We are greyhounds toooo!!!!

Afternoon!

Hmmmmm, we had some strange guests at the Greyhound Inn... Greyhounds? I don fink so!

Mind you, they were as food orientated as our two... They didn't get anything though. These dogs are american and they are on a diet.... Yep, I didn't believe it either. American? And on a diet? Whatever next....

Frances had to remind them of that fact quite a few times...

I am a greyhound, I am a greyhound! Look, I can sit on your knee too!!!

Good thing this one was on a diet, she weighed a ton!!!

Now were is that effing mouse gone????

Laying in the hammock was quite appreciated by the guests. It did make for a full hammock. 1 fat dutch man. One fat greyhound. One fat.... eh.... eh.... white thing....

I am a greyhound too!

And me too!

We all had a good evening out sitting in the garden in the, for once, nice evening weather. And Clare, stop worrying, we ain't feeding them treats and they are perfectly happy. Have fun in The Keys!

Alex.

Another evening at the Greyhound Inn...

Afternoon!

Another group of greyhound guests checked in on friday night. This time we had Maggie, Laura and Pete. The were there just for an evening of chat and amusement...

This is the adorable Maggie checking out the guest facilities in the lounge.

'Could do with hoovering in here mate!'

This is Laura enjoying the outdoor patio. The staff kindly brought out some blankets so she didn't have to lay on the hard floor...

The other guests congregated around the chimenea to burn a rainforest...

Frances, Jay and Pete having a good natter...

Laura testing the bowling green for evenness...

Who, me????

I can hear a pussycat....

Jackie, Jay, Pete and Frances enjoying the evening and drinks. (That's you, Frances!)

Laura all knackered indoors...

The socalled 'shy' Maggie hunting for dog treats...

So all in all another nice evening in Cornard...

Taraaa,

Alex.

The Greyhound Hotel in Cornard...

Afternoon!

Yesterday we had some more guests check into the Greyhound Hotel in Cornard. Two black greyhounds joined the two resident guests.

This is the new guests enjoying the facilities of the TV lounge. From left to right: Dillie, Flash, Izzy and Jay. The weather channel proved to be popular...

This is the staff trying to cope with getting 4 excited guests on leads and collars... The guests helped by jumping about like idiots to make it easier to get the collars on...

Thats three done, were is the 4th?

I don't do mornings!

In the evening the sleeping arrangements were sorted out amicably. i.e. The resident guests were chucked out of their beds so the guests had the best beds...

Jay and Dillie doing a spot of socialising on the sofa...

The guests debating the state of the government after the Expenses Debacle...

The guests just after checking in....

One of the guests wasn't impressed by the size of the TV lounge beds...

This morning all of them went home happy and refreshed, just like we like it at the Greyhound Hotel!

Taraaa,

Alex.

The Hadleigh Show 2009 RGT stand...

Afternoon!

As I said in the last post we went to the Hadleigh Show yesterday. We were helping to man the Retired Greyhound stall. The had a stall there to get people interested in rehoming ex-racing greyhounds. We already have two and the missus helps out on a regular basis. This time as I was home I got roped in too. I wasn't too enthousiastic to start of with until they told me that our stand was right next door t0 the beer tent... Wheyhey, if I can mix business and pleasure, no worries...

This was the most beautiful greyhound there. Pete's bitch Laura...

Oy oy mate, you're nicked! The fuzz came around as well. Not to nick the mutt but because the copper was interested in getting a greyhound. Fek me! A copper with a sense of humanity? Whatever next? Flying pigs?

I guess Pete didn't spot the sweeney behind him...

Sally extolling the virtues of greyhounds to a pair of ladies who lunch... On G & T's by the sound of them hahahahahaha!!!!

The stand looking nice and busy. We were quite lucky with the weather, even though it looked grey a few times it never actually rained...

Kevin fondling a dog. You can get done for that mate... The fuzz are about....

One of the dogs displaying how stressed and highly strung greyhounds are...

