I, on the other hand, have been doing a lot of in-country travel, capped by an intensive training in Arnhem where I was subjected to an intensive 4-hour, rotating interrogation (the interrogators rotated, I didn’t). The training was being observed by a group of students, and the entire exercise was in Dutch. I held up ok during the session, but my brain completely ceased to function as soon as I got back in the car and autopiloted home to Haarlem. It was one of my most grueling days in a long, long time.
I figured what I really needed was some good, old-fashioned physical labor, so I finally set aside a few days and replaced the roof on our shed. This was a lot more harrowing than you would think. The roof decking is 1/8 inch plywood and barely holds the weight of a heavy cat (like clyde), let alone me. There is only one supporting beam between each wall and the peak, so I had to make a few jigs out of 1 inch boards that I could walk on (see just above ladder in this picture). I then had to slide the jigs along as I worked. Can we all say “major pain in the ass?” To top it all off, you are under constant surveillance from your neighbors when you do this kind of work. It was the second time in a week that I felt like I was in a fishbowl and it didn't do much to help relieve my mental fatigue.
But, as luck would have it, Beth was home over the weekend, and we had a chance to finally let off a little of the steam at the Bok Bier Festival here in Haarlem. Bok bier is a bit on the heavy side and comes in at 6.5% alcohol, so the tastings quickly hit home with us. Each glass was like eating a loaf of alcohol soaked bread. But Ilona wanted to keep going. There was a gang of bikers on the route in front of us, and she kept pushing us to get caught up with them. I think she had her eye on the one with the long beard and skull tattoo on his cheek.
We're headed off to America to shut down the house for winter. Next posting in November.
Cheers!
