Sunday, June 1, 2008
Friday, May 30, 2008
Home Security
It's Friday evening again. I love Friday evening, with the whole weekend stretching out ahead of us.
Adam managed to break into our house this afternoon.
He left his house-keys at home this morning as I (plus Edward and Hannah) are invariably at home when he returns from the office. This afternoon he decided to escape from work early and as I was visiting a friend he came home to an empty house.
Not to be deterred, he managed to climb through the tiny, very high-up window that is above our shower. To reach the window he had to stand on our rubbish bin, and to fit through the window he had to remove almost all his clothes. He assures me he left his underwear and socks on... my mind boggles at the thought of dear Adam actually fitting through a window that looks (to me) to be about 10cm tall and maybe 50cm wide.
He was very lucky that I had forgotten to set our burglar alarm!
What a resourceful man I am married to.
Apart from that, we have no news to report. Both children are growing well. Both adults are coping.
Adam managed to break into our house this afternoon.
He left his house-keys at home this morning as I (plus Edward and Hannah) are invariably at home when he returns from the office. This afternoon he decided to escape from work early and as I was visiting a friend he came home to an empty house.
Not to be deterred, he managed to climb through the tiny, very high-up window that is above our shower. To reach the window he had to stand on our rubbish bin, and to fit through the window he had to remove almost all his clothes. He assures me he left his underwear and socks on... my mind boggles at the thought of dear Adam actually fitting through a window that looks (to me) to be about 10cm tall and maybe 50cm wide.
He was very lucky that I had forgotten to set our burglar alarm!
What a resourceful man I am married to.
Apart from that, we have no news to report. Both children are growing well. Both adults are coping.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Monday, April 21, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Easter is over for another year
It's Tuesday evening - the day after Easter Monday. Both the little darlings are sleeping. This is the second evening in a row that they have both been asleep by 8pm and it feels a bit strange to have some time to myself.
I'm feeling a bit down as Easter is over for another year. I love Easter - a far better holiday than Christmas in my opinion as it has lots of chocolate and none of the Christmas hassles.
We went up to Eucumbene Cove for the long weekend. It is a beautiful part of the world. We stayed in a little holiday shack, surrounded by gumtrees. It had a breathtaking view over Lake Eucumbene and then mountains that rolled on and on into the distance. I think Adam took a few photos and if he did I will eventually post one in here.
(No mountain view - sorry - Adam)
It was one of those places where it is so quiet and peaceful that the quiet almost hurts your ears.
To my surprise we actually had a (fairly) relaxing couple of days. This is a miracle given that we went with 2 children under the age of 2.
Edward had a fine time exploring, helping bring the wood in for the fire, inspecting wildlife and playing in a 'cave' which we made for him by draping blankets from the upper level of a bunkbed. He got a huge splinter in his hand but Auntie Suzie took it out when we got back to Canberra.
Hannah did what most 2 month old babies do - drink milk, fill her nappy, cry a bit and have cuddles. I had to wash her by holding her in the shower. She didn't hate it but didn't love it as much as having a bath (which has to be her favourite thing at the moment).
So that was our holiday. It was wonderful.
Now we are all back in our real lives.
I had a bit of a stressful day today. It started with Edward taking his nappy off (behind the back of the kitchen bench so I couldn't see...) and then joyfully announcing to me: "Tiny Poo Poo". As we have a very nice blue potty in the kitchen I thought he was playing with a teddy and the potty and it wasn't until a few minutes later that I discovered that he had indeed done a "tiny poo poo" right there in the kitchen. Edward was delightedly inspecting it (ie squatting with his head between his legs staring at the stinky thing) so I made him pick it up and put it all in the potty. We then put it in the loo to join all its friends and Edward had a thorough wash.
Then I thought we would go to the supermarket as I had invited a few friends around for afternoon tea and also there was no food for dinner. So I wrote a shopping list, dressed both children and put them in the car.