Look! A greyhound that can sit! Laura again displaying that she is the cleverest girl!

Pete, can you finish that cuppa? I wonna go out and stroll!

The missus and my two dogs, Izzy and Jay, behind her. The show was well attended and the RGT had 6 serious phonecalls after it from people interested in rehoming a grey... Nice one!
All in all we had a good time, the Aspells Cider was excellent and the weather held out!

Cheerio,

Alex.

Suffolk Punch horses at the Hadleigh Show 2009

Afternoon!

Yesterday myself and the wife got roped in to help out on the RGT stand (Retired Greyhound Trust). It took place at the Hadleigh Show which is an agricultural show. You know the kind, horses, dogs, farm machinery, cows and a beer tent....

Suffolk has its own kind of heavy horse, The Suffolk Punch. They are beautiful, heavy, big arsed horses. They are an endangered species as there are not many places now where they breed them. And almost no-one uses them on the land anymore. Shame, as they are stunning huge horses... They picture above is of the horse judging. The horses were all beautifully prepared and looked great... ( Coming from a dutchman who has eaten horse that is saying a lot... hahahaha..)

This one was laughing its arse off after it had won!

Here it is being led around the show ring...

Being led away after the show...

Another one being trotted around...

Nbr 1 being judged...

The horse doing a spot of dancing... Hey, I don't know, I know naff all about horses but I did enjoy this part. They looked beautiful. If you get a chance to see them go for it. They might not be around for much longer if no-one steps in and saves the breed...

Taraa,

Alex.

The Potted Garden...

Afternoon again...

This is the second entry of our little growing experiment...

The carrots are growing like the clappers. In the next few weeks we have to thin them out, there are far too many in the pots... Things you learn and all that...

As you can see on the left hand side of the picture in the blue tubs, the potatoes have come on nicely. We have banked the arth around them so that the potato shoots give us proper spuds, not green ones...

One of the new additions, we got some mint in. After a bad start where the bloody pigeons ate all the leaves off it and an addition of some chicken wire we are now off and eating the stuff, bloody gorgeous!!!

Another late addition, a tub with 4 varieties of chillies. I got habanero, thai, sweet red and scotch bonnet to burn my arse!

Here you can see the runaway winner sofar, the salad leaves. We have been eating them for two weeks now and we are just about keeping up with the growth rate hahahaha. There is nothing better than 5 minutes before dinner to go out to the patio, pick a bowl of leaves, wash ' em and eat them, you can't get fresher that that... Sofar it has been easy and very tasty, can't wait for the other stuff to mature. Don't even mind when it rains now, good growing weather hahahaha!!!

Taraaa,

Alex.

Free Veg!!!

Afternoon!

We have gone all green in Cornard. Jackie and myself have turned our hands at growing our own vegetables. Not because its cheaper but mainly because its easy and it tastes great!

This was a month ago. Its a tub of mixed lettuce. There's lambs lettuce, pak choi, Mizuna leaves, Rocket, loadsa varieties... Here it has just popped up.

These are the first of the potatoes popping up...

We have a tub of coriander which is growing quite slow but when it is full size should supply us with loadsa fresh herbs...

This is a tub of spring onions...

That's another pot of mixed salad leaves. Nothing is ready to eat on these pics, but as you will see from the next entry, things have grown somewhat... We only did this a bit of a laugh but sofar it has gone really well and is very very easy... We have done it all in pots for these reasons... If it doesn't grow we can use the pot to put flowers in... Secondly I don't wonna dig up my garden for a vegetable patch... Too much work for me... I'm lazy....

Taraaa,

Alex.

India Part 4, Bangalore...

Afternoon again!

This time I am in Bangalore, the IT capital of India. We have done loads of customer visits here to all sorts of high tech companies. This place is much better weatherwise. It is cooler and not so humid, much more agreeable to someone trotting around town in a monkey suit...

Standing in the street while our driver does a quick pitstop and changes the buggered front wheel...

