Kristani had picked up this little pavement special, with infected skin an not a hair on the tiny body, and Irma told her to get rid of it, as they suspected mange, and was afraid that Hendrix and Tembi might get it too. But kristani asked to keep it through the night, and then she would get the SPCA to get it in the morning, and Kiana, my youngest granddaughter cried huge crocodile tears, because we all knew that looking like that little mite did, they would put her to sleep. Irma got up first the next morning, and being Irma, who also adores dogs, she had a quick peep in the box, expecting the little thing to be quite dead, but instead of a cold little body, she saw the badly infected little tail wagging furiously on seeing her! Buckets of tears were cried, and of course, the little thing stayed, and between the lot of them, the ugly duckling became a beautiful white puppy, with no dark spots on any part of her, although she must have had a  bull Terrier and a Jack Russel  somewhere in the mix of her forefathers, as her mouth and ears was that of a Bull Terrier, and her body like that of a Jack Russel. She became the most beautiful dog, with dark eyes that looked as though someone had used a kohl pencil to draw thick black lines around it, and I said that I would take her when I came back from Scotland.
When living in Haarlem, you sometimes see the most incredible sights, like the one I saw on my way back from Ronalee with some spinach plants she gave me. From the opposite side coming towards me, I saw this thing careering all over the road, but it was too far away still to make out what it was. As we came closer to each other, I saw that it was a wheelbarrow, and the wheelbarrow was being pushed by an Oompie (old man) with the thinnest and spindliest pair of legs I have ever seen, and this legs kept on buckling under him, making him and the wheelbarrow go all over the road. He was as drunk as a skunk! Inside the wheelbarrow was another Oompie, as ugly as sin, whose mouth hung open showing a few rotten teeth and this Oompie was so drunk that he did not know where he was, snoring loudly through his open mouth, while his feet were hanging limply out of his vehicle, getting into the way of the wheel, upsetting the whole process, and making the pushing Oompie using some wonderful swearwords when the barrow time and again tipped over, and he had to struggle to get his mate back in. I greeted and asked if I could help in any way, but Oompie just snorted :"and what can the blerrie Whitey do?", not even stopping to see if maybe I could help. Sheila told me later that she offered to take the Oompies home in her jeeplike wagon, but the Pushing Oompie declined  shortly and sweetly, and said that they went to the shebeen together, and he was responsible to get his mate home. A shebeen is a drinking place, mostly unlicensed, and selling very cheap and inferior drinks!
I was now packing away my valuable stuff for my going away to my job in Scotland, as I had to make sure that I did not come back to an empty house. I made a lot of booby traps, like a nice cold rubber snake above the front door, ready to fall on any intruder that dared to break that door open. This people are extremely scared of snakes, so I thought it a good plan. I also had two busts that I made long ago during my youth, and as this was casted in cement, I made eyes for them from red craft clay, and stuck a piece of clear glass in the middle! SCARY!! Or I thought so anyway! This I put in my half metre wide window sills, on the inside, and draped the curtains around the heads, so that it looked as if they were peeping at the passers-by. My really valuable stuff I was taking to Irma for safekeeping. It was quite a job to organise everything, and I was glad when at last I put the last of my clothes and linen into my kist, guarded by a lot of moth balls, and locked the kist with a strong lock. It was so easy in my previous house, and in my flat, as they were both in large towns with lots of people around.