I have never understood why, but this apparently happens a lot.
I hope your BF gets better
DutchGirl's journal
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singvestor
- Posts: 206
- Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2015 12:48 am
Re: DutchGirl's journal
A friend of mine was always extremely exhausted in the afternoon, it went on for over 15 years. After wearing the fitbit one night and afterwards being successfully forced into the sleep apnae test by the wife (I sense a pattern here) he started using the CPAP machine which has changed his life completely - no more tiredness. He takes it wherever he goes, even short holidays or overnight business trips. Fingers crossed that your partner will stick to it!
Re: DutchGirl's journal
I'm so glad for you friend and for his wife! I really hope my partner will have a similar experience. But we'll see.
Re: DutchGirl's journal
We had a lovely ERE meetup yesterday, I am very happy that I was able to be there and I look back on it fondly. And it gave me some inspiration, for example to look into blablacars.
Our Ukrainian guests have moved out to their own (rented) apartment a few days ago. Hurray! After securing a job in late April, they started looking for an apartment. It took quite a while but two weeks ago they were accepted as renters, they signed the contract this Tuesday and moved on Thursday. I was at their new apartment once to help them move part of their stuff, and it's a nice place: a kitchen/living room combo, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a small (but not tiny!) extra room for whatever. The apartment was recently renovated and has a good energy label which should help keep energy costs low.The rent is also quite high, but they can just about afford it and cheaper just isn't quickly available. They live on the top floor, the neighbors one floor down do have a baby and a toddler, which might cause some noise. We got some pictures from the furniture they already scored on Marktplaats. So my guy and I feel like they are off to a good start, and now they hopefully can build up their life again to some good place where they can be happy with it.
For us, so far it's weird having all of the house to ourselves again. I still catch myself every once in a while expecting one of them to come down to talk to us or to cook a meal in the kitchen we shared. But not anymore. In the meantime, my guy (who is easing into a sabbatical) is already making all kinds of plans of how to start reusing these two extra rooms. We'll probably have a computerlab slash office room on the first floor and the second floor (where they lived) will be the guest bedroom and the storage room.
The apnea story is not going so well. My guy really struggled with using the apnea machine and has now send it back. I was really sad about it for a while. I hope he reaches out for help and guidance (from the general practitioner for example, or from the apnea patient organisation), but so far he hasn't. And he is a grown man with a functioning brain, so he can make his own decisions in this regard. Maybe over time and with more free time coming up he will continue with this.
Our Ukrainian guests have moved out to their own (rented) apartment a few days ago. Hurray! After securing a job in late April, they started looking for an apartment. It took quite a while but two weeks ago they were accepted as renters, they signed the contract this Tuesday and moved on Thursday. I was at their new apartment once to help them move part of their stuff, and it's a nice place: a kitchen/living room combo, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a small (but not tiny!) extra room for whatever. The apartment was recently renovated and has a good energy label which should help keep energy costs low.The rent is also quite high, but they can just about afford it and cheaper just isn't quickly available. They live on the top floor, the neighbors one floor down do have a baby and a toddler, which might cause some noise. We got some pictures from the furniture they already scored on Marktplaats. So my guy and I feel like they are off to a good start, and now they hopefully can build up their life again to some good place where they can be happy with it.
For us, so far it's weird having all of the house to ourselves again. I still catch myself every once in a while expecting one of them to come down to talk to us or to cook a meal in the kitchen we shared. But not anymore. In the meantime, my guy (who is easing into a sabbatical) is already making all kinds of plans of how to start reusing these two extra rooms. We'll probably have a computerlab slash office room on the first floor and the second floor (where they lived) will be the guest bedroom and the storage room.
The apnea story is not going so well. My guy really struggled with using the apnea machine and has now send it back. I was really sad about it for a while. I hope he reaches out for help and guidance (from the general practitioner for example, or from the apnea patient organisation), but so far he hasn't. And he is a grown man with a functioning brain, so he can make his own decisions in this regard. Maybe over time and with more free time coming up he will continue with this.