Not a bad result, a new one on in 10 minutes flat. Somehow I get the idea that this is quite a regular occurence. Mr Vankatesh, Nice Work!

Just to show that Bangalore is not only high tech, just this morning I spotted a herd of camels being driven through the busy traffic...

Here they are from a different angle...

This is the view from The Royal Orchid hotel in Bangalore. Normal standard business hotel with one exception. They had a meal deal where you got a plate of grub and unlimited (Yes, unlimited!) beer included for 6 squid! Did I abuse that? You betcha!!! So all in all a good visit and a good introduction to the chaos that is India.

Flying home tonite and should be in the UK by saturday morning. Need to see the missus, she's been on her jack jones for two weeks and I miss her. And my doggies of course!

Taraaa,

Alex.

India Part 3, Hyderabad...

Afternoon again!

Just to prove to you, here he is asleep again. We were racing down the country roads on the way to Millipatchnam or whatever the hell it was called. The driver was a big fan of Bhangra music so he had that belting out for 6 hours. Did it wake him? Did it bollocks!

Rock-a-bye Colin....

This was the main airport at Vijayawada... Note the 6 luggage trolleys....

When we were on the road it was clear that the harvests were going on. There were loads of bullock carts piled high with stuff. Did they move to let cars through? Did they bollocks!

The traffic in India really is something else. For the people that read this Blog, I travel quite a bit but this traffic is death defying! There are all sorts of vehicles on the road, carts, trucks, busses, auto rickshaws (Three wheeled smoking taxis...), motorbikes etc. And even after 5 days I could not tell you if they drive on the left or on the right. It is pure chaos. Nobody gives way to anything, they have a digital throttle (i.e. On/Off), buy their license for 5 pounds without a test... Pure and utter chaos. We used some drivers that Colin knew from other trips and that kept us relatively safe. Nevertheless we saw a few big accidents, the biggest one a truck full of guests going to a wedding smashed into another truck, result? 31 dead. Lovely...

Never mind, we have survived it...

Cheerio,
Alex.

India Part 2, Mumbai...

Afternoon again!

Stoopid hat competition winner below!

This was at a sponge steel factory three hours south of Mumbai. It was 'only' 35 degrees but as it was right on the coast it was very humid. Plus the customer had us inspect a 1200 degree C reactor vessel so nice and warm...

This is the weekly Stoopid Hat competition Winner!

My new best friend, Mr Keyur Shah! (See? Even he looks dumb in a green hat...)

This is my collegue and mentor Colin. He manages to fall asleep everywhere.... This was at Mumbai domestic airport I believe and we were sitting right under the Tannoy system... Did he wake? Did he bollocks....

This was the view from the next hotel. I buggered up the photo upload as per usual. This is actually Hyderabad. Never mind, different city, same curries hahahahaha!!!

OK, more later,

Alex in Mumbai.

India Part 1, New Delhi

Good afternoon all!

This time I find myself in India. I am at the end of a long two week sales trip that has taken me all across India. I started in New Delhi. We had some customer meetings but we did manage to squeeze in a few hours sightseeing in the town. It was very very very hot, around 42 degrees when we where there. Not nice, going from meeting to meeting in a suit...

This is the Red Fort in Delhi. Nice clump of stone. Nuff said.

This is India Gate. The thing is inscribed with all the names of soldiers killed in action.

This is part of Government House. Apparently a good photo spot....

Some gates with a gun...

This was our very smartly dressed driver from the hotel. Shame he knew bugger all about where stuff was in Delhi. We stayed at the Ramada Inn and that was pretty good.

Myth buster time: All food is incredibly spicy. No, wrong. Most of my dinners I had to ask for raw chillies as it was very mild...

Second Myth: They are Hindus and you don't get meat. Bollocks. I had sheep, chicken, prawns and all sorts.

Third Myth: Everyone gets Delhi belly. Wrong. Nowt wrong after eating all sorts of local food for two weeks.

