Hout Bay – 16 February 2024

I have a sports watch from Garmin for several years that measures and keeps track of all kinds of things. Heart rate, breathing, sleep, in short, it gives a reasonable representation of my health and well-being. During the sale of my company in 2021, all the signals were on dark red and it took me a long time to reverse that trend. The past few weeks have not done me any good according to Garmin and that is only partly due to the heat in Dysseldorp. Lisa’s family is very welcoming and nice but, as a colleague once called it, ‘high maintenance’. It drove me crazy I notice and have been completely relaxing in the last few days I notice. Maybe I’ll even go for a walk again although I understand that tomorrow I have to play chauffeur for Lisa and her sister.

Farrah and her family arrive in Cape Town tonight

This morning at 1 o’clock our daughter Farrah sent an email that they had arrived and now went to sleep expecting to wake up with sunshine tomorrow. The latter could be disappointing because it has rained and it is still raining here. Wonderful just this, temporary, cooling down.

Today I am a driver for Lisa and her sister. In addition, I really have to start with a speech for Farrah & Niels….

As expected I had to be a driver today for Lisa and her sister but also mother-in-law Annie to buy a dress. Of course that had to be in a specific place for which a bit (4 hrs) had to be driven. The good news is that they succeeded and that I was able to read a little further in my book. On the way back to Hout Bay we took an alternative route under the Table Mountain right through Cape Town. To my surprise, we suddenly drove through the Hofstraat where Lisa’s former workplace was. We both had to take a good look before we recognized it. At a random intersection I almost drove into a car that didn’t indicate a direction. The brakes are fine, luckily.

Tomorrow the grandchildren will come by. So we are also taking care of this!

I still suffer quite a bit from my shoulder and it annoys me that it takes so long to be over. Now I’m stubborn of course and I could have gone to a doctor for a while, but I doubt (stubborn) whether this had accelerated the healing. It’s frustrating that a simple injury takes weeks to heal. Patience is a virtue…..

I have now checked in Tom and Tamara for their flight tomorrow. Tamara is all set for the trip while Tom is still thinking about a cat flap for our cat Mickey. I’m curious if he takes my camera with him and if he picked up the scooter and put it down at home.

Niels’ parents and brother arrived yesterday and today Lisa’s brother Michael is flying to Cape Town. I haven’t seen him for 4 years so I’m looking forward to speaking to him.

Lisa has conceived the plan to go to Cape Town by bus tomorrow. They have a similar system with OV chip cards here, so we’re going to buy this for her tomorrow morning. That gives me some time tomorrow to start my speech because…..

The stay at 10000 km from the Netherlands gives me more and more peace. At the moment there is a lot to play in terms of financing of the care home for, amongst others, Tamara, but this is in the excellent hands of my business partners. It does frustrate me that I can’t assist them now, but I can, more and more often, let go of that. It’s just going to work!