Re: DutchGirl's journal
Wow, lots of good stuff.
Perhaps Myo therapy would help your guy? There are lots of free videos on youtube to get an idea of it. Also, this guy https://drtheodorebelfor.com has been training people around the world with his device. I read about it in the book Breathehttps://www.amazon.com/Breath-New-Scien ... B0818ZZNLR. If you guy hasn't read that, it might be a good place to start.
And yes, I'm doing the homeoblock with a local dentist (and some other device for the day time.) It is helping. Managed to get a reasonable cost on it too, as some dentists seem to have lost their minds when pricing the service.
Perhaps Myo therapy would help your guy? There are lots of free videos on youtube to get an idea of it. Also, this guy https://drtheodorebelfor.com has been training people around the world with his device. I read about it in the book Breathehttps://www.amazon.com/Breath-New-Scien ... B0818ZZNLR. If you guy hasn't read that, it might be a good place to start.
And yes, I'm doing the homeoblock with a local dentist (and some other device for the day time.) It is helping. Managed to get a reasonable cost on it too, as some dentists seem to have lost their minds when pricing the service.
Re: DutchGirl's journal
CS, I think for now I'll let him take new steps at his own pace, because I feel that pressuring him would only make him less receptive towards any future therapy. (This is a character trait of his that I've experienced before). We are both trying to lose weight, which would probably also help to alleviate his apnea, so hopefully that will reduce the severity of his apnea as he loses some kilos. Fingers crossed.
As for me and work... Last Friday my experienced colleague, who had the skiing accident, was at a "farewell" party for two of my colleagues who are retiring. She traveled from her hometown to our work town by public transport and then walked about 20 minutes with me to the location of the party. So... definitely progress, yeah! A few months ago she was happy to be able to walk 500 meters. She still has a lot of pain in her dominant arm and she also can't move it very well (so for example typing is hard). Everyone was very very happy to see her and she was very happy to see them. I'm still not sure when she will be able to return to work (and by jove I hope she will?), but at least her body is starting to function again.
My new colleague has now been working for five weeks and has made a lot of progress. But she still needs to speed up a bit and get a little bit more experience with the rare cases to be able to work on her own. In the next three weeks, one of the experienced colleagues who doesn't have my role but does support it will be on holiday, so there will be less time for teaching as we will need to do more ourselves. But on the other hand we will have lots to do and she'll also learn from that, I hope.
I plan on having a week of holiday in the middle of September. By that time maybe my new colleague will be able to run things on her own, maybe (maybe?) my old colleague will work some hours to help, or maybe every day around three PM I will check in digitally to answer questions and help finish off the work load for that day. We'll see. The only thing I'll need to do for that is to make sure that where ever we go, we have internet access.
Finally, last Saturday I did my first training session in a local gym. A few days before I had an introduction session where they deemed my fitness level below normal ("but don't worry, we also have the level "bad" and you're above that"), and they made a tailored program for me. Saturday was the first time I did it. I hope to fit in a session on Wednesday again. Twice per week (and walking every day of the week) is my goal for now.
As for me and work... Last Friday my experienced colleague, who had the skiing accident, was at a "farewell" party for two of my colleagues who are retiring. She traveled from her hometown to our work town by public transport and then walked about 20 minutes with me to the location of the party. So... definitely progress, yeah! A few months ago she was happy to be able to walk 500 meters. She still has a lot of pain in her dominant arm and she also can't move it very well (so for example typing is hard). Everyone was very very happy to see her and she was very happy to see them. I'm still not sure when she will be able to return to work (and by jove I hope she will?), but at least her body is starting to function again.
My new colleague has now been working for five weeks and has made a lot of progress. But she still needs to speed up a bit and get a little bit more experience with the rare cases to be able to work on her own. In the next three weeks, one of the experienced colleagues who doesn't have my role but does support it will be on holiday, so there will be less time for teaching as we will need to do more ourselves. But on the other hand we will have lots to do and she'll also learn from that, I hope.