All in all I quite enjoyed Delhi except for the traffic. More about that later...

Cheerio,
Alex.

Pakistan trip...

Good afternoon!

Two updates in one day??? Blimey!!!
Last week I went to Pakistan for my first sales trip. This was to hand over the territory from Colin to me. Colin is on the left in the blue shirt. The people on the right are our agents in Pakistan. This was taken in Karachi on the roof of a building where there was a good barbeque restaurant.

This was me a 100km south of Karachi on the way to a power generating plant in Jamshoro. Yep, stop laughing, I indeed now have to wear a monkey suit. Not pleasant in 35 degree heat...


This was the outdoor grill area of a resaturant in Karachi. The food was excellent!


The picture below was taken in the toilets of the Islamabad Marriott hotel. Yes, indeed the one that was blown up last september. The whole hotel has been repaired and everything is spick and span in there. It just amused me seeing this notice in the bogs...


We had to be very careful out there as there were three attacks while we were out there. While we were in Karachi there was an attack on a police training academy in Lahore. That was only 2 miles from the office of our agent out there. Then while we were in Islamabad there was an attack on a checkpoint were we had gone by the day before. The suicide attacker blew himself up and killed 25 people and injured 50. So a lucky escape for us...

This is Mr Anjum reading the koran while we were on our way to a customer. Mr Anjum was very helpful in keeping us safe while we travelled the country. We didn't go to Lahore as the customers out there could not guarantee our safety. So all in all a good trip, we did some interesting business and we are looking at developing our business out there.

On saturday I am off to America for a weeks tradeshow in Orlando Florida. At least I will not be shot at out there, or blown up.... (I hope....)

Take care,

Alex.

Turkey again...

Good afternoon!

Well, this must be some kind of record, 4 months of no posts. The reason for that is that I have changed jobs. I am now Sales Manager for the Middle East and Africa. My job training and other commitments have kept me seriously busy. I've done trade shows, sales trips and some commissioning trips...

This picture was taken in Erzurum in Eastern Turkey. I was there to repair a system for Askale Cement. It was &^%$%^$king freezing! Minus 15 to minus 25 at night. I actually had to buy long johns, scarves, hats and all sorts just to stay warm... In the background that is my good friend Ugur from Istanbul.

This was taken in a bar in Van. The Turku Bar is a bar where they play a lot of traditional trukish music. It is also one of the few places where you can get a beer in Van...
This is Van Castle. It is from the Seljuk time from around 800AD. It was cold but looked lovely in the snow.
This is some kind of traditional building in Van. This was an excellent trip where I did some good work but there was a fly in the ointment. When I got back I fell ill and found out I had Shigella Flexneri which is a form of Dysentry. That took two weeks to get over... Never mind, the food still was excellent in Turkey! Thanks to my friend Ugur for a great trip!

Cheerio,

Alex.

The best bar in Otavalo, Ecuador!

Good evening!

I finally managed to find good bar in Otavalo. Every tourist and local person that wants a good place to drink a beer, there is only one place in Otavalo. And that is the Bohemios Bar. It is a very friendly bar with lovely staff that is very helpfull and friendly. I went there twice, saturday and sunday and I had a good time, every time. They serve the best Equadorian beer, Pilsener!

This is the owner of the bar Mr Patricio (Patrick, for stupid people like me that speak not a word of spanish...) and his lovely girlfriend Roberta. He made me feel very welcome and went out of his way to try to speak english...

The bar itself is quite hard to find. It is only a small entrance with a board above it and if you don't look too closely you will miss it. You can see Mr Patricio on the balcony... They do drinks and they do some good food. They have showarma and all sorts of local food. They also do, and this I found quite surprising, waterpipes. You can smoke a good shish there... It also says on the sign out front tha they do live music but I guess I was unlucky and there was nothing on this time...

This is the view from the terrace and I am sure the wall painting says something good about Atavalo but as I speak next to no English I don't really know what it says...

