Week 31
Another aerial photo _ mid to late 60's
Janny's Mum put this on Facebook. I hadn't seen it before, although I had heard of the "building that used to be in between". At the front of the house is one of "The Two Beeches", or "De Twa Buken" in (old) Frisian. The huge 45m x 15m winter barn has yet to be built - adjoining the rear building (which now houses toilet wing, main kitchen and my workshop).
Just to compare, here again the same photos.
 |
| Late 90's |
 |
| July, 2016 |
Not much news this week....
The major item was Ben going away for 5 months. Hard to get used to the idea and we'll be much happier when he is settled in Hong Kong. In the meantime, he had a farewell BBQ at our place. He has some really nice friends and the different groups all seemed to get on OK.
BBQ
Half inside and half outside due to the threat of rain. Finished the night inside, in front of the fire!
The bottom half of the next photo has Ben's friends on the skelters. Somebody thought that the photo looked like a scene from a movie.... and so they put the two photos together.
We spent the next couple of days cleaning up, which was a good thing as it needed to be done thoroughly for our re-organization.
Schiphol
It's (only) 169 kms, so we left at 0645 hrs and made it easily in just over 90 minutes. On the previous few days there had been security "signals" and so traffic had been very slow due to security checks and Schiphol itself had been under a lot of pressure with long delays. There was also a malfunction with the baggage system so that 9000 suitcases went "missing". Luckily, we had plenty of time and no delays at all.
Ben is travelling with two mates, Tjardi (pronounced Chardy) and Tobias. A third friend will also be studying in Hong Kong. We think it is something special that four young men from our "sleepy hollow" will be coming together in such a faraway place, albeit at different Universities.
Two "girlfriends" travelled with us to Schiphol and two others even came to our house to say goodbye to Ben (at 0530 hrs!). He really does have some nice friends.
The trip...
We use Whatsapp to stay in touch and so far it is still working seamlessly in Riga, St. Petersburg and Moscow.
An Aussie Pub in Riga
and Ben's first photo from Riga..
Flight from Riga to St. Petersburg
 |
| Church of the Savior on Blood |
 |
| Hermitage Museum (was The Winter Palace) |
Train from St. Petersburg to Moscow (4 hrs)
They did a boat trip but the commentary was all in Russian!
Meanwhile, back at work
One apartment is ready. Our all-important coffee drinking area is ready. The workshop is ready. We still have to empty our existing work area and set it up as an apartment. Inventories have to be made (with photos of existing conditions).
We have a heavy week coming up with kids on school holidays, normal day clients and trying to get the last of the moving done.
Janny and I are still planning a trip to Saint-Georges-Motel in France and needless to say, looking forward to the break! Having a few personnel problems (they want to go on holidays!) so we have to do a few days ourselves. I'm usually good for a few hours getting some of the bigger kids to do some "work".
I've even managed to do some painting and set up the "backyards" of the apartments. Trying to get them to "live" outdoors on that side of the building, rather than "our" side. We'll see how that goes....
Interesting that I always thought that the concrete area at the back of the long cowshed used to be another building. By the photos it is clear that there was never a building out there. I do wonder, though, what the two strips of concrete were for (which were later filled in with more concrete - the 60's photos clearly show then in existence on their own.
ReplyDeleteNice start to the trip - I'm sure it will be a great experience. Ben's a very well travelled young man already so this will just add to his cap.
My only comment about encouraging folks to live on the other side of the building - you still keep the wood out there so I assume that you will be going out there several times a day to collect wood? Might be worth thinking about.