From summer till winter

My last post dates from August, as I had just returned from Indonesia. The monday after the saturday that I arrived back home, I started working again - we had loads and loads of work to do! Since then, I have been working until last week, as I took a short break, because I was getting tired, had to spend my extra working hours and wanted to drive motorbike with my dad before it was getting too cold and icy on the roads.

Last wednesday and thursday, my dad and I drove a great route: following IJsseldijk from Dieren to Kampen (we had lunch in Zalk where Klazien has lived!), then through the Flevopolder and crossing the Houtribdam to Enkhuizen. We had a coffee break in Medemblik and then we went to the Afsluitdijk and into Friesland. I Workum we found a nice place to stay at the Van der Valk farmhouse, very nice people (no relatives of...) and a nice appartment with a slight cow manure smell... The first day had been great weather, the second was forecasted a lot worse but in the end it was ok. There was a lot of wind and I got cold feet on the highway, but furtheron, the worst rain was while we had lunch at a bakery. Actually, we wanted to drive to the Ardennes to visit Roelian and Geert, but it was freezing there and loads of whet leaves on the roads, so we decided to cancel that.

There was another reason why I wanted to ride motorcycle so badly: I bought a "new" bike: Yamaha 750 Super Ténéré from 1989. It had some electrical problems that my father solved, so during the trip it did a great job! It's a great bike to ride, it only still has some problems starting cold and humid in the morning...

We were back home in time, because thursday was quite stormy and since friday, it's snowing in the Netherlands! My cats have cold feet and problems to keep upright while running through the garden, but furtheron it's great!

The rest of the autumn, I did some nice things:
- visit to my sister and Geert in Belgium
- wedding of my niece Elke and Matthew in Amsterdam
- excursion with the Forestry Society to Belgium, Germany and Southern Netherlands. I had to organise this trip with Reyer, Meine, James and Marnix and I drove the van, which was nice to do but quite tiring as well!

- a paintball session and barbecue with all our scouts leaders
- visited a concert of Het Gelders Orkest with Carel Kraayenhof on bandoneon (very nice!)
- motorbike trip with our Scouts' bike club
- wine tastery at Chris' winery S-akker and luxurious dinner with my jazz combo in a restaurant
Pics made by Chris

- guest player in the Noviomagum Wind Orchestra (a great experience in a very good classical orchestra)
- two days of felling trees - one in the Ardennes with dad, Roelian and Geert and one with Léon and Gerard in Drenthe. Very nice work and I still had the chainsaw techniques under controll, only in the Ardennes, my car broke down. It had to be picked up by the Belgian AA service and to be transported back to the Netherlands, where it officially has been classified as "economically dead". Well done Jeroen... So now I drive a VW Polo 1.4 - the best forestry car there is!

Now, St. Nicolas and Christmas are coming (snow is already there...), I'm looking forward to see many friends, go camping etc.

Bye! Jeroen