We have had heavy rain overnight. I discovered that our garage roof leaks and that the back seat (Hannah's seat) of the pram was absolutely soaked. I didn't know what to do so drove to the supermarket with the wet pram in the boot. Parked the car. Then had the thought that if I had brought Edward's raincoat (which is in the garage at the moment) I could have dressed him in it and he could sit in the wet car seat. Too late - no raincoat.
Decided to put Hannah in Edward's seat of the pram (not really safe as it doesn't recline much) and that Edward would have to walk. Attached baby-reins to Edward and set off towards the shops. The first 50 metres or so were good - E walking relatively quickly and in the right direction.
Then it all deteriorated. I ended up pushing our HUGE double pram with my right hand, holding Edward on my hip with my left arm and trying to ignore the hysterically screaming Hannah in the front.
Managed to grab various groceries, pay, get out of store and then the long trek back to the car. Pile now exhausted Hannah into her car seat. Strap Edward into his. Groceries onto the ground. Huge wet pram in boot. Groceries into boot and then drive home in the pouring rain.
Once home got all items upstairs (first a trip with groceries, then Hannah, then Edward) and with Hannah in the cot sleeping, I decided to quickly bake the cake for afternoon tea. It was 11.30am by this stage.
So lots of sifting, mixing, measuring etc with Edward 'helping' by licking spoons and twirling around the kitchen being a mixmaster.... and then I realised that the oven was not getting hot even though I had turned it on to preheat. Found oven instruction manual. Instructions don't work. Ruddy thing must be broken. By this stage it was 12.30 (Edward half an hour late for his nap) and I had a raw cake and no oven.
Phoned my mother. She drove over, grabbed cake. Left. Returned an hour later with baked cake.
Had first attempt to get Edward to sleep. Hannah woke screaming for milk. Felt sorry for her as she had suffered in the supermarket. Abandoned nap attempt. Amazed Edward goes off to play. Hannah has feed. I look at our pigsty of a sittingroom and decide that I HAVE to vacuum, pick up toys. Vacuum entire house. Clean bathrooms. 1.45 pm. Edward staggering with exhaustion- get E into bed where he falls asleep almost instantaneously.
Rest of the day was much better and I had a great time catching up with old friends from uni. I must remember to get the wet pram out of the boot of the car.
I'm feeling a bit down as Easter is over for another year. I love Easter - a far better holiday than Christmas in my opinion as it has lots of chocolate and none of the Christmas hassles.
We went up to Eucumbene Cove for the long weekend. It is a beautiful part of the world. We stayed in a little holiday shack, surrounded by gumtrees. It had a breathtaking view over Lake Eucumbene and then mountains that rolled on and on into the distance. I think Adam took a few photos and if he did I will eventually post one in here.
(No mountain view - sorry - Adam)
It was one of those places where it is so quiet and peaceful that the quiet almost hurts your ears.
To my surprise we actually had a (fairly) relaxing couple of days. This is a miracle given that we went with 2 children under the age of 2.
Edward had a fine time exploring, helping bring the wood in for the fire, inspecting wildlife and playing in a 'cave' which we made for him by draping blankets from the upper level of a bunkbed. He got a huge splinter in his hand but Auntie Suzie took it out when we got back to Canberra.
Hannah did what most 2 month old babies do - drink milk, fill her nappy, cry a bit and have cuddles. I had to wash her by holding her in the shower. She didn't hate it but didn't love it as much as having a bath (which has to be her favourite thing at the moment).
So that was our holiday. It was wonderful.
Now we are all back in our real lives.
I had a bit of a stressful day today. It started with Edward taking his nappy off (behind the back of the kitchen bench so I couldn't see...) and then joyfully announcing to me: "Tiny Poo Poo". As we have a very nice blue potty in the kitchen I thought he was playing with a teddy and the potty and it wasn't until a few minutes later that I discovered that he had indeed done a "tiny poo poo" right there in the kitchen. Edward was delightedly inspecting it (ie squatting with his head between his legs staring at the stinky thing) so I made him pick it up and put it all in the potty. We then put it in the loo to join all its friends and Edward had a thorough wash.