This is me enjoying the local brew. It is called Pilsener and is very nice. It is very cheap in this bar, well, for stupid foreign people like me hahahahaha! If you are into music, they have a wicked computer system that has all the regional music on there, they just let you loose on their PC and you pick what you like....

This is the owner again, Mr Patricio. All in all, even though I was not that impressed with Otavalo to start of with... (Mainly because I could not find a bar...) after being in the Bohemios bar I have to change my opinion of Otavalo, it is not so quiet after all. Patricio, thank you very much for making me feel welcome. Thanks to your staff as well. They know what they are doing, even though most of the foreign people like me, don't speak the lingo... sorry about that. Next time when I go back I will make sure to go back to this place. And anyone looking for a local watering hole, this is the place to be in Otavalo!

Take care and keep this place going! Thank you very much,

Alex in Otavalo, Ecuador.

In Otavalo, Ecuador...

Afternoon all,

OK, now I am in Otavalo. Otavalo is small town in the Andes near the Imbabura volcano. The landscapes are beautiful here, massive mountains, extinct volcanoes, stunning. I am here working for Lafarge commissioning two kiln cameras.

This is the centre of Otavalo. I am staying in El Indio Inn, which is a small hotel with a restaurant. It is hard work walking, around here as the town is at 2600 mtr altitude. I can notice the lack of oxygen. When I climb to the burner platform I am completely out of breath... (Yeah, yeah, less of the fat b'stard jokes please...)

This is the Imbabura Volcano. It is shrouded in clouds most of the time so I am still waiting to get a piccie of the snow covered top... It is 3100 mtr high...

This is the view from the front gate of the Lafarge cement plant...

This was on the road from Quito to Otavalo. I arrived in Quito a few hours late as Aerolineas Galapagos had conveniently changed their flight schedule and cancelled my flight that day. Luckily they had another flight a bit later so got there in the end... My driver Mr Carlos was very helpfull pointing out local landmarks etcetera...

This was the outskirts of Quito, the capital. The place looked very much like any other big city in South America. It was nice and warm weather which was to change as we made our way to Otavalo, which is a two hour drive through the foothills of the Andes...

Again the outskirts of Quito...

This was Guayaquil airport where I spend a few extra hours care of my friends at Aerogal...

The food here is pretty good. It involves a lot of maize in many different disguises, cooked, roasted, grilled, boiled, in soups etc... Otavalo unfortunately is not blessed with any form of nightlife. There are few, if any bars or clubs. I have been informed that there is some nightlife in Imbarra which is three quarters of an hour up the road by taxi... Can't say I am too bothered by the lack of nightlife, I can manage with a few beers with my meal in Otavalo...

OK, I will post later with some more piccies if the clouds ever lift. On the way from the airport to here we went through the heaviest rainstorm ever. It bucketed down and parts of the road washed away, 'Rainman' strikes again. At some point we were slowly cruising through at least a foot of dirty brown water trying not to get washed down the ravine... Never mind, Mr Carlos got us safely to Otavalo. It has been raining here everyday since I have been here, that seems to be the norm here...

Oh, just a little whinge at my favourite airline, AirPukeKLM... On the way out I had the great fortune to sit right next to a 6 month old baby that managed to exersize her vocal cords for most of the 10 hour flight from Amsterdam to Quito...Lovely... Never mind, I managed to get some sleep as i was wearing industrial strength ear plugs. Mind you, I could still hear the little B^$&$rd....

Cheerio,

Alex.

Off to Equador...

Afternoon all!

I'm back on the road again. After a un-enjoyable trip to Saudi Arabia the company sent me out to Ecuador. I have been in this place before but that was a few years ago now. My first job was in Guayaquil. This is a big modern city on the River Guaya. The work itself was pretty standard. The site guy who I worked with, Mr Roberto Quiroz, was kind enough to take me out in the evening to the Malecon 2000. This was Guayaquils millenium project. The took 4 km of old river front and did it all up. And I must say they did a good job. In the evening there are loadsa people strolling about in the lovely weather. There are a lot of restaurants and bars and it all looks rather nice down there.

