wander around for hours, and easily image the buzz during the Roman time. An appropriate ending of an excellent trip!

Looking at carbonate rocks near Salerno

Walking back after visiting some more rocks...

Matera, a UNESCO world heritage site in southernmost Italy

A mosaic in Ostia Antica, in a small shop along the ancient trading square

Summer holidays (part 3)

The last part of the holidays started in three different directions: Paula and Dorien went on a week long horse back camping trip, Piet had to go back to The Hague to return to the office and Mary’s brother Tony, with family, arrived for a week of holiday in France. Paula and Dorien started their trip at the stable in Mizoen, with Cecile and two other girls, and on the first day rode to Col d’Ornon to camp under the stars. The second day they descended to Valbonnais where they stayed for 2 days at a small lake. This allowed the blacksmith to come and fix some horseshoes for the remainder of the trip. Via the Taillefer and Bourg d’Oisans they ended up in Mizoen again, exhausted after a week of horse riding and fun in beautiful weather.

A few days later Paula’s friend Laura arrived to stay for the last 10 days of the holidays. They were allowed to ride small village pony using a cart (which they also used as rickshaw). For the rest they played lots of cards, and went to Cecile a few times to ride and help her with little kids.

When Piet returned it was finally time for some outdoor activities. The backpacks were filled up and we hiked to Refuge de la Selle, one of the mountain huts we hadn’t visited before. It is a spectacular place, with the dining area suspended in the air. When we arrived we left the backpacks and continued to the nearby glacier. We didn’t reach it, but got a good idea for next time. Every year we are planning some real mountaineering, and we are getting closer each time…. After a healthy meal we slept in the dormitory, and the next morning we descended back to St. Christophe. On the way down we lost Paula and Laura, and after a long wait we were getting worried. We split up to look for them, and Mary found them nearby, covered in red spots.. they had been picking raspberries and filled two drinking bottles. So we ate raspberry pie that evening! Two days later we went back to the same area to do the Via Ferrata, a secured rock climb.

The last days were spent in the garden and on the bike, and we had the neighbours over for farewell drinks. Then it was time to clear everything away, close the house, hook up an empty horse trailer, and we drove home to our regular life of office, school and …..horses! More about that later.

Riding in the mountains during the horse - camping trip

Sleeping under the stars: Cecile, Elsa and Dorien

Cecile riding towards Taillefer

Dorien passing Lac Fourchu, near Taillefer

Paula and Laura are making a tour with Image

Spectacular: Refuge de la Selle

Paula is climbing the Via Ferrata of St. Christophe

Mary, Laura and Paula are crossing a suspension bridge on the Via Ferrata

Dorien's shadow is also doing the Via Ferrata

Summer holidays (part 2)

Like in The Netherlands the weather in France was not great this summer, it rained quite a lot and it was much cooler than usual. The higher slopes were even regularly covered with snow, but this didn't stop us being outside most of the time. This poor weather spell coincided with the Tour de France and the visit by Mary’s parents. As usual we enjoy the few days of hectic activity surrounding the Tour and on the day walked up a few kilometers towards Alpe d’Huez to see the “caravane publicitaire” (advertisement or publicity caravan) and of course the cyclists. The great thing is to see the cyclists battling up the slope, so close that you can almost touch them. Piet saw all his heroes, but unfortunately the Dutch guys played second fiddle. At the end of the day we descended, loaded with goodies from the caravan, and to watch the taped recording of the whole stage: were we on television? A very brief shot in passing.......

Mary’s parents had a quiet time, sitting on the terrace, doing short walks and enjoying the horse show in the garden. Our neighbours, owners of the village mare Swallow, wanted to make use of Real’s presence to get her pregnant. Jacques came over to supervise the first “meeting”, a pretty violent affair where Real tried to jump Swallow for a few hours, and got kicked everywhere.... but no success. In the end they were separated to allow Swallow to get “on heat” before a second attempt. They were both left in our garden to stimulate this process and to allow them to get to know each other better; a thin electric wire effectively keeping them apart.

We spent a lot of time working in our patch of forest, cleaning out dead wood, and cutting firewood with all our noisy tools. We also took the girls on a bike ride to their first col: Col d’Ornon, 650 m above the valley. They managed without any problems and are already asking about Alpe d’Huez! However, they are looking forward even more to their horseback camping trip next week....

The whole family is ready for Col d'Ornon

Halfway at the climb at Pont d'Ornon

Proud to have reached the top!

Rob Ruigh and Robert Gesink are struggling up Alpe d'Huez

Dutch hero Johnny Hoogerland

Summer holidays (part 1)

During the last part of Mary’s recovery period from her back surgery her horsey itch started again. With Smook far away (see post of 10th of June) she investigated the possibility to get Mirinda, our horse in Egypt, over to The Netherlands. Unfortunately, in addition to the current unrest, there is at present a ban on exporting horses from Egypt, so the search quickly switched direction to France. Last year she met Jacques and his horse Real (pronounced Re-aal), a stallion that she really liked. So she hooked up with him again and drove over to Normandy to view this horse. It was agreed that we could have the horse on loan for a trial period, before we would make a final decision to buy. However, we had to get the horse ourselves… So now the search was re-directed to marktplaats.nl (a Dutch version of Ebay) to find a horse trailer, and Mary was successful within a few days.

Thus on our first day of the summer holidays we all drove over to Normandy, stayed overnight at Jacques’ farm and early in the morning loaded Real in the trailer. Then we drove all the way across France to our house in Bassey, a solid 12 hour drive as we had to keep our speed under control. On arrival we quickly had to make a small paddock with electric fence and let him out. The next days a much bigger space was set up in our garden and Real slowly calmed down. Then the trials started: he proved to be a handful, and although he picked up quickly on the exercises his fiery character kept playing up (not helped by a number of mares in the village!), and we had some entertaining rodeo scenes. After several days the opinion of Cecile, the local stable owner, was sought and she was very clear: this horse is not suitable for a stable in The Netherlands. After few more days Mary and the girls accepted the inevitable and the decision was made to decline.
Due to all this horse action our usual activities were at a lower level, but we had a few nice days with Hanneke (Smook’s owner) and her extended family, and Piet managed to get a number of bike rides under his belt.

Paula and Mary are training Real

Dorien riding in our paddock in the garden

Real is a very sweet horse, but not really suitable for us in The Netherlands