I plan on having a week of holiday in the middle of September. By that time maybe my new colleague will be able to run things on her own, maybe (maybe?) my old colleague will work some hours to help, or maybe every day around three PM I will check in digitally to answer questions and help finish off the work load for that day. We'll see. The only thing I'll need to do for that is to make sure that where ever we go, we have internet access.
Finally, last Saturday I did my first training session in a local gym. A few days before I had an introduction session where they deemed my fitness level below normal ("but don't worry, we also have the level "bad" and you're above that"), and they made a tailored program for me. Saturday was the first time I did it. I hope to fit in a session on Wednesday again. Twice per week (and walking every day of the week) is my goal for now.
Re: DutchGirl's journal
This week I was positively impressed by my new colleague as she picked up the pace (now that we had to), and on Friday reached out to someone and resolved a situation all by herself. Was I expecting too little from someone aged 25 or so, fresh out of school, or is she really something? So let's see what next work week will bring. I should try to spend some time on teaching her new things, because it really does pay off in the days and weeks after.
My guy has finished his latest work project and will have some months off. He's spending time on reshuffling things in the house (now that the Ukrainian guests are gone we have two extra rooms available again) and he's playing with some computers and sensors and stuff. It's also what he does for work, but now it's just for fun. I love how he is like that and I'm also glad that he's got people that he can talk to about the exact things he's nerding out on because for me it's outside of my scope and I'm also just not that interested in it.
Today, Sunday, my guy went to an old friend of his to watch Verstappen race, while I stayed at home, did some regular maintenance on the coffee machine and the washing machine, cleaned the kitchen, took out all kinds of rubbish, cleared the table from all kinds of debris (mine and his) and biked on the home trainer for a while, too. I also sorted through the cupboards and took out some stuff that I will take to a food bank because we will probably not eat it before it expires. I also have the nasty habit of buying lot's of shampoo when it's 2 for 1, so I'm going to take some of the numerous unopened shampoo bottles that are in the bathroom to the food bank as well. The food bank is open for donations on Tuesday, so I'll have to swing by this Tuesday before work. And finally, I let our vacuum robot run its rounds so that we now have reasonably clean floors again. So I have been puttering around. The house is ready for the week, or in fact probably for the fortnight or so; I'm not doing this very often. And I also feel ready for the work week.
I'm a bit jealous at my guy because I will be working a lot still for the next couple of weeks. But maybe I should start downshifting already now that my new colleague is doing so well. Instead of 8 hours per day, I could perhaps let her work the majority of the day and then "swing by" by 2 PM or so to see what still needs doing or what she still needs help with. I could start doing this two weeks from now, when that one colleague is back from her holiday. My old colleague... there's still no plan for how she will return to work, we're waiting for the occupational physician to give the green light and to create a schedule for her. Not sure when that will happen.
The one thing I still need to do is rehearse my songs for the choir repetition that is coming up on Tuesday evening. So off I go...
My guy has finished his latest work project and will have some months off. He's spending time on reshuffling things in the house (now that the Ukrainian guests are gone we have two extra rooms available again) and he's playing with some computers and sensors and stuff. It's also what he does for work, but now it's just for fun. I love how he is like that and I'm also glad that he's got people that he can talk to about the exact things he's nerding out on because for me it's outside of my scope and I'm also just not that interested in it.
Today, Sunday, my guy went to an old friend of his to watch Verstappen race, while I stayed at home, did some regular maintenance on the coffee machine and the washing machine, cleaned the kitchen, took out all kinds of rubbish, cleared the table from all kinds of debris (mine and his) and biked on the home trainer for a while, too. I also sorted through the cupboards and took out some stuff that I will take to a food bank because we will probably not eat it before it expires. I also have the nasty habit of buying lot's of shampoo when it's 2 for 1, so I'm going to take some of the numerous unopened shampoo bottles that are in the bathroom to the food bank as well. The food bank is open for donations on Tuesday, so I'll have to swing by this Tuesday before work. And finally, I let our vacuum robot run its rounds so that we now have reasonably clean floors again. So I have been puttering around. The house is ready for the week, or in fact probably for the fortnight or so; I'm not doing this very often. And I also feel ready for the work week.
