It's too darn Hot..... but the perfect day to write a post

As Ella did sing in her wonderful song: It's too darn Hot.. and yes..the weather is steaming hot here in Holland. Already for weeks the temperatures are above 30C and even after some heavy rain it stays warm. This time it is not a problem for me. I am drinking buckets of water or juice and by doing that I can handle it quite well. It is not that it is my kind of temperature. I prefer more round 2O or 22C, but I can't do anything about the weather gods who decide this kind of weather. For Bram this kind of weather is kind of heavy to deal with. His energy is very low,so he stays mostly indoors during the day with a ventilator.There is not yet much response on his medication. I am slightly worried about everything and every now and than we are talking about a wheelchair which is kind of difficult for him (and for me also. I so wish he would feel better and sometimes I get emotional about it. He will be very happy when we have arrived in Shetland in about 2,5 weeks time.

Yes.. My holiday did start last Friday. 7 weeks, which is the real benefit of being a teacher. I have decided to do only the things I want to wind down completely before setting of to Shetland. I was very tired last week and during a big meeting on Tuesday I sort of completely lost the plot at the end. It was as al my energy was leaking away. That usually happens during the last week of school.There is always so much to do and finish and to tell you the truth: I didn't complete. I left some things to be done in the first week. After the evening of graduation I always feel that the end is near. We did a little fashion-show with a group of teachers which al students appreciate every year. There were goodbyes and I always feel a little sadness when the leave. But with one student the story continues. Ovan is now in the race to become National Most Excellent Student of the year Or as we say in Holland: MBO Uitblinker. To vote for him go to here. Than click on Stem op mij. You than get access to a page where you have to enter name and e-mail adress. Click on Send After you have done this you will get a mail in your mailbox. All you need to do is open this mail and click on Klik hier and your voting is done. Please send an e-mail to your friends. We need as much as possible votes and on the 8th of October the winner will be announced during a big show. When I saw Ovan at the graduation evening he reminded me slightly of the great singer Jim Groce. I used to listen to his songs when I was young and Time in Bottle is still one of my favourites songs.

And than we had Jim's 2nd birthday last Sunday. It is always great to see him. He is talking a walking and very funny. He is a big performer in a way and knows very well when we all have his attention. I had him almost the whole afternoon with me as we did the game of putting on and taking of my sunglasses for hours and hours. It all very moves me to see this young child looking out into the world with an open look. Of course he didn't realize the fact that he was having his birthday. but at least we did.

I am not so into knitting at the moment, but I finished off the socks for Bram and I am now knitting on a lace scarf for a friend and I want to finish the little cardigan for Jim. It is a bit to sweaty for me to knit right now.

This weekend we had the yearly Deventer op Stelten festival which was really nice this year. It is here for many years and I was a bit fed up with it the last years. Not very interesting to go to, only performances on stilts. But this year was different and 1 group was really something special (but later on that) On friday evening I went to see the opening of the festival on De Brink which is one of the squares we have in town. The opening was done by Close Act in combination with the Spanish group: La Fura Dels Baus. Close act was not really my thing (well: nice costumes..and the singer in the sky looked great) But the Human Net done by 50 youngsters from our region was breath taking. A selection of those 50 was done and the one's who remained had a training for 3 days. It was all about trust and cooperation to do this act. They went up 50 metres in the sky and it was really moving to see them doing this performance. Awesome is a good word for it. They were also the final act of the 3 festival weekend. Videos can be seen here and here.

On Friday night at 23hrs Les Studios de Cirque De Marseille would performe: "Place des Anges" on the beautiful Grote Kerkhof square (close from where I live).It was an amazing experience for me. Poetic and a real spectacle. An angel with a suitcase opened the performance. He opened the suitcase and white feathers did fall down. Angles were "flying" from the tower of the Lebuinus Church over the audience to the opposite. Angels were were having a "pillow-fight" in the sky loosing all the feathers from those cushions. A big angel balloon flew over the audience.There was beautiful music sung by children from all over the world. Feathers were thrown over the audience from a kind of cloud and just when you were thinking: this is so wonderful more feathers were blown in the sky and the whole square got a big carpet of feathers. Trees were covered in feathers(did took this photo the next morning) and it was kind of warm winter on a summer-evening. I was speechless. Could not believe that this was happening. 1 ton (1000 kg) of feathers went up. All over town there were feathers and they are still there as you can see at this picture from my house and one I found on the street yesterday.The one thing I loved after the performance was the amazement of the audience and everyone became child again.Throwing feathers over heads or just throwing them in the air. I took a big bag full of feathers with me home. There was a big thick carpet of white feathers on the square. I was at that moment totally blown away by it. It is still in my head and soul and I watched some videos this afternoon and tears came up. Absolutely the highlight of the festival. Unfortunately on Saturday evening just before it was about to start again a heavy T-storm came up so we all had to go home. A video about it can be seen here, here and here

Teatro Due Mondi with Ay l'Amor (about love...what else) with very nice Italian songs... and I got a special red heart from one of the singers.

Tchébé from Togo with a traditonal stilts- performance. And in the Bergkerk I did see "Sola? No" from Triade Nomade which was a ballet by 1 woman on stills about 12 different women. The church was a nice place for this performance. On and on it was a nice weekend top start a holiday with...Really enjoyed it... I even watched the football match last night..which was kind of new to me to enjoy it in a way.

And now it is time to do some shopping for dinner... couscous salat with the first home grown Tomatoes, Ruccola and Mint.. Light and simple.