Then I thought we would go to the supermarket as I had invited a few friends around for afternoon tea and also there was no food for dinner. So I wrote a shopping list, dressed both children and put them in the car.
We have had heavy rain overnight. I discovered that our garage roof leaks and that the back seat (Hannah's seat) of the pram was absolutely soaked. I didn't know what to do so drove to the supermarket with the wet pram in the boot. Parked the car. Then had the thought that if I had brought Edward's raincoat (which is in the garage at the moment) I could have dressed him in it and he could sit in the wet car seat. Too late - no raincoat.
Decided to put Hannah in Edward's seat of the pram (not really safe as it doesn't recline much) and that Edward would have to walk. Attached baby-reins to Edward and set off towards the shops. The first 50 metres or so were good - E walking relatively quickly and in the right direction.
Then it all deteriorated. I ended up pushing our HUGE double pram with my right hand, holding Edward on my hip with my left arm and trying to ignore the hysterically screaming Hannah in the front.
Managed to grab various groceries, pay, get out of store and then the long trek back to the car. Pile now exhausted Hannah into her car seat. Strap Edward into his. Groceries onto the ground. Huge wet pram in boot. Groceries into boot and then drive home in the pouring rain.
Once home got all items upstairs (first a trip with groceries, then Hannah, then Edward) and with Hannah in the cot sleeping, I decided to quickly bake the cake for afternoon tea. It was 11.30am by this stage.
So lots of sifting, mixing, measuring etc with Edward 'helping' by licking spoons and twirling around the kitchen being a mixmaster.... and then I realised that the oven was not getting hot even though I had turned it on to preheat. Found oven instruction manual. Instructions don't work. Ruddy thing must be broken. By this stage it was 12.30 (Edward half an hour late for his nap) and I had a raw cake and no oven.
Phoned my mother. She drove over, grabbed cake. Left. Returned an hour later with baked cake.
Had first attempt to get Edward to sleep. Hannah woke screaming for milk. Felt sorry for her as she had suffered in the supermarket. Abandoned nap attempt. Amazed Edward goes off to play. Hannah has feed. I look at our pigsty of a sittingroom and decide that I HAVE to vacuum, pick up toys. Vacuum entire house. Clean bathrooms. 1.45 pm. Edward staggering with exhaustion- get E into bed where he falls asleep almost instantaneously.
Rest of the day was much better and I had a great time catching up with old friends from uni. I must remember to get the wet pram out of the boot of the car.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Back by Popular Demand
It's been months since my last entry. I was talking to my gorgeous Den Haag uncle last week and he mentioned that he is missing reading my blog! I was quite delighted as I didn't think anyone actually read this blog.
So I'm going to try and write in here every so often.
What's happened to us since October? Well we left the NL, had a fantastic holiday in Switzerland visiting Aunt Liz & Meinrad and then carried on back to Australia via Singapore. It was a strange journey. I was stressed - I spent the journey either worrying that Adam was stressed and/or trying to keep Edward quiet on the plane. Edward was well behaved and great on the plane with the exception of the last 2 hours of each flight. With all the lights, noise, other passengers who (irritatingly) wanted to play with him, the poor child couldn't sleep much. And on each flight he got to a stage of extreme tiredness and I ended up holding him in my arms and walking up and down near the airplane loos trying to get him to stop crying. A bit of a challenge with my pregnant tummy.
By the time we arrived in Sydney I was too tired to feel emotional at seeing family / being home again. My goodness, Australians are friendly compared to Europeans. I have a new-found respect for Qantas, who took one look at us with over double our luggage allowance and booked it all through from Sydney to Canberra at no extra charge. We had a little reunion with Adam's parents at Sydney Airport (they had come down from Newcastle for the day) and then flew on to Canberra. I was so tired that I just felt numb when I saw my mother and sister Suzie again. My tiredness did not lift and after seeing the Australian obstetrician a few days later and having some blood tests it was discovered that I had (again) developed gestational diabetes & also had an iron count of 5 (she told me that she got worried when it goes below 25).
