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

Photo recovery

Since the summer of 2011 we have a Sandisk CF card that we cannot read anymore. This disk gave up during the Tour de France finish on Alpe d'Huez. Following advice from a collegue Piet finally had a serious attempt to recover the photos, still saved on this disk. He tried several different recovery software applications, and finally managed to access, and copy, about 100 pictures. These comprised a very complete shoot of the famous publicity caravan, and of the first cyclists in the race. Below is an impression, as a complement to our post of 9th of August 2011.

The publicity caravan, advertising for many different brands

Banette - French bread

Haribo - sweets

Teisseire - sirup for lemonade

Nesquick - instant chocolate milk


Alberto Contador, leader of the stage, will end as second

The favourites: Cadel Evans, Frank and Andy Schleck

New Year's Day: a cold dive in Scheveningen

We have had two firsts: our first ever New Year's Eve in The Netherlands as a family. In our recollection we have never been home since Piet and Mary left The Netherlands, now 24 and 26 years ago. We were either "home abroad" or skiing in France. What surprised us the most was the constant fireworks during the day, culminating at midnight when all hell broke loose...it felt like Bagdad being bombed! We have similar memories from our youth, but for the girls this was a real eye-opener.

The second first was the New Year's dive at Scheveningen beach, a tradition we have seen on television before, and always wondered why people want to go swimming in freezing temperatures. This year the girls were adamant to join, and they convinced their nephews Bart and Max to come over from Belgium as well. Their timing was perfect, they managed to get tickets (yes, you need them!), which were sold out very quickly. There is just a nominal entry fee, partly to support a charity,  as the dive is sponsored by Unox, a famous Dutch sausage and soup brand. Everybody gets an orange hat, and at noon 10,000 people were sprinting towards the sea to get wet and cold. Luckily the weather was reasonable: dry, 7 degrees, but with a chilly wind. Piet came a bit later and never saw the kids, and made some pictures from a distance; the main beach is closed off for the participants. After the dive there was hot soup for all the swimmers. And in the afternoon there were many orange hats walking and cycling in The Hague.

Waiting for the start in front of the Kurhaus

Sprinting towards the sea

The "afterparty": getting dressed, and then some hot soup

You can see who is sponsoring this event....

After the dive: Dorien, Max, Bart and Paula

Beau and a house move

We are having a busy Christmas holiday. Because Paula is starting her final IB exams straight after the break we decided not to go skiing and stay in The Hague. This allows the ladies to spend a lot of time with Beau, who is back in top shape, after a nagging injury in the spring. Almost every day they are riding him, both on the beach and in the stable. They also have been playing with a new toy: a ring around Beau's neck as only means to guide him. He is responding well to this (no piece of iron in his mouth), and Dorien has even been jumping with him.

In addition we have all been very busy with the move of Mary's parents to The Hague. They were living in a terraced house in Den Helder, a small town in the north, and a 2 hour drive away. They had enough of the house (3 stories, front- and back garden) and Den Helder as well, and were keen to move into an apartment without stairs and closer to us. We found something nearby, on the 5th floor of an apartment block, with a lift and a storage room, which is very suitable for them. It needs some renovation, but they could move in straight away. With help of Mary's brother (and a moving company) we moved them this weekend. Now they can start their new life....

 Dorien and Beau riding in the dunes with Eline and Jim

 Beau and Jim on the beach

Mary's parents at the stable

Dorien is jumping with just a neck ring

 The new apartment

Paula enjoying the view at her grandparents