I mowed the yard and trimmed (15 minutes) and Linda did some mopping. We looked at the water system some more to figure out how many places the water was coming out of. We thought we counted 3 small tubes that weren't connected to anything. I emailed Kees about it and we started thinking about solutions.
To reward ourselves for all of our strenuous work, we walked to the train station for espresso and fresh mint tea. We almost sat under a tree on the backside of the cafe away from the tracks until we spotted a baby. Better on the other side where we could watch the trains come and go.
A little shopping walk down the main street and then back home.
A quiet evening at "our home".
On Saturday, it was all of a sudden 20 degrees cooler. We did some more cleaning: vacuuming, cleaning bathrooms, and straightening stuff. We decided that we should find some plugs to seal off the unused holes in the main sprinkler hose. After talking to an employee at a hardware store in Soest Zuid, we ended up at Joke's favorite garden store across town and found exactly what we needed.
Here's the problem - we had these stakes that were not attached to anything. We showed them to the garden center person and he knew what we needed.
Examples of unattached hoses.
This is not my normal position. Had to get those hoses plugged.
After that I put in the plugs and realized we needed more. Back to the garden center and then stopped at the Proef cafe for espresso and Linda's mint tea. Linda wanted to walk and I said that if I couldn't find a parking spot we would drive back to the house and walk. Well - don't you know I found a parking spot right in front of the cafe. God wanted me to have it.
There are two, good looking young men who work at this cafe and they both recognized us. When we asked one what he did over the winter, he said not much and then said he and his girlfriend bought a house. We thought that was something to talk about and congratulated him.
We had a light dinner while we waited for the time to go to Lizzie's birthday party down by the river.
At 8:00 we headed down there and got one of the last regular parking spaces in the small parking lot. The large number of people who came after us had to park on the side of the road. And, of course, many came on bikes.
The setting was right on the river. A beautiful view.
We didn't know anyone except Lizzie and Peter and their two children, so we were a little apprehensive about what we were going to do. But, Lizzie, being the gracious hostess introduced us to couple who spoke English. At least the husband did and we had a little chat.
Then Lizzie introduced Linda to one of the other 3 birthday girls (Irma) and when I looked around again Linda was talking to a couple who said they were interested in house swapping. They live near Antwerp, Belgium which is only 80 Kms down the road. But they have 4 boys who are not interested in having some stranger in their rooms. But, the mom and dad are. Doesn't seem promising, but they exchanged contact information anyway. One of the "yakkers", the people who kayak on Wednesdays from Anna Maria Island, are always asking Linda about home exchanges might be interested.
As for me, I called Duco over and we talked about his baseball game. His team won 14 to 7 and only had 6 players versus the other team's 9. But he explained that was good because they were playing with the best of his team. Anymore players would have got in their way. Noor played 3 15 minute field hockey games and won one.
As we were talking, a balloon came in to view framed by the sunset. These pictures were taken about 9:30 pm. It would be another 1 1/2 hours before it was really dark.
Doesn't Lizzie look good? Peter is to the left and his brother is on the right. I talked to the brother and Linda talked to Peter. The brother, can't remember his name, lives in Germany and works for a company that designs equipment like TVs for cars. He is headed for Shanghai, China to test some of their equipment. He has a brother-in-law who lives there and his wife and children are already there.
Check out the sky. This one was taken looking East and the next one was obviously looking West.
As the sun went down and people started getting cold, we moved into a large "banquet" hall. Lizzie's band started playing songs from Queen and she couldn't stop herself from joining. And, the dance floor filled up with people. Mostly women at first, then some men joined in. Time for us to go.
By now it was 10:30 and we said our goodbyes. Nice party and we enjoyed ourselves.
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