it’s itching ….

my father in law just got back from a wonderful trip to China and India. He mainly travelled Tibet and visited places like Lhasa, Chengdu and Katmandu.

and you know what : this road has my name written all of over it …

 

…..

 

Happy travels

 

Toon

nice reminder to take the time

 

i do not need to say a lot of words to make the point for this ad : a thoughtful reminder for our children …

Happy travels

 

Toon

mud mud mud .. glorious mud …

 

life has it’s surprises and in a way boys will remain boys, they jus love playing with their toys. This week-end Michael and myself decided to go and play, not in at the beach, not in a bar or a sports hall but in the mud.

On our BMW GS bikes we decided to make a little stroll around the farmers roads in Brabant (a province in Belgium). Fully equipped with our bikes with renewed tires (for the knowledgeable ones amongst us i was fitted with Conti TKC 80 tyres because my beloved Dunlop has not yet managed to deliver knobbed tyres for the BMW, but living on hope).

with the weather being wonderfully sunny but freezing cold it already announced to be a tricky ride. The sun was defrosting the top layer of the unpaved roads we selected creating a very slippery mud on top of a stone hard frozen under layer. You can image that our bike riding looked more like ice skating than riding. Consequence of this all was: slippery slides. First one was me to go down with a broker gearshift as result and a broken ego of off road champ. But i was not alone for a long time, soon after my slide Michael went off the track into the fields.

Lifting heavy bikes like outs gave us the muscle training for at least two year. Once we found our easy on the slippery tracks we only got into problems when Michael rear brake blocked and caused a little fire :-) .. but by removing the brake we continued our journey …

But in the later afternoon we took a track to far .. with the sun having defrosted most of the track giving us a muddy clay that was as sticky as toffee pudding to our wheels it became apparent we got more and more stuck into the last track.

we had to turn back in little stages. Every 5 meters we had to get off the bike because the rear and front wheel blocked due to an excess of mud between the tyre and the front protector. After struggling for one hour Michael decided to get help after he got completely stuck and gave me a mud shower

however i refused to give up and finally managed to get myself out of the rather awaked situation, restoring my pride as off road champion :-) whilst Michael had to loose his pride to a farmer girl having to pull him out.

but today we are licking our wounds but are very proud of what we have achieved. Now we are planning for a new trip under better weather circumstances.

From my side I'm planning also my trip to Istanbul end of May, beginning of June. If anybody wants to join: more than welcome

happy travels

 

Toon

They were reading my mind

ok I admit it is not really the nicest angle for a picture, nor is it really flattering for me to present myself like this, but it is after all a thing I had to endure to make sure I can look better.

no , not plastic surgery but research to make me sleep better. I must admit I have never been the most vast sleeper in the world. Waking up a lot at night, kicking in my sleep (sorry for the ones who shared a bed with me) and above all snoring. Even that bad that I sometimes woke up myself or got out of bed with a terrible headache.

The stress of snoring is with me so high that I sometimes even refuse to go to sleep on a plane in order not to upset my fellow travelers. And if I do I can see on their faces after I wake up that they did not really like my soundtrack to the trip, nor did the flight attendants love the fact they received complaints of additional turbulence along the way.

So between Christmas and New Years i finally decided to go the “sleep clinic” to get examined and to find a solution for my uncontrolable humming and singing during my sleep.

Hardly entered the room of the hospital or they started to glue me up with all sensors to track during my sleep every single movement and every single event. I had sensors for:

• heartbeat: two on my chest. removal fear factor: high with all my chest hair
• Eye motion: two; one under the eye; one above … machine went tilt when i started winking at the nurses in the evening
• Leg motion : two , one for each. For the record: having scars of achilles is not a nice spot to have the sensor glued to
• Brain activity: two on the head and two on the face, wonder if they tracked something during the night
• Nose breathing: microphone and oxigen meter below nose
• Lung function: straps around chest and belly
• blood: needle in finger with tape

all of this with wires to a central box they hang on your chest, ready to proof you have trouble sleeping and snor like a bear. The evening came and after having read some articles done some mail and looked at the tele .. time to sleep …

one little problem: with all the sensors, tapes and wires sleeping almost becomes impossible .. so let’s wait and see for the result.

Happy travels

 

Toon

hello again

well, agree i admit: it has been a long time, but you know, just did not feel like it anymore for one big reason: the internet is overrated. I went into an online identity crisis.