I'm a bit jealous at my guy because I will be working a lot still for the next couple of weeks. But maybe I should start downshifting already now that my new colleague is doing so well. Instead of 8 hours per day, I could perhaps let her work the majority of the day and then "swing by" by 2 PM or so to see what still needs doing or what she still needs help with. I could start doing this two weeks from now, when that one colleague is back from her holiday. My old colleague... there's still no plan for how she will return to work, we're waiting for the occupational physician to give the green light and to create a schedule for her. Not sure when that will happen.
The one thing I still need to do is rehearse my songs for the choir repetition that is coming up on Tuesday evening. So off I go...
Re: DutchGirl's journal
So it seems like I will slowly be able to regain some freedom from work, as my new colleague is getting up to speed and will start working many of the hours that the old, still-ill, colleague can't do right now. (Err, or ever? Old colleague seems to be really struggling).
I just reread my journal of the last year-and-a-bit, and I'm still so happy about switching jobs! Tonight I'm going to celebrate another of my ex-colleagues leaving that workplace, and I'm going to congratulate her of course. During the last year I kept in touch with ex-colleagues, and it seems like the atmosphere hasn't improved one bit. So it was a good decision to leave.
I love how I actually did the two things that I planned to do: become a member of a choir, and go to a gym. The gym is a more recent addition, but so far so good.
And there are some developments on the "traveling through Europe part" that we also want to do once retired, because we're planning to rent a camper for a week of holiday and see how we like driving and living in it. If it's fun, we might do it more often.
I just reread my journal of the last year-and-a-bit, and I'm still so happy about switching jobs! Tonight I'm going to celebrate another of my ex-colleagues leaving that workplace, and I'm going to congratulate her of course. During the last year I kept in touch with ex-colleagues, and it seems like the atmosphere hasn't improved one bit. So it was a good decision to leave.
I love how I actually did the two things that I planned to do: become a member of a choir, and go to a gym. The gym is a more recent addition, but so far so good.
And there are some developments on the "traveling through Europe part" that we also want to do once retired, because we're planning to rent a camper for a week of holiday and see how we like driving and living in it. If it's fun, we might do it more often.
Re: DutchGirl's journal
It's early morning here, and I'll be leaving for the gym in 15 minutes or so. (It doesn't open until 8.30 on the weekend, so no need to leave earlier than 8 to walk there). I had my first checkup after the initial creating-of-the-plan, and I was happy to be able to report that almost all machines feel lighter now and thus I can start using heavier weights. +2.5 kilos here, +5 kilos there, depending on the type of exercise. Today will be the first time with that new regimen, but I already did use most of them on and off over the last two weeks, so it should be okay (and perhaps in a week or two I will start adding more weight again). I had not lost weight, which wasn't my intention anyway for joining the gym. My intention was to focus on building up some strength and some muscles. And to go at least twice per week, which I've done so far without too much hassle.
I updated the spreadsheet with our solar energy production (anyone surprised that I created a spreadsheet for that, too?). So so far, 5.5% of the money that we invested in the solar panels has already been earned back in 2.5 months. Of course, it was summer and so this will slow down considerably over the autumn and winter months. I don't like that I couldn't plant these solar panels in Spain instead of in the Netherlands, or on a Caribbean island or something like that, and enjoy higher returns year round but alas, that's not how it goes these days. Maybe it can comfort me a bit that I also invested some of my money into wind energy, and the top months for wind energy production in this area are coming up.
