Was I glad when Jan came back, as I was a bally wreck, what with Mobi getting out and pestering the villagers, whatever precautions I took! It was not only Jan who lost a lot of weight, I was also becoming quite streamlined, that of course from walking the streets of Haarlem to find the dog, as the people were so upset with him that they were threatening to kill him, and knowing how cruel some of this people were to their own animals, I was scared for the dog.
But with Jan back home everything went from chaos to relative calm, except between Jan and Rene, who was a bitty out of hand, and refused to even try and help with anything. Jan was really worried about him, as he had a better idea of death than Andreas, who still walked around with his cross, and cried his eyes out when his big brother told him that it was a lot of garbage. But he eventually got over that, and told his brother that he just knew that his mother was up there, watching over them.
It was actually so cute, as my sister Lida, who had died about a year before Nina, was a hot favourite with Andreas, and his mother had always told him that tannie Lida was up in the clouds, looking down on them, so one night as we had dinner on the veranda, he squinted up at the moon, and said that he was sure that he could see his mother and tannie Lida having tea with Jesus!
Jan had now decided to make the baby Emil part of his household over week-ends, and as he was always quite a hands on dad, he soon coped like an old pro nanny, bathing the baby, making his bottles, and I thought to myself that little baby Emil might just be his salvation, as he started to smile back at the baby who was so cute, and started smiling, and was also so good, only crying when he was hungry, and oh boy, if his feed wasn't brought fast, he could already knew how to throw a little temper.
Peter had invited Jan to come to his farm for a week or two, as he thought it a good idea to get him away from the house, where, now that most people had gone on with their own lives, he was extremely lonely, and I thought that it was a brilliant idea.
It took a bit of  serious convincing before he decided to go, and I was glad when he said that he would take Rene with, as we didn't think staying in his room all day was at all good for him. And I just did not have the energy to cope with the continious fighting and begging for him to help me around their place, as I was running like a steam enjin, blowing and wheezing from the one property to the other, and then through the streets scouting for Mobi when Jan was in Johannesburg, and I was not feeling up to that again, as I had to leave Andreas in charge, and of course he had his arm and leg in plaster.