August updates

Sue and Ralph are troopers for still going on camping vacations. They drove around in the St Lawrence and Gaspe area in Quebec (along the border with New Brunswick). This is a region where early European explorers entered the new land which later became Canada...

Afterwards Ralph did his annual five day (500 km) bike ride with another 1,000 cyclists at each year a different area of Quebec. This year the area was around Quebec City. Well done, Ralph!

Yesterday we drove to Sarnia to visit the Vandenboom gang there. Parker is going a year to Australia and in September he will turn 23. Therefore Mary had a big cake made already celebrating the three September birthdays (Mary 63, Joe 60 and Parker 23) plus safe travels wishes. Spencer will also go to Australia for possibly a year and he will leave in September. Bros ready to explore....

Summerfest in Fonthill

This weekend we had the annual summer fest in our backyard a few blocks from our house with live bands, food and drinks during three days. Lots of people but not so many in our age group anymore...

Part of the Sarnia gang came over (Parker still in BC and Will at school in northern Ontario). Hilary and Shayd also in BC (they will come for a visit in August when Shayd's mother will be over on a visit from New Zealand), and Fiona is still in Korea (completing her year of work there in September). Susan was the master chef and made - among other dishes - delish spare ribs....

Mary organized birthday cake for the three July birthday celebrators (Susan 65, Mark 31 and Ralph 67). Afterwards relaxing and for the younger folk dancing at the summer fest...

And some of us played pickleball in the heat, while some also jumped in the pool. 

Recently an old local friend celebrated his 98th birthday and passed away a few months later. An exemplary fellow who had the aging down as a champion, physically and mentally in very good shape all the way to the end. RIP, dear Fred.

Last days of trip

I had the chance to learn grandfather skills from Coen while watching him keeping an eye on his grandson Feiko. Fun times. On Sunday I walked from their place to a Delft reunion with 10 fellow students, 8 of their spouses, 18 of their kids and 12 grandchildren. On the way to that event I made a photo of one of the landmarks in Scheveningen, the famous "Kurhaus". In front of the building you can see a work of art made out of beach sand, which could be found all along the beach promenade. In front the street on which Coen & AM live. Nice place! Always great hospitality and friendship.

The reunion was organized in one of the many beach restaurants. Around it plenty of fun stuff to do for the grandchildren. Age had it all well organized and it was very nice to meet many of the kids of my friends and some of their grandkids. We were given colored party bands and each family had a color, so it was easy to recognize who belonged to whose family....

The grandkids also enjoyed some food, drinks and treats. A few of them ventured into the ocean...

After the reunion in Scheveningen, I hitched a ride with Age & Lea back to Amsterdam where I spent the last two days of this (third) memory lane trip. Age and Lea live along one of the many canals in the city center of Amsterdam. Always a treat to be their guest. Also great hospitality and friendship.

Another old university friend (like me, named Jos) has had a lifelong hobby of collecting artwork from around the world. During the last few years he had several expositions of parts of his extensive collection and he showed me a half hour documentary about his last exposition. Impressive. I found him in front of his house making a digital copy of one of his new acquisitions under natural light....

His collection is growing every time I visit him. The pieces of art are literally all over his house in every room. It is always very entertaining to visit Jos...

The house of Jos is right next to the "Rijksmuseum" (National Museum) which attracts each days hundreds of tourists from around the world. Nearby is the Amstel River, a natural river flowing through the city and connecting with the extensive canal system.

My last visit during this trip was with Esther, who was our babysitter for Hilary during our two years in the city of Haarlem (1993 and 1994), when I worked at the head office of Doctors without Borders Holland in nearby Amsterdam. Esther visited us a few times in Canada afterwards, and now she is a proud mama of two daughters (16 and 14) and a son (12). What a fun visit to catch up after many years.

Meanwhile one of my friends and colleague during the 25 years of work in the Canadian college system moved into their new house on Vancouver Island, which has a spectacular view over the Pacific Ocean.

Back to Fonthill, Ontario, Canada again today. Another very nice memory lane trip completed....

More beach and dunes

Yesterday I spend the day cycling along the dunes on the shores of the North Sea (Atlantic Ocean) with former house-mates from our years at university. They all live in The Hague which borders the ocean and the town of Scheveningen. They are way fitter (and a few years younger) than me, so they used regular bikes while I borrowed an electric assist bike :-)

Cathrien was the only wise one by wearing a helmet. Those stubborn Dutch folks..... Cathrien, Liesbeth and Auke took a dip in the cold ocean. Joost and I watched those silly folks from the dunes....

It was a fun day catching up with them and we ended the day with a wonderful Indonesian meal, something you can't find easily in Canada. Two more days and I will be homebound again.

Boating and beach

Yesterday one of my old high school friends toured a few of us around in his boat at the "Loosdrechtse Plassen" (small cottage country area near the town of Bilthoven where we grew up). All of us attended the same elementary school for six years, and a few were at the same high school with me. It is fun to exchange stories together from our lives of the past fifty years....

After the boating we had a meal at one of the local yacht clubs. Lots of smaller dinghy sailing boats at this club. I did a fair bit of practice runs at this small lakes area in 1975 to get prepared for racing in the 470, an Olympic class, during a period of three years (1975 - 1977). We ended up in the back half of the fields of boats, but nevertheless it was fun and excellent exercise....

Four old housemates from university I briefly met up with during a short visit to the University of Technology in Delft. All four civil engineers. The one to the right - Huub - visited us last summer with his wife (also an engineer) and two sons (also both engineers). The others - Frans, Bertus and Koos - I had not seen for 45 years. Today I ended up on the beach of Scheveningen on the shores of the North Sea (Atlantic Ocean). I will be here for two days before the last two days - in Amsterdam - during this four week trip. So lucky to be able to make these memory lane trips....