These last weeks have been pretty exhausting at work. We had some people leave because they reached their pension (and one because their husband got a job in Japan and well...). And then a colleague has fallen ill and will be ill for two months or so until she hopefully recovers from the surgery. Oh, and this week the manager got Covid, but let's hope that's a mild case. So now we're quite short on people, and my plan to slowly leave more and more work to my new colleague and work less hours has not come to fruition so far. For now, the workload has been rearranged so that my new colleague and I now have more work to do until that one colleague comes back from sick leave. Yesterday I did feel quite exhausted at work and after work, which is not how I want to feel. But I do feel the responsibility to keep things running. There is some hope that in a week or two there should be some more clarity on the future of the organization, and that might help to relieve the pressure.
I'm not quite sure what to do here, guys. We'll see.
Whoops, time to go to the gym.
I updated the spreadsheet with our solar energy production (anyone surprised that I created a spreadsheet for that, too?). So so far, 5.5% of the money that we invested in the solar panels has already been earned back in 2.5 months. Of course, it was summer and so this will slow down considerably over the autumn and winter months. I don't like that I couldn't plant these solar panels in Spain instead of in the Netherlands, or on a Caribbean island or something like that, and enjoy higher returns year round but alas, that's not how it goes these days. Maybe it can comfort me a bit that I also invested some of my money into wind energy, and the top months for wind energy production in this area are coming up.
These last weeks have been pretty exhausting at work. We had some people leave because they reached their pension (and one because their husband got a job in Japan and well...). And then a colleague has fallen ill and will be ill for two months or so until she hopefully recovers from the surgery. Oh, and this week the manager got Covid, but let's hope that's a mild case. So now we're quite short on people, and my plan to slowly leave more and more work to my new colleague and work less hours has not come to fruition so far. For now, the workload has been rearranged so that my new colleague and I now have more work to do until that one colleague comes back from sick leave. Yesterday I did feel quite exhausted at work and after work, which is not how I want to feel. But I do feel the responsibility to keep things running. There is some hope that in a week or two there should be some more clarity on the future of the organization, and that might help to relieve the pressure.
I'm not quite sure what to do here, guys. We'll see.
Whoops, time to go to the gym.
Re: DutchGirl's journal
@DutchGirl are you able to ask colleagues who have been at the company longer if this (slightly short-staffed) is how the company typically operates? It may get better an anomaly or it might be a chronic condition.
Re: DutchGirl's journal
It has been going on for longer, Shaz, but hopefully in the next two weeks some plans about the future of the company will be revealed by the higher-ups, and those plans could solve some of the issues. Hopefully.
Re: DutchGirl's journal
@DutchGirl I hope it improves!
Re: DutchGirl's journal
hi,
being someome's guy, and being sometimes pressured by this someone to go see a doctor, the main reason i don't, is that to me the expected result is to get a three or four digit bill, while still having my issue.
If i had sleep apnea, i'de need to be convinced of two things to go see a doctor again:
-it is really affecting my life
-theire are several way to treat it, and they work.
One other option might be that i know the solution to be simple but hard (like lose weight, which might also be it for sleep apnea), and paying for someone to tell you something you already know feels stupid.
being someome's guy, and being sometimes pressured by this someone to go see a doctor, the main reason i don't, is that to me the expected result is to get a three or four digit bill, while still having my issue.
If i had sleep apnea, i'de need to be convinced of two things to go see a doctor again:
-it is really affecting my life
-theire are several way to treat it, and they work.
One other option might be that i know the solution to be simple but hard (like lose weight, which might also be it for sleep apnea), and paying for someone to tell you something you already know feels stupid.
Re: DutchGirl's journal
I have sleep apnea. I think it has contributed to burnout a lot. Having a constant brain fog while trying to manage work and family is not good in the long term. I tried CPAP. It got the air in the brain, but disturbed my deep sleep, so I became normally tired during the day. I have a dental device which pushes my lower faw forward when sleeping. That seems to work with obstructive sleep apnea. I have made other positive changes in my life so I can't say for sure if it is just that, but my life has gotten better after I started using it. I don't know the term in english but Somnofit is one product I googled. Grown men need some nudging and even pushing sometimes and I am glad my DW did bring that up repeatedly.The apnea story is not going so well. My guy really struggled with using the apnea machine and has now send it back. I was really sad about it for a while. I hope he reaches out for help and guidance (from the general practitioner for example, or from the apnea patient organisation), but so far he hasn't. And he is a grown man with a functioning brain, so he can make his own decisions in this regard.