With hindsight I think I had had the diabetes since mid-September. The Dutch midwife assured me that whatever she measured in my urine on the fortnightly visits was fine, but the diabetes must have been hiding in there. So I was back on the blood sugar measuring and also taking 2 vitamins.
Anyway. My tummy measured 43 weeks by mid-December and I was the size of an elephant by early January. Thankfully I had an elective c-section. The c-section was an excellent experience. Hannah is a beautiful baby. I will post some photos.
I had the baby in a small private hospital. This meant that I had the same nurses day after day, which was nice. I really liked the night nurse - a plump lady who trotted around in comfortable exercise clothing (shorts and a T-shirt) and jogging shoes because as she told me, she gets too hot in her nurse's uniform. I staying in hospital for 5 nights. I could easily have gone home after 4 nights but hadn't finished reading a (third) novel and really enjoyed having a nice rest.
Hannah is an easier baby to look after than Edward was. My mother has told me that this is because I had no idea what to do to take care of Edward. She is probably right. When I look back on it, I think Edward was too cold for the first 6 months of his life, and (I am ashamed to write) hungry from when he was 13 months when I weaned him, until we arrived home in Australia.
I think by my mother's standards I could still probably do things better with both children, but I'm honestly doing the best I can and it will just have to be enough.
Both children and I am delighted when she comes to our house for a few hours. We have been very lucky for the last 2 weeks as she has had time to come each day. I love my mother. She is so intelligent, kind, but unflinchingly honest... this afternoon she went to get Edward's lunch from the fridge (I was breastfeeding Hannah) and she called out "Is THIS the pasta?". I said "Yes". There was a slight silence as she inspected the left-overs from the night before, and then she said "And does Edward actually EAT this thing?"
Hannah is now 8 weeks old and Edward is 23 months. Today Hannah had her first immunisation. Unsurprisingly she did not like it at all. With the first injection she went bright red in the face and starting screaming in fright. She screamed so much that the nurse actually got a bit nervous but I said to her "Quick, do the second one" as I thought it best just to get it over and done with. Poor little Hannah. It must be having some effect on her immune system because she has slept on and off all day, only waking for a brief feed/nappy change and then falling asleep again. It is now 10.10 at night and I'm hoping that she won't wake up in an hour or so and want to play.
Edward is an absolute darling. While I was in hospital my mother looked after him and she unlocked something in Edward and he suddenly started to put words together and say things. It's really lovely - he is such an innocent child. He wanders around the house chatting to himself and giggling at his own little jokes.
He is unfortunately fixated on tractors as for Xmas all the extended family (both sides) gave him some form of tractor or other vehicle - books, lego, plastic replicas etc etc. Some time this week I'm going to put all the vehicle things in a box in our spare room to give him a break from them. There are so many other lovely things to play with.
Well Hannah's still sleeping so I'm going to write a little bit about our house and then leave the rest for another day.
When we came home we lived in my mother's house for a month and then had a bit of luck as a rather run-down but large house in the next suburb came on the rental market. So we have signed a six-month lease and moved in during the Xmas-New Year period.
And it is so nice to be in this house after the cramped housing of the NL. Our sitting room is the size of the whole downstairs of the Eemnes house. And then there is also a separate dining room, an enormous but very 1950s kitchen, separate but old-fashioned laundry, study, three bedrooms, 2 toilets, one bathroom and a separate room for a shower. The master bedroom is so big that we could easily buy a second king sized bed and put it in there and still have plenty of space.
