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Feuilles volantes

Ria — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:45:45 +0000

While waiting in the basement for the washing machine to finish, I picked up a book from the open boxes stacked under the stairs, the remainder of our unpacking from … almost two years ago *gulp*. The book was a well foxed paperback of Victor Hugo’s Choses vues, a sort of memoir of major and

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Once more unto the intocht, dear friends

Ria — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 22:41:56 +0000

All of the Netherlands turned out yesterday to welcome the return of a pensionado (retiree) from Spain — Sinterklaas! And his merry band of pranksters, the Zwaartepieten (Black Peters), whose political incorrectness is tempered by the addition of fantasy Piets, such as the Elvis Piet.

Related posts: Thanks a lot, Voltaire Old habits The winter evening settles down

DIY slum

Ria — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 22:41:45 +0000

It might come as a shocking fact to learn that in the Netherlands hundreds of children, some as young as five years old, are living in the most primitive conditions, sheltering from the rain in makeshift huts made from disused wooden pallets and scraps of cloth they managed to scavenge from the piles of trash

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Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’

Ria — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 08:20:52 +0000

Keep those wagons rollin’ …

Life is rollin’ on chez les Bacon — school’s almost out for summer, my contract at the university has been extended for another year, baby Didi is up and walking, and we interviewed a woman last night to come help clean for us, which of course meant we spent a

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Dyscalculia

Ria — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 22:57:12 +0000

On the occasion of her eleventh birthday, my daughter announced that I was 50,000 days old. It had taken her a little quiet time to come up with this figure, and despite my immediate rebuttal, she insisted her calculation was correct.

So … turns out I’m about to celebrate my 137th birthday.

Makes sense.

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Blue and yellow

Ria — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 23:49:56 +0000

Back to work on Monday after an exhausting IKEA weekend: long trip to the mainland on Saturday, then six hours shuffling round the blue and yellow megabox, sustained only by Swedish meatballs and a family-size bag of Daims; Sunday busy with the allen keys, baffled by pictogram instructions simplified for our 23-language community.

What

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The truckers were the real heroes

Ria — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 23:44:07 +0000

Our plan last night was to put up shelves in our wardrobe and further reduce the chaos of our living conditions, which seems to involve shifting boxes from one room to another, until it becomes unmanageable, then redistributing the boxes to other rooms. Every few days we generate enough garbage to fill the bus and

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The winter evening settles down

Ria — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:27:53 +0000

In 2009 we have lived in five different short-term rentals, beginning in Dakar and ending on a small Dutch island in the North Sea. Each time we never fully unpacked our bags, and the kids got used to surviving with a Nintendo DS rather than setting out their Lego cities and Playmobile schools. I hope

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Sibling rivalry 2.0

Ria — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 10:12:07 +0000

As technology evolves, so do the arguments between siblings. Until recently, we heard outraged voices shrieking

“Mama! She broke my Wookie!”

“Don’t touch my My Little Pony stud farm!”

Things grew quieter when they started squatting in front of our laptops and watching Youtube and playing online games (with obligatory headphones).

Two days ago,

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Squeeze me baby, till I lose control

Ria — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 22:42:20 +0000

It’s odd coming back to this place that was once so familiar and now seems so … neglected and … quite frankly, dowdy. I reckon this blog could do with a makeover, a little nipping and tucking in the layout, minor facelift-like.

Since I stopped blogging regularly, I have maintained my presence in the

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