This was some governmental monument for something...

This was the view north upriver along the Malecon 2000...

If you look closely here you can see an iguana in the middle of the picture... Only a small one, they have loadsa big ones crawling around on the cement factory...

This was the place where I worked, the Holcim Cerro Blanco plant...

This was on the road to the airport in Guayaquil. I had a good time there. I stayed in a ace hotel. The Four Points Sheraton is an excellent base for getting a feel of Guayaquil. They have a bar in there where there is live music most nights. When my job was finished there I travelled on to Quito and Otavalo. More on them in the next posting.

Cheerio,
Alex.

Back in the sands...

Afternoon all!

Another week goes by and I do another trip to Saudi Arabia, my most favourite place in the world, not! I did a job in the middle of the desert in the south of Saudi Arabia. This site was as remote as they come. We were 200 km from Sharoura and 160 km from Najran. Nothing but the cement plant in between. The only thing that was good was the drive back to Najran. We were on the main road to Najran when the saudi driver asked me if I fancied a short cut. Well, driving the deserted roads in the south is boring at the best of times so I agreed. It should knock of about half an hour of the 2 1/2 hour drive...

So the guy hits the brake and leaves the road and starts racing across the sands!

At some point he tells me that one of his mates has a camel farm just up the road (well, road...) and would I like to see it... So we swung by and low and behold, in the middle of nowhere there was this herd of camels eating the sparse grass... The tents were where his mate lived... They were bedouins...

Thats the camels... Smelly bastards...

This was the view 360 degrees around for half an hour... Luckily we were driving a big Toyota Landcruiser Patrol with big balloon tires on it...

When we finally made it back to the road this was the first availabe gas station... Modern stuff 'ey?

When I finally got to England after a two hour flight to Dammam, a 7 hour wait at Dammam airport, a 6 hour flight to Amsterdam and a 1 hour flight to Heathrow, I arrived at 7 in the morning and it was snowing. So in 24 hours from 35 degree heat to -2 degrees was a bit of a shock to the system... Then when we were bombing down the M25 we saw at least 5 shunts and crashes in the snow on the motorway. When we made it to the A120 my taxi driver took a corner a bit too fast and he lost it. We ended up sliding across two lanes before we ended up skirting along a banked side of the road. The car nearly ended up on the roof but with an incredible amount of luck the car swerved back on to the road and we managed to get back to Sudbury with only some cosmetic damage to the grill and front bumper... Scared the crap out of me though... (Ron, if you want to wake me up in the taxi you can just shout you know...)

By the way, KLM was on top form again. They lost all my luggage on the way back. Saved me having to wait on my suitcases and having to carry them myself. They dropped them off half a day later, incompetent bastards... At least I have made Platinum again on Skyteam...

Next week I believe I am off to Ecuador. I have to go back to Guayaquil for a small 4 day job. After that I should be Turkey for a week and that should be it for the year... Thank god, it has been a hectic year, I will not forget 2008 in a hurry...

Cheerio,
Alex.

Turkey again...

Afternoon,

The second late update... Turkey this time...

Last week I went to Bucak in Turkey. That is about 50 km from Antalya on the Anatolian coast of the meditereanean...

The job for AS Cimento went really well, they were chuffed to bits with their new equipment after it was all commissioned. The piccie above is the road coming into Antalya from the north. They have a huge head of Kemal Ataturk chiselled out the rock there. Mr Kemal is the founder of the modern Turkish state.

This was some small bird I ate in Keptur restaurant near Bucak. I guess judging by the size it wasn't a chicken... I put my fork next to it just to show how small the thing was. I guess it might have been a sparrow or something. My turkish wasn't good enough to find out anything else beside the fact that it was a bird of some kind hahahahaha....

This is me and my two new friends from AS Cimento on the roof after we installed and tested the gear... This is Mr Tunay Bakan and another guy who's name has escaped me...

