It's the last day of my summer hols, and weather-wise, it looks to be a good one. Unfortunately, now that the sun has finally started to peek through the clouds, I still won't be able to take much notice nor indeed advantage of it, as I'll be running around doing all sorts of errands.

First off, I have a meeting with the house doctor, a representative of the nursing home's management, and the head of the nursing staff to discuss my father's care and how he's been faring since arriving at the home three weeks ago. Then it's off to the police station to file a report, as it has transpired that Dad has lost his identity card/passport, probably in the move from the care home where he was first located to the last. I went to get a replacement at the town hall, but was told a police report would be required before they could process the application. When I rang the police I was told Dad would have to come to the station in person, and bring identification. When I explained that my father no longer had any identification other than a driver's licence that had expired in 1975, and that moreover he was physically and mentally unfit to go anywhere, they relented and told me that as long as I could bring a signed proxy, they would allow me to come down and file the report on his behalf. I just hope they won't have changed their minds in the intervening days, as I do realise that the compromise we arrived at is highly unusual and probably not even legal.

I'll be meeting my sister and nephew at the train station later, so as to be there at the other end of the country for our uncle's cremation ceremony tomorrow morning. Ronnie's funeral is set for Saturday as well, but as we were already committed to attending our uncle's send-off, all we could do was arrange for a wreath to be sent to his. So before we leave The Hague, I'll also have to find time to pop into the florist's and make sure our floral tribute is delivered on time and as specified.

One bit of good news before I go: my geyser finally got repaired yesterday, apparently not a moment too soon -- the repair man/plumber/gasfitter when he checked it over concluded that it had been a health hazard for some time in that it had been emitting dangerous levels of carbon monoxide gas, so he fixed it and installed an alarm at no extra charge. I don't know if it's the reassuring presence of that white box in the hallway, or the fact that there's no more carbon monoxide wafting through the flat, but I did wake up far more alert than usual this morning.

'Only in America' is what we used to say of gun crime and assassination plots. But things are getting just as crazy over here.

My sister texted me with the news that a mutual friend of ours, someone we grew up with and someone she has worked with in her professional life for the past couple of years, was shot through the head and killed while on his way into work this morning. It happened on a zebra crossing near the office building where they both work. The perpetrator has been caught and in a statement to police has indicated it was a crime of passion; Ronnie had just started going out with this man's ex-girlfriend.

I'm amazed at how upset I am by this news; I'm shaking and everything. It's the shock, the pointlessness of his killing. In my life, I've lost friends, people I've been close to, through accidents and illnesses, but none have ever been murdered before. And even though I hadn't spoken to Ronnie in years, I still thought of him occasionally, and asked my sister for news of him every once in a while, or for her to remember me to him next time they had occasion to meet...and now this. It's incomprehensible, and such a terrible, terrible shock.

I waited in for the repair man to come and fix my hot water all day. They never showed.

In the evening, I took Manasse to the vet's for his 6 months check-up. His heart is doing fine and his health overall seems to have improved quite significantly according to the vet, but now it seems his blood pressure is dangerously high. She's given me another set of pills and wants me to bring him in again in a fortnight. Oh joy.

Just when we got home, my mum rang with the news that my uncle Piet, my father's best friend and my mum's deceased sister's husband, had died of lung cancer this afternoon, 7 days shy of his 80th birthday.

First thing this morning, the knob on the hot water tap in the kitchen broke off. I tried glueing it back together, but as soon I put pressure on it to see if that had done the trick, it came apart again.

My luck got worse as I went into town and bought a couple of DVDs. I lost them somewhere along the way, possibly in the supermarket where I shopped for groceries, in the place where I stopped off for a cappucino, or on the bus home.

I wonder what more can go wrong...

I came back from a short stay in Switzerland last night, and today I'm taking it easy...have to really, as the unfamiliar Swiss terrain has left me with very muscle-achey lower legs. I spent the last four days in and around Zurich, which I'd never visited before but which I've gotten to find my way around quite well considering I only spent less than a week there. It's quite a pleasant little town, verdant and green, but quiet and a bit on the boring side...which ties in neatly with my impression of Switzerland on the whole. No wonder my friend, whose husband's job got relocated there, is climbing up the walls of their gorgeous penthouse apartment overlooking the Zürisee, missing the life she had in London up until a year ago. Things are getting better though as she's getting better acquainted with her new surroundings, but her career as an installation artist which in England was just taking off has been put on hold now that she's in Switzerland where she doesn't have the contacts, and there doesn't seem to be much of an art scene around anyway. She has taken up pottery though, but more on that later.

