The reason for my blog being so quiet is that it’s been a while since
something truly exciting happened and I noticed that I’ve been relying on
Facebook a lot to keep people up to date on our life in the ACT, but maybe if I
pile it all together it’s still worth a read to some. We still think that our
lives are blessed, happy and quite entertaining, but nothing to write home
about, but we’ll give the people what the people want!
Winter is coming, ehm, it is here, aaaaand it’s gone!
The weather is always a safe topic to start with and the coldest winter
in eight years seems worth mentioning. I will still take these winters over the
Ducth ones, because instead of it staying 20 below freezing, dark or rainy all
day, it actually warms up to 10-15 degrees most days with clear skies and no
Siberian chill winds. The nights go down to -8 and that’s nothing to sneeze at
(wink). I actually bought a winter coat, gloves, a beanie (muts) and a scarf this
year. Give it another 2 years and I’ll be complaining about winter like a true
Aussie from when summer ends until mid-spring. Another thing to remember is
that by the end of winter the swooping bird season commences. It’s basically birds
defending their new nests by almost flying into you, harassing bikers and
people out for a walk (like me). Once you get used it it’s like driving in
Paris, they don’t hit you, but man they come close.
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| A typical winter day in the ACT |
Hester visited in April and Just visited in May and that allowed us to
visit and show off some of our favourite spots, spend a lot of time with some
of our favourite people and hear a lot about the benefits of parenthood J. It was a small price
to pay to have them both over for a week. Yumi and Hester travelled all over
the place, went diving, which was not too great, but the drive to the coast is
an attraction in itself, saw heaps of kangaroos and visited Melbourne for a
day. Just and I didn’t do too bad ourselves, climbed some rocks, saw more heaps
of kangaroos, almost made it to the highest mountaintop of Australia (too much
snow and a serious risk of killing ourselves) and more ACT highlights than you
can swing a stick at. We marched no less than 100,000 steps in a week and we
planned to go to Melbourne, but then fog happened and planes did not fly, so we
got to go to the science museum and stuff our faces with all sorts of yumminess
instead. I mean, we walked about 80 kilometres and I lost exactly 0.00000 kg of
weight. Well done!
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| Sooooo, getting one off these, I mean, looks legit right? |
Operation #2
It’s been almost 5 months since operation Bellybuster and with the Kruidenier
parents coming over to celebrate their 25 year marriage anniversary by 3
October we thought it best to have it out of the way before then. It’s much
less invasive this time, just day surgery on the 3rd of September, another
30 cm added to the 70 cm scar, bye bye wing flaps and I’ll finally be able to
wear that latex cat suit I’ve been dreaming of for years. I am still very happy
with the results of operation #1 and while I have no six pack just yet and my
belly region feels like I’ve borrowed someone else’s skin, it’s still a great
feeling to experience every day.
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| Damn you auto correct! I meant a cat in a latex suit. And no, I do not care to explain. |
Work stuff
As you might have heard I’ve quit my job with ACT Shared Services to
start my own business in Change Improvement and coaching (www.kruidenierconsulting.com.au).
The best job I’ve ever quit but the pace of government was getting to me. So
now I am my own boss and we’ll see how it goes. Of course we did the numbers
and even if I make no money at all ever, we’ll get by, so don’t worry about us,
we’ll be fine. I’ll get to practice my patience skills. As usual, Yumi is acing
everything like a pro, no surprises there and she’s now even being asked to
speak on conferences across the country (16/1-Melbourne) about the Buurtzorg (neighbourhood
care) model. Too funny, but I am very proud of her. Of course I am only saying
that because she’s the one making all the money right now and even a vegetarian
man’s gotta eat.
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| Changing lives, sure, just two more laps |
Volunteering for fun
Yumi started volunteering for lifecycle (http://www.life-cycle.org.au/) getting
involved in the regional ride part of things and I sort of tag along. It’s a
lot of fun to get involved with all these people who are so committed to a
cause and as we have some experience in the area of blood cancers, it feel like
we’re doing a good thing, even if it means selling sausages to raise funds. I’ve also started volunteering for Red Cross Mates, which means that I
spent 1-2 hours a week with a senior citizen to make sure they don’t become too
lonely. My mate is Marlis, 81 years old and originally from Germany. She’s
still very young at heart, has a dog, misses her husband of 45 years (he passed
away 4 years ago) and has the best collection of German schlager music in the
ACT for sure. It’s 50 cds so once I’ve heard them all, I’ll report back.
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| Those are electric drums, what is that guy even doing? |
Sports
I still missed kung fu something fierce, kept looking for a martial
arts contact sport, considered MMA, but when I mentioned to Yumi that I was
thinking of doing an introductory course Kendo (http://www.anukendo.org/) she “completely
surprised me by saying “I’ll go with you!” We’ve just had a fourth lesson and
bought our own practice swords (bamboo shinai) and it looks like we’ll stay with
it. It’s much more fun than hanging around the house on a Tuesday and we’ll get
body armor and get to hit each other over the head a lot. What more could we
ask for?!
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| Yuum and me in 6 months from now |
One thing we will NOT be seen doing together is cycling. Then again, Yumi never claimed to be Dutch to begin with. I started running a couple of months ago, but about a month back I developed such a violent cough that running in early morning frost seemed like a bad idea, so instead I started cycling, which allows for warmer gear and can be combined with going places without the arriving sweaty and out of breath. Now I cycle everywhere during weekdays instead of taking the bus which takes less time and gives me a nice workout. Sometimes I imagine I am Cadel Evans, most of the time I just gasp for breath going uphill at 8.5km/h and woop from joy shooting downhill at 55km/h.
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| Well done Bus Company, no wonder people hate public transport |
I hope that
gives everyone an impression of our not so exciting, but quite entertaining
lives.
Keep to the
left and stay safe
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