Yesterday in the news: Harry Patch, 109 years old visits the area he fought in during the Great War. Find out about Harry by searching the BBC site ! There is a video fragment and I instantly recognised his voice. Very moving. A few years ago there was a documentary on the BBC of the last surviving veterans of the First World War. One of the veterans told the story how he lost his friend. He never told anybody before and would not repeat it either. He and his friend survived many attacks.

Going to work after 2 days staying home ... Last Monday I felt really terrible: tired and not in the mood for anything. Tuesday it got worse: aches and pains all over. Yesterday it got a bit better so today I'm still a bit sweaty and when I cough it feels like my head explodes. Franny has one of her terrible coughs again. My goodness, the noise of her coughs is just unbearable at times. I really hope it doesn't take too long to get rid of her cold because it is so taxing on her body.

The thin layer of morning fog and the sun low above it make a powerful sight. Yesterday Mahindra came to Eindhoven, thanks to GPS he found his way easily. It still took him a bit less than 2 hours from Brussels.

Fran and I have no secrets between us ;-) but since last Monday I bought she her birthday present. So, what's the matter ? Her birthday is Saturday the 21st of July and the present (of course) is meant to be a surprise. I lugged the the big box on my bike home and when I came in through the gate she already saw the box. Nicely wrapped in gift paper by the friendly girl from the Blokker. So I hid the box in the shed as well as possible. And started teasing her about the contents. She can easily find out how much money I spent on it so I told her in advance.

Just reading the Wikipedia article on Nigeria and stumbled on: the Bantu. From that page:

"The Benue-Cross River area is thought to be the original homeland of the Bantu migrants who spread across most of central and southern Africa in waves between the 1st millennium BC and the 2nd millennium AD."

It's the start of my week ... going to Delft. Only four weeks to go and than the long hours in the train are history.
The sunrise was really stunning this morning. I drank a few beers too much yesterday at the birthday party of JJ, the youngest son of Ger and Ellen our neighbours. He's 2 now and a really nice toddler. The weather was good, sunny and warm with a bit of a breeze. But when we went to bed it was really warm in the house.

All the waking up procedures failed this morning !
I had my phone and alarm clock set on a later time (I went to Henk on Tuesday).

Forgot my phone, so can't connect to the net right now. Typing this offline (aargh).

So I took a train an half hour later. So all in all it was a very sloppy start.

Yesterday the train system was a complete disaster. A bit of rain and lightning and everything grinds to a halt. When I thought the service would return to 'normal' I went to the station in Delft. The platform was absolutely packed with angry and frustrated passengers. After some waiting the intercity crept into the station (police even checked the edges of the platform to prevent people from falling on the tracks). We had to wait a while before we were allowed to enter the train, when I was in, we still waited 15 minutes or so before leaving to Rotterdam.