Welcome to Walter, our new furry companion!


(Photo by Ryan)

He’s 1.5 years old, and we adopted him from the kitty orphanage where he was living since he was found on the street in May. He’s adorable, well behaved and really funny when he does silly kitten things.

I finally took the time to take photos of our house and share then with whoever is still following this blog. So here we are!

The living room:





Dining room (notice the brand new furniture that finally finishes the room):



The cabinet at the back it the brew-closet. It is full of beer brewing equipment.



The lavender kitchen:





Our wonderful bathroom. We opened that window when we renovated it, and it’s the absolute best thing we have done to the house.





The bedroom:



Our terrace, opening from the bedroom:



The garden downstairs:



The crafts/computer room, in its natural state:



And from the outside, we have the top left quadrant of the house and the central balcony:



The church at the end of our street:



That’s it, you’ve seen it all now! (Well, except for the messy closets, but those don’t need to be shown...)

Mojo lost his hard-fought battle and had to be put to sleep on March 14 at 10.50 AM CET.

We’re still not completely clear on what he had; either a fatal virus or an aggressive cancer, but he was severely anemic and lost over half of his body weight in less than two months. Over the weekend he lost the ability to regulate his body temperature and was slipping into a coma, so I took him in first thing Monday morning. The vet was shocked that he hung on as long as he did and reassured me that this was the right thing to do and that there was no way to save him.

He was a terrific companion and I already miss him terribly, but after a little over 12 years, it was apparently his time.

-Ryan

Last weekend we participated in a spectacular regatta of old sailing boats. About 60 old Dutch barges from the beginning of the century were gathered in Enkhuizen for two very pleasant days, with a crew of about 25 people on each boat (depends on the number of masts, we had 2 on the Nirvana), where everybody sleeps on the boat for the weekend. An old coworker invited us there, and we took the opportunity to try a very local sport.



The first thing to tell is that we were incredibly lucky with the weather. Two days of gorgeous weather with just enough wind to push the boats around and give us a little bit of work to maneuver the sails. It wasn’t always easy to take photos, since we had some work to do with our sails, and there was some wind and waves at our post at the front. As a result, not many photos of the actual race, but rather of stuff before and after the action.



Here for example, we are parking after the first day of race, where we had to make a triangle between 3 cities of the IJsselmeer.



The boats pack themselves nicely in rows of 4, and everybody goes through several boats before reaching theirs. It’s very friendly.



All these boats have a flat bottom and a “sword” on the side, a big piece of wood that goes in the water to do the job of a quille when needed. They were used to transport all kinds of things between Dutch cities back in the day, and they can go on canals and the sea in the middle of the Netherlands, but not really in the rough sea. In the 70s the owners of these boats started to convert them in pleasure boats with cabins and more comfort, and to race in regattas like this one.



On Sunday it was a different type of race: an Olympic course. Here our skipper Irene informs us of the plan for the day: first we go against the wind (thus plenty of maneuvers), then we come back to the beginning in a triangle. We did the triangle 3 times to finish the race.



As a result the boats get very close to each other and sometimes play chicken.



It was quite majestic to see these old boats cruise around on the lake!



And it’s quite some work to hoist all these sails and manage all the ropes without mixing or entangling them!



At the end of the weekend we started to understand the principle and to anticipate the proper operations at the right time.



We even did a good score this year: combining the 2 races of Saturday and Sunday we finished 5th on about 60 boats!



Back in the charming town of Enkhuizen, after a very nice weekend learning sailing techniques and meeting very nice people:



We would love to go back next year!