Someone Is Watching Over Me... [In A Good Way]

In a way I had an uneventful but positive week. I needed my rest on Sunday, after the brunch my parents gave to celebrate their 60th marriage anniversary and my Mum’s 92nd birthday. We were all invited to come to Beesd, to one of the restaurants that’s part of De Heerlijkheid Mariënwaerdt. ‘Heerlijkheid Mariënwaerdt’ is a privately owned estate of over 2200 acres in the ‘Betuwe’, an area in the province of Gelderland, famous for its fruit production.

With ‘we’ I mean my brother and sisters, 2 brothers-in-law, 3 nephews, and 3 nieces and a nephew and their spouses from our Southern side of the family, 19 persons in total. The one missing was the girlfriend of nephew J. who’s on some tour abroad. We had a wonderful meal, and for a change no rain.

I left home that day at nine and returned back ten hours later, Valys inter-regional transport brought me, and my tri-cycle, to the estate, a few hours in advance so I could drive through the grounds and enjoy the weather, nature, and a good cup of coffee and some pie. Around noon the rest of the family arrived and we enjoyed the brunch for the next few hours. Sometime during this eat-fest we heard beeps from an insulin pump. I looked at my nephew and he to me wondering which one went off. Turned out we were not the only ones with a pump on our table.

Around 5.30 I was picked up again by Valys to be brought back to Amsterdam, I skipped dinner, not being full of myself but of the meal.

Monday my good friend and neighbor Corrie celebrated her birthday, 58 years young. We were a small group, having tea and cake in the late afternoon. Tuesday was another check-up at the hospital, they wont see me the next six weeks, both feet are healed wonderfully and I’m back in shoes too for the past two weeks. That same day I had at a different department another appointment only six hours later… an eye scan, to see if the lower blood sugars had an effect on the laser treatment, inside my eye, which I had two months before. It did. There’s a small bubble of ‘water’ near the yellow dot, in two months time I’ll have another check-up with them to see if it has itself regulated and if not… he said he could ‘drain it’ but putting a needle in my eye. [Yuck!]

Wednesday and Thursday were days I just stayed home, doing chores around the house. Thursday evening I was expected to join some other members of our bank to hear how good, or bad, they had done their business. The venue was in the central square inside the Scheepvaartmuseum [The Arsenal]. Which has now a feature glass dome in the shape of a wind rose [compass]. Before the meeting there was a buffet and we could see the exhibits.

I have to come back here, haven’t seen all of it, I mostly talked with people from the old days when I was still on one of their boards. My bank has no shareholders, just members, and we don’t get part of the profit, just a nice evening out. Each year more members show up on these events, on Thursday evening some 700, out of 19,000. So next year… the new Ziggo Dome? It can hold 17,000!

Friday I had to stay at home for some packages to be delivered, so I spend time behind the computer, reading my Kindle, watching a taped movie and cleaning the house for the next days meeting. Before I knew it was Saturday. The webmasters of the 3 Guilds were meeting at my place. Together we do one website, which is split in three. After the meeting I was inspired by the new house style of the hatmakers, so I turned all our 91 headers in a new look. And then… ping!

An email arrived, from good friend Sean, six hours away on the other side of the Atlantic, asking if everything was alright. He knows the prefabricated posts like Monday’s Quote, Tuesdays Best Of Amsterdam [which is mostly a spur of the moment post, even though I have a list] or the Thursday Recipe. But no Daily Life posts for some time. I could assure him everything was alright, I just felt a bit shaky and then I noticed the time… it was already eight! I had worked for 6 hours straight since the other webmasters left at two that afternoon. And being so occupied with the site I forgot to eat, which explained the shaky hands, aka low blood sugars. For the first in years I have sodas with sugar in them around the house just for cases like this. I finished the evening with a nice salad with some goat cheese and “Bloodline” by James Rollins on my Kindle.

Plans for today? I better check the weather first… monsoon rains are expected, so I’ll stay indoors, still have some taped movies I want to see, just started in part 3 of Bloodline so another 150 pages will keep me at the tip of my seat. But first breakfast! A nice slice of whole wheat bread with… Beemster cheese will do.

Have a great weekend!