Re: DutchGirl's journal
Just finished getting caught up since the start of the journal. Wow, you've made a lot of progress! Great job. I'm happy to hear that your Ukrainian roommates have (seemingly) had good fortune since arriving, landing a good job and a hopefully-peaceful apartment to themselves.
I don't have apnea and I don't know your personalities too well, but this is definitely the case for meGrown men need some nudging and even pushing sometimes
Re: DutchGirl's journal
So today my guy and I arrived on one of the Wadden islands in the north of the Netherlands. The weather is terrible, but this is the start of our one-week holiday, and for the rest of the week it's supposed to at least be better than this, so we're optimistic that we're going to enjoy it.
My new colleague has done all the work today and will also be doing all of the work next week, and it seems to be going okay. So that's wonderful news, too.
We've had some performances with my choir over the last few weeks, and it was a lot of fun. Some videos were made and we didn't sound half-bad. (We also won't win any television competitions, but if you like pop music you'll enjoy listening to us). I like my fellow choir members, and I like studying a new piece, especially once things start clicking and start sounding good. Over the next couple of months, there will be more performances, plus for me there will be a reunion of my old school choir (last time I sang with them is now over twenty years ago), and there will be a one-day event where hundreds of singers come together in the morning, study a few pieces (that they also already (should have) practiced at home) and then they perform in the evening. I've done that a few times before and it's a lot of fun. The reunion probably also will come with some nostalgia, but we'll see.
We have some infrequent contact with our Ukrainian former guests now. They are slowly accumulating some furniture in their new apartment, and the husband is slowly creating his career, building his skills and his reputation. Still not sure what the wife will do, but she is struggling more with her mental health and to find a way to enter the job market here. Every now and then we send messages about some thing or another, but not a lot. I guess it's okay like that, I hope they'll find more and more solid ground over time.
I read the Skillathon 2024 discussion, and it made me think about what I would like to do over the next year or so. I don't think I have 12 goals, but I am thinking about improving my cooking skills (for example: how to bake veggies in the oven - because I just don't know how to do it and it probably shouldn't be that hard), baking skills (bread would be nice), fitness skills (working on it already), and I would like to or I need to sort old stuff that has been sitting in boxes for years now in our attic. I'm not the only one in our household who needs to do that, but I definitely also need to do my share.
But for now: one week of holiday coming up!
My new colleague has done all the work today and will also be doing all of the work next week, and it seems to be going okay. So that's wonderful news, too.
We've had some performances with my choir over the last few weeks, and it was a lot of fun. Some videos were made and we didn't sound half-bad. (We also won't win any television competitions, but if you like pop music you'll enjoy listening to us). I like my fellow choir members, and I like studying a new piece, especially once things start clicking and start sounding good. Over the next couple of months, there will be more performances, plus for me there will be a reunion of my old school choir (last time I sang with them is now over twenty years ago), and there will be a one-day event where hundreds of singers come together in the morning, study a few pieces (that they also already (should have) practiced at home) and then they perform in the evening. I've done that a few times before and it's a lot of fun. The reunion probably also will come with some nostalgia, but we'll see.
We have some infrequent contact with our Ukrainian former guests now. They are slowly accumulating some furniture in their new apartment, and the husband is slowly creating his career, building his skills and his reputation. Still not sure what the wife will do, but she is struggling more with her mental health and to find a way to enter the job market here. Every now and then we send messages about some thing or another, but not a lot. I guess it's okay like that, I hope they'll find more and more solid ground over time.