The garden is very large, hilly and is almost 100% lawn. It took Adam 3 hours to mow the back garden and he had to have a rest before he could tackle the front garden. That was before Xmas and he hasn't mown since. The grass is now up to my knees in places - quite exciting for Edward to run through but I'm a bit worried that a snake might be in there as we have a nature reserve directly behind the back fence. One of these days we will hire someone to cut the grass.
So I'm going to try and write in here every so often.
What's happened to us since October? Well we left the NL, had a fantastic holiday in Switzerland visiting Aunt Liz & Meinrad and then carried on back to Australia via Singapore. It was a strange journey. I was stressed - I spent the journey either worrying that Adam was stressed and/or trying to keep Edward quiet on the plane. Edward was well behaved and great on the plane with the exception of the last 2 hours of each flight. With all the lights, noise, other passengers who (irritatingly) wanted to play with him, the poor child couldn't sleep much. And on each flight he got to a stage of extreme tiredness and I ended up holding him in my arms and walking up and down near the airplane loos trying to get him to stop crying. A bit of a challenge with my pregnant tummy.
By the time we arrived in Sydney I was too tired to feel emotional at seeing family / being home again. My goodness, Australians are friendly compared to Europeans. I have a new-found respect for Qantas, who took one look at us with over double our luggage allowance and booked it all through from Sydney to Canberra at no extra charge. We had a little reunion with Adam's parents at Sydney Airport (they had come down from Newcastle for the day) and then flew on to Canberra. I was so tired that I just felt numb when I saw my mother and sister Suzie again. My tiredness did not lift and after seeing the Australian obstetrician a few days later and having some blood tests it was discovered that I had (again) developed gestational diabetes & also had an iron count of 5 (she told me that she got worried when it goes below 25).
With hindsight I think I had had the diabetes since mid-September. The Dutch midwife assured me that whatever she measured in my urine on the fortnightly visits was fine, but the diabetes must have been hiding in there. So I was back on the blood sugar measuring and also taking 2 vitamins.
Anyway. My tummy measured 43 weeks by mid-December and I was the size of an elephant by early January. Thankfully I had an elective c-section. The c-section was an excellent experience. Hannah is a beautiful baby. I will post some photos.
I had the baby in a small private hospital. This meant that I had the same nurses day after day, which was nice. I really liked the night nurse - a plump lady who trotted around in comfortable exercise clothing (shorts and a T-shirt) and jogging shoes because as she told me, she gets too hot in her nurse's uniform. I staying in hospital for 5 nights. I could easily have gone home after 4 nights but hadn't finished reading a (third) novel and really enjoyed having a nice rest.
Hannah is an easier baby to look after than Edward was. My mother has told me that this is because I had no idea what to do to take care of Edward. She is probably right. When I look back on it, I think Edward was too cold for the first 6 months of his life, and (I am ashamed to write) hungry from when he was 13 months when I weaned him, until we arrived home in Australia.
I think by my mother's standards I could still probably do things better with both children, but I'm honestly doing the best I can and it will just have to be enough.
Both children and I am delighted when she comes to our house for a few hours. We have been very lucky for the last 2 weeks as she has had time to come each day. I love my mother. She is so intelligent, kind, but unflinchingly honest... this afternoon she went to get Edward's lunch from the fridge (I was breastfeeding Hannah) and she called out "Is THIS the pasta?". I said "Yes". There was a slight silence as she inspected the left-overs from the night before, and then she said "And does Edward actually EAT this thing?"
Hannah is now 8 weeks old and Edward is 23 months. Today Hannah had her first immunisation. Unsurprisingly she did not like it at all. With the first injection she went bright red in the face and starting screaming in fright. She screamed so much that the nurse actually got a bit nervous but I said to her "Quick, do the second one" as I thought it best just to get it over and done with. Poor little Hannah. It must be having some effect on her immune system because she has slept on and off all day, only waking for a brief feed/nappy change and then falling asleep again. It is now 10.10 at night and I'm hoping that she won't wake up in an hour or so and want to play.
