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| Some of the Mounted Guards |
As many of you know I was in the doctor's office last week to get the all clear as I've had some really weird symptoms over the last few months (like tingling in my foot and ). The strong bruise like mark on my left ankle has almost completely cleared up and all I needed to do was get the blood results from the samples that were taken on Friday. I phoned the clinic this morning to find out what the blood results were and the good news is that all my counts are normal!! Its a great relief to hear that.
Since I last posted things have been settling down quite a bit. I'm getting into the hang of working in the office and going to the gym each day. This week I've been going in before I head to the office. I'm feeling sore but it's good. Yesterday was rather exciting as the Dutch parliament was opened by the king, who then goes by carriage to the parliament buildings to give a speech outlining the plans for the coming year, I think. I do know that the speech was written by the Dutch Prime Minister. So two of my colleagues and I went to see the procession. We didn't get a great view, though where we were standing was good enough to glimpse the king's coach as it passed by. We also got the opportunity to see the entire procession of the king's mounted guards and foot soldiers. I didn't a photo of the king's carriage as it passed but I got loads of photos of the pomp and ceremony of the procession.
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| There Was A Band Waiting For the King |
Since I've been going to the gym on an almost daily basis, I've been leaving home really early to do some exercise before I go to work, which means that the only time I see the kids is over dinner time. They're typically normal Dutch kids and are still adjusting to having someone new living in their house, just like how us adults are adjusting to the change. I'm not sure if I ever wrote about the British laws about photographing children, which you're not allowed to photograph them without parental consent or post them online. So when we'd take photos of our ministries that involved working with kids we'd usually need to ask the parents for their permission to take the photos, when we were on outreach in particular, we'd have to blur the children's faces before we did anything with them. Here in the Netherlands the laws are the same. So that's why I've not mentioned the kids names or have posted any photos of them.
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| A Restaurant In A Tram |
One of my responsibilities here in the office is helping organise the Connect Conference in Sidcup in November. It's a lot of organising of transport (which we aren't booking for the people who are coming) and sorting out the accommodation (we've booked but we're not paying for). There's a few people who might visas to visit the UK... and just making sure that those who want to have a bed under the booking that we've made in Sidcup. Its quite a busy job, but I'm enjoying it. It has its moments of crazy organising but at the moment I'm just waiting to hear from people about what their plans are.
An interesting thing that's happening this weekend, that a few of us from Redeemer are going to do, is take part of a Peace Run. There's a five kilometre run and a ten kilometre run. I'm running the five because I know that I'll be able to do it without risking any damage to my joints. I'm really looking forwards to running and I'm really hoping that I'll be able to finish it running. The last time I tried to complete a run like this it didn't end very well as my left foot went totally numb and I had to walk three out of the five kilometres. I'm dearly hoping that I'll be able to run this case to completion. Since I've been running over the last two or three months, I haven't had any problems and I'm hoping that my foot won't be effecting my running on Saturday. I'm really looking forwards to it!
Until next time!