I read the Skillathon 2024 discussion, and it made me think about what I would like to do over the next year or so. I don't think I have 12 goals, but I am thinking about improving my cooking skills (for example: how to bake veggies in the oven - because I just don't know how to do it and it probably shouldn't be that hard), baking skills (bread would be nice), fitness skills (working on it already), and I would like to or I need to sort old stuff that has been sitting in boxes for years now in our attic. I'm not the only one in our household who needs to do that, but I definitely also need to do my share.
But for now: one week of holiday coming up!
Re: DutchGirl's journal
How to describe it? I've been here a few times before. Historically, people struggled in these areas of the country. They lived from what the sea could provide, and what a few square kilometers of land could provide. The day before yesterday, the ferry could make less runs than normally due to lower than normal tides, so yesterday the supermarkets here had signs that they had not received a new shipment of goods due to the ferries "not" going. Some kinds of diary were missing, for example, but there was more than enough food left. But I guess this was a small echo of what it was like before: if the sea is too rough, you are cut off from the mainland and you have to make do with what you have or can make. (I've traveled to Norway as a tourist, and was told stories there of people in fjords being fully cut off from the rest of the world for months in winter as the water in the fjord froze and boats couldn't get in or out).
There's also the stories of shipwrecks and people trying to save the ships and its sailors. And of people jutting items on the beach that had floated around on the see after falling off ships or after the ships went down in a storm. This is a story that is also shared by people from fisherman's villages along the coast of the Netherlands. We've got a famous play about it here in the Netherlands.
I understand that the islands here are very very slowly "walking" to the east. Due to the sea currents here, the land gets eroded on the west side of the islands, and sand gets deposited on the east side. On many of the islands, the main villages are now on the west side of the island, where they were actually founded on the middle of an island back in medieval times. We're currently in such a village on the west side, and when I walked to the beach yesterday, there was signs warning about beach erosion. It means that after a storm, you should be careful about where you put your feet and it could be possible that parts of the beach will have disappeared. In the past, houses and villages on the west side of the islands here have slowly (or sometimes suddenly) disappeared into the sea. Apparently the islands move to the east about 2 meters per year (I just googled that). Right now the government is trying to keep the islands "as they are", so they are doing "sand supplement runs" where they add a lot of extra sand to the west side of the island to fight the erosion. On the other side, sand is also deposited in between the islands and the main land, making the ferry runs harder over time. For example, the ferry to Ameland takes 50 minutes because we had to avoid a few sandbanks, if we could go straight it would be 30 minutes or so.
A few of the houses in the village proudly proclaim that they were built in 1680 or 1717 or so. In the last century, the islands have become places where tourists come to enjoy the sea and nature. So walking around the village now, it does feel like almost every house is tourist-industry related: if it's not a shop or museum or bike rental place, then it's a vacation home. We're also in a vacation home, in a holiday resort that has been built next to the village.
There's also the stories of shipwrecks and people trying to save the ships and its sailors. And of people jutting items on the beach that had floated around on the see after falling off ships or after the ships went down in a storm. This is a story that is also shared by people from fisherman's villages along the coast of the Netherlands. We've got a famous play about it here in the Netherlands.
I understand that the islands here are very very slowly "walking" to the east. Due to the sea currents here, the land gets eroded on the west side of the islands, and sand gets deposited on the east side. On many of the islands, the main villages are now on the west side of the island, where they were actually founded on the middle of an island back in medieval times. We're currently in such a village on the west side, and when I walked to the beach yesterday, there was signs warning about beach erosion. It means that after a storm, you should be careful about where you put your feet and it could be possible that parts of the beach will have disappeared. In the past, houses and villages on the west side of the islands here have slowly (or sometimes suddenly) disappeared into the sea. Apparently the islands move to the east about 2 meters per year (I just googled that). Right now the government is trying to keep the islands "as they are", so they are doing "sand supplement runs" where they add a lot of extra sand to the west side of the island to fight the erosion. On the other side, sand is also deposited in between the islands and the main land, making the ferry runs harder over time. For example, the ferry to Ameland takes 50 minutes because we had to avoid a few sandbanks, if we could go straight it would be 30 minutes or so.
