Merry Christmas!

Every year impressive, the snow on the mountains seen from our house

My orchids

post-it notes are fun! from eepybird; the same guys that did the diet-coke/mentos geysers...

Lunch with Jaap and Marije

Roasted vegetables

Tabouleh

Lamb, wine and good company

Life couldn't get any better

our town...

Anybody know what this tree is?

It has the prettiest flowers...

But the tree trunk and branches are covered with these...

Weird! It looks African, the trunk bulged a bit but I have no idea what it could be.

had lunch on the beach at San Pedro de Alcántara at restaurant El Ancla 

the fish couldn't be fresher!

Amalia Azul's Artists Night

Amalia Azul is the company of Madeleine van Deursen who is a representative of artists and now also of Christian. 

Tonight all the artists came together at the house of Madeleine and Tos to show their work, meet each other and have dinner (and drinks).

Here you see (from left to right) Teun Anders and his partner Monique talking to Madeleine and Nimrod Messeg.

The girls got along just fine! 

From left to right, Julie, Madeleine, moi, Monique

(on the left you see one of the artworks of Christian.)

Dinner was delicious and with very animated discussions about art and... fish heads!

And it all ended as every evening should... with lots of empty glasses.

Great night!

Remember the prize I won? Two nights of blissful etc.?

Well... we spent this weekend at the Guadalpin Hotel in Puerto Banus, located on the beach.

Doing the classic "photo in bathroom" shot. Helmut Newton is the master of this.

 

Sunset at the sea (and that at only 40 minutes drive from our own house!)

The room wasn't that big but the terrace overlooking the pool area and out to the sea was maybe just as big, nicely decorated in a tropical style: perfect weekend!

YES WE CAN!

This morning the "men" from the energy company Sevillana/Endesa came to repair the transformer near our house. Looking very relaxed; I suspect they're mountaineers in their spare time...
At least when he climbed down we had electricity again. This is part of living in Spain as well: always have an ample supply of candles in the house!

Blackout

Powercuts provide romantic evenings...

But you start getting fed up if the problem isn't solved after 2 days.

We've been lucky, our house is provided with 3-fases powersupply (krachtstroom) and our office and exterior lights were still working so with extention cables we were able to keep the fridge and the water supply on. Friends on the other side of the mountain had been without any power for 4 days.

We had a storm last weekend, a very big storm! It came from the south/east and the Spanish people we spoke said it was the Levante. Heavy wind up to 70 km per hour, almost no rain.


Sleepless night because we didn't know where the noise came from and what was happening outside (didn't want to look either...) but the next morning, while the wind was still pretty strong the damage wasn't too bad.

The cover of one car torn to pieces and some very tired palmtrees.

The rest of the day was still windy, dusty and warm.

only for the Dutchies, think positive...

BRAM

Meet BRAM, son of Thijs and Cerise, brother of Koen, grandson and nephew nº 2.
Born today on the ninth of October 2008 in Taipei, Taiwan.

The photographer Christian Lohman has become an artist...

:-) :-) :-) :-)

We needed a picture of us for the interview for the magazine and with a little help from some friends managed to make this shot of us. Some photoshopping to remove small wrinkles... We don't look bad at all!

Birgit & Oystein off to Norway again tomorrow for a while. We'll miss you!

Needed to go to the hospital today for some tests. The rest is T.M.I. (too much information) except that everything went well.
I actually wanted to share something else with you; the longest bar I've ever seen in a hospital and where they even sell hard liquor...


Hospital Pascual is attached to a cloister and church and has a very beautiful courtyard.


Where you can enjoy a cup of coffee and a sandwich if you don't have to stay sober like I did for the last day and a half...

Anitra and Rens came over for a couple of days and had the bad luck of a hellofalotof rain...
They braved the storms and still managed to see a lot of places.


In the evenings Anitra would take over the kitchen (which I didn't mind at all!) and cooked up another storm. This time it was green curry chicken. Yumyum!

Rens, relaxed, reading in the livingroom.

Luckily the last day the famous Spanish sun came out in full force again so they didn't think we were completely MAD do live out here...

Great having you! XXX

We've been given a full grown palm tree by Oystein and Birgit who didnt want it anymore in their garden. It was really hard work (by Chris and Oystein) digging it out and bringing it up the mountain but it is absolutely worth it. It looks so beautiful here and is perfectly situated on the corner of our terrace. Happy, happy!!!

We're being interviewed for a Dutch magazine in Spain "Temperament"
The story will be about how, when, why etc we moved to Spain and what happened.
Looking forward to seeing the result.


The photographer being photographed.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRIS!!!

Back in Spain, celebrating Chris's birthday and our 5th wedding anniversary.
First a lunch outside in the sun with Martin, Petra, Herman and Sacha.


Martin and Herman go way back.


Caroline and Jacques came later for drinks.


As did Oystein and Birgit...


And even Marije made it up the mountain on her Vespa!
Brave girl...

The Birthday Boy himself listening intently to some wise words from...?

He's probably wondering if he should take anyone serious anymore at this time of day...

Our last night in town and we joined up with Remy and Anoushka. Had a drink at The Chocolate Bar in my old neighbourhood "De Pijp" and afterwards went for dinner at "The French Café"

The food was very classic French but with a modern touch and very very good! Anoushka's desert had it's own little "schnaps" on the side. As for the company; like usual had a great time and laughed a lot!

I had a lovely (and sunny) day with friends, again in the Vondelpark but this time at the terrace of Vertigo. The perfect place to meet up with Anitra, Gisèle and Lotte. Anitra started off with mint tea but soon joined us in our choice of chilled white wine. Lotte is showing off the new shoes that I gave her.

Friends for almost 20 years...