This is myself doing some software training with the operators...

This was the view from the Sheraton Voyager hotel in Antalya where I stayed the first night. Excellent place even though it was quiet there, it's off-season at the moment...

OK, more later,

Alex.

Thailand and Malaysia...

Afternoon all,

Another late update... I have just come back from Turkey but before that I was off to Malaysia and Thailand. I went to Malaysia to teach some Lafarge staff how to use our software. From there I flew to Thailand to do a system repair on a broken system at Thung Song.

The work in Malaysia went very well. The customer had just been told by their management that they would have to cut costs for next budgets and here I am training them on software that can safe them loadsa cash. I Must say, this was the most attentive audience I have ever had...

After staying in Kuala Lumpur for only two days it was on to Thailand. Luckily I had managed to put a rest day in the schedule so I could catch up on some very much needed sleep... sodding jetlag....

The pictures in this entry are all ass over tits as i can not add more than 5 pictures at a time and when you do the second batch it puts them above the previous ones... never mind, I must be thick...

This picture above shows the atrium of the Emerald Hotel in Bangkok. This picture was taken from 10 floors up and you can still make out the HUGE koi carp in the pond below...

This is the arrival at Nakorn Si Thammarat airport to go to Thung Song...

I don't know if you can make it out in the picture but if you look above the roof of the Merc you might be able to make out a guy. That was a guy who came walking across 4 lanes of traffic on top of an elephant! I cracked me up, only in Thailand...

This was the usual rains that follow me around everywhere. It bucketed down every bloody day and we are not talking about a little shower here....

This was the seminar that I did my training session on. It was very well organised in a beautiful hotel just outside Kuala Lumpur. If you are ever looking for a posh hotel in KL you can't go wrong with the Saujana Resort. Beautiful place with very good staff...

Yours truly looking stoopid in a suit....

The conference room were I bored the 15 plant managers to sleep hahahahaha!

In the evening the Lafarge people very kindly invited me to a dinner in KL. We passed the famous Petronas Towers on the way to the restaurant. The picture isn't great, it was taken from inside a bus that was splattered with rain. Still you can see the beautiful towers in the background....

Cheerio,
Alex.

Mijn maat Marcel en familie...

Een goedemiddag!!!

He! Weer een update in het nederlands? Inderdaad...

Vorige week toen ik in Nederland was voor mijn ouders hun 45ste trouwdag heeft mijn moeder voor mij een grote verassing gezorgd. Zoals de meeste mensen weten woon ik al 15 jaar in Engeland. Sinds dat ik uit Nederland weg ben zie ik bijna niemand meer uit mijn uode vrienden kring. Een half jaar geleden heeft een oude maat van mij via het internet mij kunnen vinden. Omdat ik heel veel reis de hele wereld rond is het moeilijk om iets te organiseren zodat we weer eens effe kunnen ouwehoeren. Marcel en ik hebben al een paar emailtjes uitgewisseld maar dat was alles tot nu toe...

Dus mijn moeder heeft het georganiseerd dat op de laatste dag van mijn bezoek in holland dat Marcel en zijn familie naar mijn ouders huis zouden komen.

Dus op zondag ochtend daar was ie! Mijn oude vriend Marcel en zijn familie. We hebben mekaar mistens 20 jaar niet gezien...

Dit is Marcel met George Micheal baard...

En nogmaals....

Jackie, mijzelf en Marcel...

En dit is Marcels familie. Christien en de koters. We hebben al afgesproken dat volgend jaar juni, wanneer ik naar Nederland kom voor een week, dat we naar Bergen op Zoom gaan en dan gaan we een dagje bier drinken bij hun! Marcel, het was hardstikke leuk weer eens iemand te zien die ik al jaren weer wilde ontmoeten. We houden contact!

De groeten uit Engeland!

Elmer.

PS He? Kon je dit nou lezen? Hahahahahaha!!!!