Edward is an absolute darling. While I was in hospital my mother looked after him and she unlocked something in Edward and he suddenly started to put words together and say things. It's really lovely - he is such an innocent child. He wanders around the house chatting to himself and giggling at his own little jokes.
He is unfortunately fixated on tractors as for Xmas all the extended family (both sides) gave him some form of tractor or other vehicle - books, lego, plastic replicas etc etc. Some time this week I'm going to put all the vehicle things in a box in our spare room to give him a break from them. There are so many other lovely things to play with.
Well Hannah's still sleeping so I'm going to write a little bit about our house and then leave the rest for another day.
When we came home we lived in my mother's house for a month and then had a bit of luck as a rather run-down but large house in the next suburb came on the rental market. So we have signed a six-month lease and moved in during the Xmas-New Year period.
And it is so nice to be in this house after the cramped housing of the NL. Our sitting room is the size of the whole downstairs of the Eemnes house. And then there is also a separate dining room, an enormous but very 1950s kitchen, separate but old-fashioned laundry, study, three bedrooms, 2 toilets, one bathroom and a separate room for a shower. The master bedroom is so big that we could easily buy a second king sized bed and put it in there and still have plenty of space.
The garden is very large, hilly and is almost 100% lawn. It took Adam 3 hours to mow the back garden and he had to have a rest before he could tackle the front garden. That was before Xmas and he hasn't mown since. The grass is now up to my knees in places - quite exciting for Edward to run through but I'm a bit worried that a snake might be in there as we have a nature reserve directly behind the back fence. One of these days we will hire someone to cut the grass.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Our last Sunday
It's Sunday afternoon and we've not packed a single box yet this weekend.
Right now Adam and Edward are having an afternoon nap and I'm sitting at the kitchen table with a great mountain of packing boxes on my right and a huge pile of stuff in front of me and wondering what to do next.
Yesterday we sold the washing machine, and the same people want to buy our IKEA kitchen utensils and toaster etc and are going to pick them up on Thursday afternoon. The iron and kettle people could not pick up last Friday and so Adam is dropping the stuff off to them on Tuesday morning.
Some good news is that Singapore Air has issued our flight tickets - thankfully they accepted a short note from the midwife saying that I am pregnant & that baby is due 18 January as a "fit to fly" certificate. The note doesn't say that I am in good health, or that the pregnancy is trouble free or even mention flying!
I'm not happy with it (the fit to fly certificate) as I am worried that we will show up to check in the staff with take a look at my Enormous pregnancy tummy and demand a 'proper' certificate.
So I've downloaded a tick-the-box fit to fly certificate from the Emirates website & am going to take it along to my final Dutch health check (this Thursday) and ask the midwife to fill it in. This should get around the language barrier as all she has to do is tick all the boxes, fill in my due date and name and sign it.
Hopefully I will have the older midwife, rather than the younger one this Thursday - the older one speaks better English, seems to be a pleasant person and the younger one wrote the very short note that I sent to Singapore Air. I would prefer not to have to try and explain in basic English why I need another certificate.
Adam was very, very stressed by the end of last working week and he unfortunately has a really busy week coming up. He has to drive to the Hague every day next week! It's actually not a long distance (by Australian standards) but there are bumper to bumper traffic jams literally all the way. Last Friday Adam took Edward and me into the Hague with him for the afternoon because I was going a bit crazy being in the house all the time. How my perspective has changed - I now find wandering around a shopping street & buying some lip gloss and travel toiletries to be a really good day out! Hmmmm.
And it took over 3.5 hours for us to drive home (should have been a 45 minute drive). I hope Adam doesn't get 5 repeat days of that because it adds a lot of hours to his normal working week.
To schedule him into 5 further days in the Hague as well as an evening meeting in some other Dutch place in his last week is not considerate at all of his company and is (in my opinion) a bit disappointing. Especially as Friday of this week the cleaner is arriving at 8am with a van to remove all our goods that are not being shipped to Australia, and after we have the end of lease inspection from the real estate people, we have no address in the Netherlands.
