Monday - Friday, May 16 - 20 2011 (diary)

Been very busy, almost up to the last minute, to update my Bridge course, get downloads ready and CDs burned.
But our first Intermediate lesson went well this Tuesday with everybody happy. Next week a second course will start on Saturday, probably with another three full tables.
This means that with these two groups going the majority of Arafura Bridge Club members will go through a beneficial refresher, revisiting all aspects of bidding and play technique. This was exactly what the Arafura Club Committee was aiming for, so that is good.
Several Club regulars who are going away on holidays (to Europe etc.) have also asked for a third course to be run later this year, after they all have returned home.

My thoughts are also with a friend of mine, Malveen, who just left for a short trip to Italy to follow a painting course in Tuscany. Earlier this year I helped her find a good place to do that, the The Water Mill at Saporo (some 50km North East of the famous city of Pisa), and of course I am very curious to hear how she gets on there. Malveen has promised to take lots of photos.

Saturday - Monday, May 21 - 23 2011 (diary)

Well into May, so the rose garden on the island of Mainau will be in splendid bloom, and so will be the tulip fields in my native country Holland.
During my student days in Leiden I was for a short period (during Spring) a part time Bell Boy at a hotel in the sea resort of Noordwijk aan Zee, and drove every morning on my motorbike through these magnificent tulip fields.
Arriving at the Hotel my first three dasks of the day always were : raise the Dutch flag, pollish the brass door knop on the hotel's front door, then start poliishing the guests' shoes left in the corridoors outside their room.
When that was finished I had breakfast in a side kitchen with 8 chamber maids and waitresses, the chef cook (Peter I recall his name was) and I the only males present.
The girls very much wanted to visit a popular nightclub in town, but (as they were accomodated in the hotel) were not allowed to do so without an escort. So one night I took all eight of them out to that place. We had a great night. We all sat together at one table, and every time a girl was asked to dance by another man, she would first ask my permission to accept. At the end of the night we all returned together and I escorted them back to the hotel.

Tuesday - Friday, May 24 - 27 2011 (diary, memories of Cafe Beuse)

Cool at night, quite nippy early in the morning and a beautiful sunny day for the rest of the day, that is the present weather recipe here and we all love it.

Quite frequently these days I look back on my life and contemplate how fortunate I am still to be alive (so many friends and acquaintances have died already) and what a marvelously varied life I have had.
I have wonderful experiences and times to look back on, but amongst them Cafe Beuse has perhaps been the very best of them all.
Cafe Beuse was my local Pub, only 400 meters away from my parental home Martinshof. It was from my mid teens (still at High school) until our emigration to Australia (after my University and National service days) in December 1965 my second home. And when I returned to Holland for a few years (1981-83) to run my late father's business, Cafe Beuse once again was my main point of social relaxation.

Sadly, most of the Pubs in the area around Gorssel where I grew up have disappeared (some have been converted into Chinese restaurants), but in the past much of the social life in the villages and countryside was focused in these small friendly Pubs ("Cafes").

The Publican was an important social contact with whom you could discuss everything from the local gossip to serious business or intimate secrets, and over the years Jan Klein-Hesselink, Publican of Cafe Beuse, has been one of my closest friends and confidants.
Even now I miss him with a depth of feeling which one normally only has for one's closest family.
Billiards was the most popular indoor sport then and every Pub had their own local team of players. A friendly competition amongst Club members once every week, as well as "home" and "away" matches against teams of other Pubs were much enjoyed social activities, always accompanied by plenty of beer drinking and fun.

Aaldert Bakker who was raised by his mother's sister, Pub owner Riek Beuse (after his mother Alie's tragic death during child berth), still owns the billard table we played on all those years ago, and when I visited him in 2008 we had a friendly game on it for old times sake.

Aaldert still has an album with photos of our farewell Beef Fondue party held at Cafe Beuse in December 1965 prior to our emigration to Australia. I copied my Blog photos from them.
The original photos were taken by my brother Claus.

Sadly all present at that party except for Antien, Gerrit, Claus and myself (and Mies?) have long since passed away.

Saturday - Tuesdayday, May 28 - 31 2011 (diary)

I started the second Intermediate Bridge course on Saturday and the first lesson went well. But the amount of experience amongst the individual participants of this group varies considerably, which makes teaching a bit more tricky than for my Tuesday evening group. Anyway, that will be a challenge.

On the farm the first mango trees are starting to bloom. That is their normal time of year to do so, unlike last year when, due to unusual weather conditions (no cold nights at all), the blooms started some 4 weeks later (late June).

I watched the European Champions League Final on TV this weekend : Manchester United against Barcelona. It was a great match of high quality with Barcelona clearly being the far superior team, winning the match convincingly 3-1. They are clearly by far the best soccer team in the world right now.
Spain had a good week in sport with Contador winning the Giro d'Italia. If he is allowed to compete in the Tour de France this year he will be once again hard to beat.

I have been staying at my daughter Babette's place (ThreePonds) every (Southern hemisphere) summer since 2004 and we both decided it is time for a change.
The past couple of years I have tried to shorten my stay there by arriving later, but with the yearly floods in Queensland and in the Northern Territory, it was always March before I could attempt my trip back up North.
The 7,000km round trip (which I now have done about 15 times) has also become very expensive. The fuel and accommodation costs alone are $1,600, not counting the frequent broken windscreens on the journey.

So this year I will see how I go through the wet season here in the tropics, staying on the mango farm. Then perhaps in late January I may fly down for a brief visit to have my regular check ups with my periodontist and GP. Alternatively I may in future make brief trips to Indonesia or Vietnam for a look around there.