I arrived on Whitmonday, to a town that appeared to be devoid of people. Even things at the airport were quiet, with maybe just a few hundred people arriving and taking off. Bobby came to meet me off the plane while his good lady wife did some shopping for vegetables in the airport supermarket, the only place open on this Christian holiday which they, being Jewish, had totally forgotten about. Luckily, they'd just spent a romantic weekend in Venice and brought back a few kosher sausages and bits of cheese as a souvenir or we wouldn't have had anything to eat that first night of my stay. After I'd had a chance to inspect and admire their new home, we took the dog for a walk in the mountains surrounding Zurich, and then later wandered into town to see Coco Avant Chanel in one of the local cinemas. I didn't rate the film much, but Anneke and Bobby seemed to enjoy it, so I took care not to critique it too harshly afterwards.

The next day, Anneke took me into town to show me the major shopping area (Bahnhofstrasse and the streets and alleyways leading off it) and take me to lunch in Hiltl's, which I would recommend to anyone looking for a midday meal in Zurich. Their vegetarian buffet service is absolutely delicious and if I had a Hiltl here, I'd go there every day. I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering through the touristy parts of the Altstadt on my own before visiting the Kunsthaus, a rather modest local museum which houses a few Giacomettis (unfortunately, I'd just missed a bigger exhibition of his work), a Rembrandt, a couple of Brueghels and quite a lot of Hodler, which given that he was a local artist didn't surprise me at all. What did surprise, or rather, shock me was the current exhibition of the work of a contemporary installation artist - though most of it was innocuous enough, the pièce-de-résistance consisted of the dead body of a cat, cut in half and smeared with black paint. When I told Anneke about it, she told me she didn't get it either when she saw it. I'm sure you've all heard of Damian Hirst and his cow, but this was nothing like that. It was just tasteless and crass, and doesn't deserve the appellation of art. We made pizza for dinner and watched a silly German film on TV before going to our bedrooms.

On the third morning of my stay, we took the car and drove to Einsiedeln where we visited a factory that produces the raw materials needed in pottery making, i.e. types of clay and glazes as well as kilns, tools and pottery wheels. This because Anneke has recently taken up pottery as a new creative outlet, taking lessons from a pottery maker in Zurich. However, she'd told me that all her recent attempts at firing her creations had failed so far, even when she had followed her teacher's instructions to the letter, and she couldn't understand why. So I mentioned this to the experts at the factory and they soon told me the reason: the kiln temperature my friend's teacher had proscribed for the types of clay and glazes were far too high, while some types of glazes were used on clays that were unsuitable. It all sounded like pretty basic stuff to me, but Anneke just couldn't understand why her teacher would purposely be giving her the wrong information. Me, I would have demanded my tuition back and either gone it alone or found another teacher, but Anneke is going to share the new insights, and the clays and glazes she purchased in the factory shop, with this Mrs. Whateverhernameis..."because she has been a great help to my German", she said.

We went for a long hike in the mountains around Einsiedeln that afternoon. The scenery is stunning, picture postcard perfect, but the slopes are steep and two days later, I can still feel it in my legs. Then when we got back to Zurich, we drove over to the Lindt factory outlet shop, where I bought enough quality Swiss chocolate (75%, 80% and even 99% dark chocolate!) to last me till the end of the year against a fraction of the price it would have cost me in the shops. Still, me, I was quite modest leaving the shop with my one carrier bag full of chocolatey goodness, compared to the party of American tourists who left with shopping-trolley-loads-full, justifying their purchase to everyone they met in the parking lot with the glaringly obvious statement of "We like chocolate".

I concluded my stay in Switzerland with a little trip to Basel the following morning/early afternoon, as both Bobby and Anneke had assured me it was much more vibrant than Zurich. And perhaps it is, if you know where to go. Personally, I found it dull as dishwater, so I went back to Zurich, bought a little statuette I'd seen Anneke admire a few days earlier and left it as a thankyou in one of their bathrooms, collected my stuff and took the S-Bahn to the airport. On the plane back, the staff did not forget to serve the passengers their complimentary chocolate; an oversight on my flight out that had prompted my hosts discussing the composition of an angry letter to the airline on my and my fellow passengers behalf.