This is all complicated by the fact that we have an 18 month old child & I'm rather pregnant. Normally I would take the moving in my stride. But I am worried about how Edward is going to cope on Friday - he won't be able to play in the house & the weather is just awful at the moment but I suppose I could put him in his snow suit and sit in the back garden with him while the house is cleaned. He will have to have his nap in the stroller, which isn't ideal but it's only one day.
I'm hoping that Adam will have a light working day on Friday as I am without a mobile phone and by the end of the day he will be without a vehicle. I suppose the worst case scenario is that I take a bus from Eemnes to Hilversum with all our luggage & Edward as well, hope that some Dutch person will help me with the luggage (ha, ha as if that would happen!), and make my own way to the hotel.... and wait for Adam to arrive. Oh well, we will see.
Right now Adam and Edward are having an afternoon nap and I'm sitting at the kitchen table with a great mountain of packing boxes on my right and a huge pile of stuff in front of me and wondering what to do next.
Yesterday we sold the washing machine, and the same people want to buy our IKEA kitchen utensils and toaster etc and are going to pick them up on Thursday afternoon. The iron and kettle people could not pick up last Friday and so Adam is dropping the stuff off to them on Tuesday morning.
Some good news is that Singapore Air has issued our flight tickets - thankfully they accepted a short note from the midwife saying that I am pregnant & that baby is due 18 January as a "fit to fly" certificate. The note doesn't say that I am in good health, or that the pregnancy is trouble free or even mention flying!
I'm not happy with it (the fit to fly certificate) as I am worried that we will show up to check in the staff with take a look at my Enormous pregnancy tummy and demand a 'proper' certificate.
So I've downloaded a tick-the-box fit to fly certificate from the Emirates website & am going to take it along to my final Dutch health check (this Thursday) and ask the midwife to fill it in. This should get around the language barrier as all she has to do is tick all the boxes, fill in my due date and name and sign it.
Hopefully I will have the older midwife, rather than the younger one this Thursday - the older one speaks better English, seems to be a pleasant person and the younger one wrote the very short note that I sent to Singapore Air. I would prefer not to have to try and explain in basic English why I need another certificate.
Adam was very, very stressed by the end of last working week and he unfortunately has a really busy week coming up. He has to drive to the Hague every day next week! It's actually not a long distance (by Australian standards) but there are bumper to bumper traffic jams literally all the way. Last Friday Adam took Edward and me into the Hague with him for the afternoon because I was going a bit crazy being in the house all the time. How my perspective has changed - I now find wandering around a shopping street & buying some lip gloss and travel toiletries to be a really good day out! Hmmmm.
And it took over 3.5 hours for us to drive home (should have been a 45 minute drive). I hope Adam doesn't get 5 repeat days of that because it adds a lot of hours to his normal working week.
To schedule him into 5 further days in the Hague as well as an evening meeting in some other Dutch place in his last week is not considerate at all of his company and is (in my opinion) a bit disappointing. Especially as Friday of this week the cleaner is arriving at 8am with a van to remove all our goods that are not being shipped to Australia, and after we have the end of lease inspection from the real estate people, we have no address in the Netherlands.
This is all complicated by the fact that we have an 18 month old child & I'm rather pregnant. Normally I would take the moving in my stride. But I am worried about how Edward is going to cope on Friday - he won't be able to play in the house & the weather is just awful at the moment but I suppose I could put him in his snow suit and sit in the back garden with him while the house is cleaned. He will have to have his nap in the stroller, which isn't ideal but it's only one day.
I'm hoping that Adam will have a light working day on Friday as I am without a mobile phone and by the end of the day he will be without a vehicle. I suppose the worst case scenario is that I take a bus from Eemnes to Hilversum with all our luggage & Edward as well, hope that some Dutch person will help me with the luggage (ha, ha as if that would happen!), and make my own way to the hotel.... and wait for Adam to arrive. Oh well, we will see.
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