Loads of news!

Hello everybody!

A lot has happened since the last time I wrote. On this blog, you'll find some Dutch publications (from me and Sígrid about the alder dieback (my MSc-topic) and about my leg in a Dutch medical magazine, for those who are interested. Furtheron, I will upload some pictures about all the things I did during the last months, and tell something about it.

From July up till Christmas, I worked at the Dutch State Plant Protection Service. I had a nice group of collegues and some interesting projects. But at the end of november, I found a new job as forestry consultant, so I quitted my job at the service. In December, we had a very nice lunch at my chief Frederiekes place, where I got a very nice goodbye-present from all of my colleagues: an apple tree! A few days later, I planted it in my backyard. But before I was able to plant the tree, I had to remove some cubic metres of stones. Léon and my father helped my with that.
Then, we went hiking in the Belgium Ardennes, which was a quite humid and cold expedition. But it's always great to go camping in winter time, especially with this group of friends! New Year I celebrated with Martijn, Janneke, Robert andChristmas and New Year were very relaxed. At Christmas, I ate with Vincent and Laurie and with my parents. Saskia, which was a very nice party.


In January, I had a month off before starting with my new job. It was to switch off from my old job, to read some papers about forestry and of course to enjoy some holidays! I started with decorating my new office (because I partly will work at home) and to visit friends. Since a lot of friends still live in Freiburg, I drove down there to visit some (but I did not manage to see everybody...). This was great. First, I went to Brussels, to visit Wilm and Frederique. Then, in Freiburg, I could sleep at Torsten and Ulli's place, Libby's place and at Timo's place, which were very nice reunions. I saw two new born baby's Dalia and Magalie. And Radek even organised a house party, at which a lot of forest students came. With Timo, I even went skiing for one day in Switzerland (since there was no snow at all in the Black Forest). All this was possible because my parents didn't mind riding their bikes for one week, so that I could use their car!


During the last week, I worked in my garden with my father: we planted a hawthorn hedge (I hope that by that, dogs stop shitting in my garden...), an oak tree and a willow tree. I think by now, my garden is getting more or less acceptable... And I bought some furniture for my office.



Then since yesterday, I've started at Borgman Beheer Advies, a forestry consulting company! I'm really looking forward to this job. My new chief George warned me that it will be a "flying start", because the storm damages loads and loads of forest in the Netherlands and western Germany. And with this new job, there came a new car (a Renault Kangoo 4x4!) and a new mobile phone number, so everything's changed again... Some more information about the company you will find at the website www.beterbos.nl


By the way, the storm also damaged my own garden while I was in Freiburg (as you can see, it's good that I have a good contact with my neighbours...):

The last but not least at all, some hobby-news. My bigband is going well, it's very nice to play in Arnhem again! And now I'm playing at a jazz quartet "His Master's Noice" as well - it already excists 20 years and started as a Plant Protection Service-Bigband, but now we are with four (former) employees: Minoes (singer/pianoplayer/accordeonist), Jan (drums), Chris (bass) and me on trumpet (and perhaps on trombone, I bought one lately...).


And then the boyscouts! I became chairman in August and together with Mark, Léon and Ronald, we're working hard to run the club, but it's a lot of fun and going well! Loads of meetings with a beer to soften the topics work really well... In december, we had a James Bond evening, so you can see it's not only about camping and hiking!



It's been great to hear from all of you now and then! I hope we'll meet or mail again and I whish you all loads of luck!

Bye! Jeroen