As I'm flying to Switzerland on Monday, and Mum will be taking care of the cats while I'm away for the week, I spent the day cleaning the flat from top to bottom. I am what can best be described as a reluctant housewife, and it takes my mum coming to visit for me to get the place ship-shape or I won't bother. Shame really, 'cause now that it's spic and span, I'm sure I could get used to this...but I know I'll go back to my slovenly ways once I get back.

I also stopped off at a hairdresser's (not my usual), and the girl was so pleased with the result she asked if she could take a picture, presumably to show her family when she got home: "Mum, Dad, look! this is what I've done today"...she was fresh out of hairdressing school.

I'm going over to the care home Dad used to live in until recently tomorrow and see if I can rescue some of his personal belongings. The home moved him so quickly and then failed to give us any sort of indication as to when they expected us to have the room emptied, that when I phoned last Thursday I was surprised to hear they'd already cleared it as we "had failed to comply with the regulation that it had to be done within 3 days after a resident is moved". I was told I had a further 7 days to sort through any items they had stored before they would be destroyed. Then on the way home I'll have to pop into the kosher deli and pick up the 'big bag of licorice' my friends in Zurich have asked me to bring. They may have left The Netherlands 30 years ago, but some habits or a craving for a taste of home still remain. I hope it won't be a wasted trip: isn't Shavuot this weekend?

Dad hates it in the nursing home. He says it's worse than prison, and he wishes he were dead. I understand why he would say that; he can't get off the ward, so is forced to spend his days in the communal area, where the home's inhabitants all sit around without speaking. There's a bird cage, but none of them seem to pay the parakeets and budgerigars any attention. He's lost his reading glasses, but even if he had them, there aren't any books to read; and for someone like him who used to smoke like a chimney, it must be very hard to only be allowed one cigarette an hour.

I spoke to one of the nurses. She says he spends most of his time lying on his bed. I think it's out of boredom, but Dad says it's because he can't sleep; the man in the bed next to him makes too much noise. "I told him, one more peep out of you and I'll beat you to a pulp" -- hardly the kind of attitude to win him any friends, and definitely not the kind of threat the staff take lightly. They've already complained to my mum, and he's only been there 6 days!

It's early days yet; perhaps he will settle in later. If he doesn't, as awful as it may sound to say it, perhaps he really would be better off dead.

There's nothing on the telly tonight, except for the Eurovision Songcontest, and I stopped watching that event sometime in the early eighties, I think. It's such a waste of license payers' money; and if I did watch it, it'd be a waste of two or three valuable hours of my life, too.

Dad will be moved into the nursing home on Monday. Mum took him for an inspection of the place last Thursday, at the end of which he gave it a cautious thumbs-up. Let's hope that once he's moved, he'll settle into the routine of the home quickly enough, because there won't be any going back to the kind of semi-independent way of life he's led in the care home. I don't think at present he realises how big a change this is going to be, and I just hope he won't have any regrets later on.

In a meeting at work this morning, I got singled out for special praise by management. It came as a complete, but very welcome surprise. Of course, I knew they were happy with my contribution to the team in the last 6 months, or they wouldn't have offered to extend my contract a couple of weeks back (I signed on the dotted line yesterday), but I never expected to be put up on a pedestal in front of all my co-workers at 10am on an ordinary Thursday morning. It was nice, though.

I've been receiving a lot of compliments lately, mostly from black men and women and all about my bum. I don't know what's up with that, but I do find it rather amusing.

Recently, a friend of mine has moved from London to Kilchberg, just outside Zurich; so I'm sure you can guess my next holiday destination? That's right, I'm off to Switzerland in two weeks time. Earlier this week, I realised that with my holidays coming up, I'd neglected to book anywhere and I didn't know what I could do to remedy that situation. Until, that is, I hit on the idea of inviting myself over there, and she's just e-mailed me back to say she'd love for me to come and stay for a bit. I'm quite looking forward to going; I've never been to Switzerland before...although that's not entirely true; I spent a day in Lausanne some 25 years ago -- quite a traumatic time for me, as I recall...My then boyfriend and I had gone on a 6-week camping holiday in France, and one day when we had pitched our tents (literally, we had two small ones that we set up to form one big(ger) one) in Evian-les-Bains, we decided to drive across the border in our old, battered, apple-green 2-chevaux that had just the day before developed a worrying rattle in the exhaust; a deafening noise that got amplified by the mountains around us. We were nearing the end of our holiday, which meant that my hair looked a fright and my clothes were all crumpled. Anyway, we got to Switzerland and Lausanne, and the streets were so clean! and the houses in such good repair (as opposed to France where everything's ramshackle)! and the people all looked so immaculately groomed! I got an instant inferiority complex and begged my boyfriend to take me back over the border to where the paint was peeling from the houses and the people looked as grubby as he and I, and after a few hours, he complied.