I felt the whole world was only a click away, in my mind i travelled the world clicking away on Live Earth, browsing new destination on Lonely Planet or dreaming away on the pictures on Flickr of people who actually went to the place i’m dreaming of. Or just even bringing up memories of the gang in Amsterdam, feeling the vibrant buzz again of a team of digital freaks changing the world about almost 10 years now … meeting up with friends in a virtual space, not even dressing up for the occasion.

The texts we create, the mails we write , the images we see; they all become faster, shorter , snappier all on the soundtrack of clicks and sounds of phones and computers …

Not that i think or dream that we will become intelligent joysticks or that we get born with USB slots for downloading all information and projecting the environment we would like to be in; but still: i just had enough for a couple of months: i gave priority to walking over sitting.

My leg is back alright and my arms are doing fine; so i walk to the newsstand from time to time and buy myself a newspaper and use my arms to fold it open and start reading it over a cup of coffee. My legs bring me to the bistro where i meet up with friends for the coffe we are so used of having on saturday market day ….

I even took the time to go and see some art this week-end with my partner in real life , without exploring it first on the web to make sure we really just went without prior visions.

although we still do not have enough time to do everything, i feel i can enjoy some little things more because the bits and bytes are not giving me the false sense of proximity … a proximity i prefer to be physically close so i can touch, feel and hear the breathing …

So for 2009 my slogan is going to be : BALANCE the walking and the sitting with for me a superiority of walking over sitting …

Happy travels in 2009

 

Toon and family

the rollercoaster

 

well it has been a bit of a rollercoaster lately in my life. When people told me that life begins at 40 i thought you started to be more relaxed, calmer, more thinking about the things you want to do and not want to .. in other words: you are getting old.

having had the party now alredy more than a month ago my life has been put upside down and back again . Not really stable yet, but we are working on it and enjoying every minute of the hectic times i’m living in.

i feel again that i’m alive and am so happy …. but more is to come soon … still want to savour the pleasure in a little cocoon :-)

happy travels

 

Toon

It's my party

and I cry if I want to .... Not that I feel suddenly sad and depressed, but one can also cry out of joy, or when emotions are coming up to strong. And this is a period of very strong emotions for me.  It's a fact , last Friday August 22nd around 16h00 I have finished my 40th year on this planet. Officially my life is spanning over 4 decades now , so time to celebrate with friends.

I love bringing people together in a relaxed atmosphere, letting them enjoy the last week-end of summer. what I expected to be an easy ride turned out to be a little rollercoaster for me. I was a bit overwhelmed by the amount of people that showed up and the warmth I felt from people’s wishes and attention.

From my son and daughter coming to sit on my lap and wrapping their arms around me whilst I was being prosaic about how big and brave the are becoming to friends and making me wish I just had more hours in a day and days in a week to see them grow ; over a gentle pad on the back from my father in which lay a feeling of pride that I have become who I am and a feeling of forgotten despair of a unmanageable rebel to the hug of my mother who whispered in my ears: you look happy with the undertone of I love you.

Or the way my brother and 3 sisters looked at me amongst the busy group of people forgiven me that I do not have enough time for them again but giving me the nod of: good to see you happy.

Or the way Emmanuel my old school buddy was bringing back the memory of old days as if it was only yesterday we were there dancing in front of the huge from ceiling to floor windows on the 5th floor in the gym showers at school, give the ladies of the elderly home across the street an glimpse of the Chippendales to come.

Or the way people looked back at the time they worked or studied together and put it into the perspective of today. Or the way Piet and I already made plans for a next dinner of which we know it will be just fine .... and forget to mention my new glasses, the memory of holidays with friends or even the phone calls and sms'es I received ... (Mats I am coming over before the end of the year) ....

Or the way we could slowly and in the most wonderful company could close down the party .... It just makes you a little bit wee.

And now all is quiet again, tomorrow is another day . Or maybe not, because I’m officially in a new age group.

I'm in the age group now that can try to fit again in the clothes his father was wearing when he was born because they are being considered as style icons.

I'm at an age that people have tendency to enlarge their rear view mirror and shield more and more the view that lies ahead of them.

I'm at the age that a scale becomes like a distant friend you never visit because you do not want to talk about the old times.

I'm at the age that it is just lovely to behave like Staler and Waldorf with your even older friend on the terrace of our favorite bar. 

I'm at the age that I still try to fit in fashionable clothes and glasses , but the love handles are giving me away.

I’m at the age I am, nothing more nothing less; but above all grateful for all the moments I lived with all of you and full of joy for what we are today, looking forward to tomorrow because I know you will all be there ...

Happy travels

 

Toon