A few of the houses in the village proudly proclaim that they were built in 1680 or 1717 or so. In the last century, the islands have become places where tourists come to enjoy the sea and nature. So walking around the village now, it does feel like almost every house is tourist-industry related: if it's not a shop or museum or bike rental place, then it's a vacation home. We're also in a vacation home, in a holiday resort that has been built next to the village.
Re: DutchGirl's journal
Thanks dutchgirl sounds interesting, maybe I will visit next year, I can get a train to the netherlands. Or maybe a ferry.
Re: DutchGirl's journal
So, that was a nice holiday! The day we arrived the weather was horrible (lots of wind and rain), and then we had alternately a reasonably sunny and a rainy day. The weather predictions were quite good, so we could plan our outings for the more sunny days and were then indeed not rained upon. On the rainy days we mostly stayed in and read (e)books etc.
My colleague at work did good, as far as I can tell now. No phone calls to me for emergency help and I sometimes peeked at how she was doing during the day, and it looked like she was keeping up with the work load well. So: wonderful. She has been hired to work almost full time, with the idea of me being able to go back to my original part time contract. Seems like next Monday, when I go in to work, we can start talking about that happening like right away. Maybe next week I'll work some more hours to clear up some more administrative tasks, but after that... loads of free time for me.
So for me during this week I have been thinking about that. I wanted to try out working (very) part time in 2023, did so from December 2022 up until February 2023, but then my colleague had that accident and I instead worked a lot from March'23 onward. So with that experience and my new chance now at very part time work... What will I do with all that free time? I can work on that list of skills that I mentioned a few posts ago. And the part time work will hopefully keep me slightly aware of what day it is. But I'm worried a bit about getting bored, in the longer run. And I've also made more spreadsheet calculations to make sure everything will be okay financially, even though I already did that before.
Next week at work I'm also going to talk about an idea to work from a nice warm location somewhere in Europe during all of February 2024. I could imagine for example living in a vacation home in Italy for a month, while working from there. Or maybe working two out of the four weeks (and very part time) and having the remaining time as pure holiday. My work provides for five weeks of holiday per year, so I could do two in the early spring and then still have for example two more in early summer and one more in autumn, or something like that.
The bed at the vacation home wasn't really bad, but our bed at home is much better. So I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep. And then tomorrow morning I'll head to the gym and see what 1 week of holiday did to my muscles...
My colleague at work did good, as far as I can tell now. No phone calls to me for emergency help and I sometimes peeked at how she was doing during the day, and it looked like she was keeping up with the work load well. So: wonderful. She has been hired to work almost full time, with the idea of me being able to go back to my original part time contract. Seems like next Monday, when I go in to work, we can start talking about that happening like right away. Maybe next week I'll work some more hours to clear up some more administrative tasks, but after that... loads of free time for me.
So for me during this week I have been thinking about that. I wanted to try out working (very) part time in 2023, did so from December 2022 up until February 2023, but then my colleague had that accident and I instead worked a lot from March'23 onward. So with that experience and my new chance now at very part time work... What will I do with all that free time? I can work on that list of skills that I mentioned a few posts ago. And the part time work will hopefully keep me slightly aware of what day it is. But I'm worried a bit about getting bored, in the longer run. And I've also made more spreadsheet calculations to make sure everything will be okay financially, even though I already did that before.
Next week at work I'm also going to talk about an idea to work from a nice warm location somewhere in Europe during all of February 2024. I could imagine for example living in a vacation home in Italy for a month, while working from there. Or maybe working two out of the four weeks (and very part time) and having the remaining time as pure holiday. My work provides for five weeks of holiday per year, so I could do two in the early spring and then still have for example two more in early summer and one more in autumn, or something like that.
The bed at the vacation home wasn't really bad, but our bed at home is much better. So I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep. And then tomorrow morning I'll head to the gym and see what 1 week of holiday did to my muscles...