So now I'm going back there -- well, Zurich. I'm hoping it's got a different vibe, but I'll pack my neatest clothes and niftiest toiletries just in case.

I got a call last Thursday, telling me that the 'indication' as they call it had come through, and that Dad will have to be moved to the nursing home within the next 7 days. It came on the same day my department had been told that because of 'business needs', all leave for the coming fortnight had been cancelled. Definitely a conflict of interests there, then.

I'd been feeling grotty, sniffly and sneezy all week, so I took a sickie last Friday, and then, after moping around at home for a few hours, took myself off for a little spot of retail therapy (ssshhhh, don't tell my boss!). It proved quite successful, in that lightening my purse cured my sniffles and sneezes most effectively as soon as I'd acquired these:

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But...there is a God, and vengeance is His: the next day, I discovered I had an ingrown toenail, and now I won't be able to wear them any time soon. Well, not this week, I think.

Something very strange has happened, just about an hour ago. It's Queen's Day in The Netherlands, our most national of national holidays, comparable perhaps to Bastille Day in France or the 4th of July in the US. On this day, the Queen and her (extended) family are wont to join in the celebrations in various parts of the country, and this year they were in the town of Apeldoorn. TV coverage of the morning followed the usual pattern of the arrival of Her Majesty, the princes and princesses and their welcome by local dignitaries, and the walkabout through the town where the royals shook hands and received bouquets and drawings made for them by children who had been waiting hours already along the route, and joined in various activities such as golf and abseiling (some of the princes, of course; you wouldn't see the Queen climb a rope or something). After a while, they boarded an open-top coach that would take them to the nearby palace of Het Loo, where a so-called defilé was planned. Then just as the coach arrived at a crossing, a black Suzuki came careening through the crowds and narrowly missing a collision with the royal party, came to a stop at the monument in the centre of that crossing.

No one knows where that car came from, and how it could have gotten through security. The roads had been blocked off for the royal cortege, after all. The media are still referring to it as 'an accident', but it could of course have been something much more sinister than that.

All we know is at the moment, there are 14 people seriously injured, and an unconfirmed report says that there's one fatality. All further festivities in Apeldoorn have been cancelled, and the royal family has been advised not to venture out in public again today.

...and I've already come to the realisation that I fail at dieting. How did I do this last time? I can't remember. My excuse is that the weather's turned, and one can't live on cucumbers and tomatoes when skies are grey and hailstorms are about. Maybe next month will be better.

For once, my horoscope proved uncannily correct. It said that all my 'hard work would not go unrewarded'...well, today my manager offered me a promotion, which I was very pleased to accept.

On Saturday, just before I went off to see Gran Torino starring Clint Eastwood in the cinema with my mum, a friend of mine asked whether I wouldn't mind accompanying her 10-year old son and one of his little friends to the Dutch musical Ciske de Rat the next day, as she herself didn't feel up to it (she's going into hospital to have a hysterectomy in a couple of days). I wasn't too keen, as I'm a terrible snob who doesn't think anything good can ever come out of Dutch theatre shows, but in the end, I let myself be persuaded...and contrary to my expectations, I had a brilliant time. The music, the singing, the acting -- it was all a hundred times removed from those endless, boring performances I had to sit through when I was still in school, and the production could, IMO, easily vie with whatever show is put on in the West End or on Broadway.

Next time, I will jump at the chance to borrow her kid again.

I could get used to 4-day weekends every weekend...

When I applied for my current position, initially there was talk that it could be a 36-hour a week one, but silly me, I said "Let's just keep it at 40 and see how it goes, shall we?". As I was new to the job and environment, of course I was eager and perhaps a little too accommodating. I took on extra work and have done more than my fair share of overtime. It paid off, too, inasmuch as I got my contract extended; but now there's no question of me reducing my hours. On the contrary, with my manager so impressed with my progress she's indicated she's got me pegged for a senior position, I don't think now's the time to start asking to work less. She obviously thinks I'm as big a workaholic as she is.

