After a struggle to drive the gods crazy, I am able to blog again. Just before Xmas, I switched on the computer, and the bally thing told me shortly and sweetly that it was going to crash, and it did. And there sat self, without any links to the outside world, with only the company of my much loved, but grieve stricken son and kids, and it was indeed hard slog to pull even a smile from any of them. They were all kind of okay, but now that Xmas is drawing nearer, they started missing Nina again terribly, as she was very punctilious with putting up the tree and the whole family joined in to decorate it, and it was heartbreaking to see them so lost.
Jan packed Rene off to his grandparents in Denmark, as he was becoming a problem with his addiction to the internet games. Of course it was also a way to escape his sorrow. We all hoped that being back in Denmark, where he of course grew up, would help him to find some balance in his life again.
The 24th dawned bright and clear, and it was a very small heap of presents under the tree. As I couldn't really get to a place to buy decent presents, I had bought Jan and Andreas each an assortment of chocolates, and this chocolates melted on my way back from the shop in Uniondale, and ended up looking very very mangled, but it would just have to do. It was only Jan, the two kids, and me that Xmas eve, and the atmosphere was heavy with their sorrow, and for me it was I think the saddest feeling that I did not even get one present. Jan had just never thought of buying something for me, and although I knew how stressed he was, I still felt very lonely. I knew that Trienkie and Stephan had bought me something which I would get later, but it wasn't the present so much as the hopelesness that hung around us that night, and the excitement of opening presents did lighten things for them a bit. Maria, Nina's sister had sent some presents for them, and Andreas got a cap gun, with which he managed to drive us demented, but at least he managed to forgot his heartache for a few hours.
Trienkie had given me an old computer. This thing was about twenty years old, and huge, and after struggling for days to get it going, I gave up, and Jan lent me this one, and as it is quite new, I hope to blog away happily for the next few years! But this monstrosity is now standing in my sitting room, and as my house is like a doll's house, it looked menacing and fills up the whole room. Well, just about! Will have to give it to one of the villagers, as it does come on, but can't do internet, although I doubt if most of them will know what to do with it! But maybe somebody can have it fixed, and if not, they can just dump it somewhere. Jan gave this thing one look, and almost pull out his hair, announcing in a cold voice that the thing is just fit for the scrap heap!