After unloading the truck the youngsters pronounced that they were hungry, so I said that I would prepare dinner for them before they started back. The poor souls, it would be midnight before they got home. I was just unpacking the food I brought along, looking for some easy things to cook, when Sheila and Peter came to say halo, and she immediately invited us all to dinner, as she had cooked for me too, knowing that it would be late when I reached Haarlem.
The lovestruck one was still a broken man, and it wasn't long before his troubles were told to Sheila, who tried to calm him down before dinner, without much luck!
I was quite excited, as it would be the first time in my own bed in my own wee hoose, as the Scots would say!

Next morning broke bright and clear again, with blue skies and no clouds, and I started getting ready to close my place for my leaving. I have never given any thought to the question of storage, and clothing space, as there was not one cupboard in this house. I was so busy fixing things, that I overlooked this little problem completely.
Another problem that I had given no thought to, was the fact that there was no toilet in the main house, and there was no bally door between that and the new annexe! So, if I wanted the loo, or a shower, which I liked just before I went to bed, I had to run the length of the house on the outside, and that did not appeal to me, being scared of the evil gangsters that lurked around every corner. The youngsters in this small villages has got little to do, their parents over week-ends not very sober, the wine flowing very freely, but food scarce! A lot of the youngsters are contracted by one Zhivago, a notorious gangleader after he made them dependent on drugs, to steal for him in order to get drugs, and as the decent and older people suggest. the police are knee-deep into this crimes, and just turn a blind eye! I
slept in the main house on the old iron bed the previous night, the good mattress I bought and Danny's rods keeping it nice and firm, as I did not have the strength to fix the other bed after the dinner at Sheila's, just to pack it away again the next day.
Most of the boxes I just left to be unpacked when I came back, but I at least took out a few pans, cups, my electric kettle and a few little things I would use during the day. My plan was to go to Irma for the night, as she had to take me to the airport for my flight to Johannesburg, where I will first visit with my eldest sister Lida, before flying off to Scotland.
My sojourn in Scotland was as usual Fabulous! I have a lot of friends, and as the Scots are a very social lot, I never had a dull moment when I decided to look for company. I had a little love affair the previous year, but after a few disastrous dates found that he really was not my cuppa tea! This year I had my work cut out to make this man believe that I was serious in not wanting a relationship.
I felt like running straight back to Scotland on opening my front door, and about a dozen huge rainspiders sat koekeloering at me from behind the webs that were hanging like silky curtains from the rafters! There were also a number of this beasties on the walls, and the tattered red curtain that I had not yet removed from the sittingroom wall looked like a vulgar and overpainted old woman, fluttering feebly in the breeze that blew through the house. The dust was just unbelieveable! And I had to live there!
Irma and the kids, who came down with me, were stricken dumb, even my garrulous granddaughter Kristani, who never stops talking! The picture on the bottom was taken in Perthshire, Scotland.