Not that I really need more time off; not now when I'm sleeping better. What a difference a good pillow makes! It was an impulse buy picked up in a sale, I didn't think I needed another pillow, but when I woke up the next morning, I was amazed to find that I could actually sit up in bed without feeling as if I were being sawn in half. Before, I always had to sort of roll out of bed and then slowly and carefully, using all fours, get myself into a standing position. My back would be killing me, but now...I won't say I'm free of pain entirely, but it's manageable. And I don't feel so tired anymore, although that could just be down to the arrival of spring. Still, I wish things could go back to the way things were before I had my recurring bouts of sciatica, because every time I've had them I seem to be worse off.

This afternoon, I'm going to see Kate Winslet in The Reader; afterwards, I believe we're going to try out a new Mexican place. Beans and guacamole, when I feel fat enough already...::sigh:: yes, I have been putting on weight over the winter, and I'm not happy about it. If only I could instill some discipline in myself!

I spent the day in A&E; not because I'd hurt myself, but because I'd received a phone call from the care home this morning explaining that my dad was peeing blood and they wanted me to take him down there and have it checked out. Five hours of hanging around, then he was sent home again with one vitamin K tablet and the advice to stop his blood thinners.

Oh well. I suppose they know best, even if he is still passing more blood than urine.

On the upside, though: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency tonight! I'm seriously smitten with this series.

Who'd have thought, given their much-publicised and rather acrimonious court battles over royalties, that Spandau Ballet would ever reform? I reckon they must have been offered a sweet deal, but I for one am interested to see and hear how they'll shape up, now that they've buried the hatchet. Could they still sound as good as they did 25 years ago? And will they come up with new material that's as enjoyable as their back catalogue?

In among the bills for this week, the news I'd been dreading: Joost passed away peacefully in his sleep on March 18th. He was 45 years old.

It was love that had given him the strength to withstand his illness for the last 10 years, and at the last, it was love that gave him the strength also to let go.

The phone hasn't stopped ringing all evening. Apparently, at a meeting at my old department at hp this afternoon, my former colleagues have been told that as from June 13th, their services will no longer be required -- which means that effectively, they're all going to be out of a job in three months' time. Funny, how you never hear from people when things are going well...now they're all looking to me for reassurance. So I tell them they'll be fine, as I'm sure most of them will be, but right now they're all in shock, and wondering what their future will hold.

I'm so glad I left when I did.

A blackbird landed on my balcony railing 10 minutes ago, and it's sitting there not 2 metres away me from singing its little heart out. If it's hoping to attract a mate, maybe it should look for a spot lower down, in my neighbours' gardens, where its chances of success may be greater. Meanwhile, I'm enjoying this private aubade.

Over the past week, on my way to work, I've noticed two things: one, that it gets light about halfway through the commute, and two, that there's hares frolicking in the fields. Spring has definitely arrived, although at the moment it's still mostly a grey and wet one.

I went out and got myself a 500Gb external hdd, and tonight, I will see about getting it to work. The package promises that it's plug & play which means even an idiot such as me should be able to set it up in no time, and then my pc will hopefully start to behave much better.

Dad seems to have reconciled himself to his upcoming move, though he is a bit upset that he won't be allowed to take his own bed with him. Or his antique cupboard. Or any of his furniture except for his new chair, really...and I can well understand and sympathise. I shudder to think that the same fate may await me too 30 or 40 years from now.

I woke up feeling like I wanted some new clobber, so I headed into town...but apart from a pair of high-waisted trousers that unfortunately didn't come in my size, I couldn't find anything remotely purchase-worthy. So I went back to that favourite pastime of mine, and hit the shoe shops. And lo and behold! I struck it lucky in the third shop:



Originally priced at 225 euros, I got these suede and rabbit fur ankle boots for 25. According to the sales assistant, they'd had to slash the price by that much not because the credit crunch had made people more reluctant to part with their cash, but because no one had ever managed to get their feet into them...until I came along, that is. They are quite tricky to put on, but I'm sure that with time and practice, I'll soon have no trouble slipping into them...and now I'm hoping for a cold spell so I can show them off.