Photos

My cabin on the Ferry
Dougless's house from the front
The Castle
Inside view of the Pump house.



I am so far behind….sorry.

I will write about another interesting figure here at work that I recently had the opportunity to get to know a little better.

A few months ago I completed my beginning Dutch course and I feel luck to be able to say “hallo” and tell people where I live and work. Dutch is a very hard language to learn, mostly because of the sounds. It is easy to read once you build up your vocabulary, but the sounds when spoken are difficult to pick out.

There was a nice mix of people in the class and one of my fellow students is a judge from South Africa. He was the main judge for Martic and is now the main judge for Delic. His name is Justice Moloto; yes his first name is Justice.

The last Dutch class my instructor had us all over to her house to celebrate the end of our course. We were treated to Champaign and savory Dutch snacky food. Afterward a group of us meet up for drinks at a nice wine bar toward the center of town. Justice was brave enough to join us and we were all glad he did. After a few drinks he treated us all to stories of what it was like growing up black and attending collage in the late 60’s early 70’s in South Africa.

Every black person had to travel with identity papers and could not travel outside of their home area unless they had papers stating otherwise. Even so, it was not uncommon to be hassled by police. Justice told us a story about how he and a friend were traveling from one area to another during a school break and were stopped by police and asked for their papers. One of the police decided to give them a bad time and clamed their paperwork was not in order. The officer then proceeded to call Justice names and compare him to a baboon. Justice stood tall and gave it right back. In the end, the police let them go on their way.

After this story we all joined into a philosophical discussion on Apartheid, pro/con. And just enjoyed getting to know each other a bit better. At the end of the evening there were hugs all around and we all staggered and stumbled our way home.

The main thing I leared about Justice Moloto that night was the man before me was not much different from the young man several years before who stood up to two police officers hasseling him and a friend. He is a person of conviction and he will hold others to it. In court he fair and sets standards of conduct high. He will pull individuals back in line if they stray. He is one of my favorit Judges as you can tell.



OK, the above entry I started months ago and now it is time to tell you about my summer

August turned out to be a month of travel. Frank and Kristina went to the south of England for their three week summer holiday with the pups. I traveled over to spend a long week-end taking a night ferry over on Thursday night (Aug. 2nd) and arrived early Friday morning. Frank and Kristina were there to pick me up and we headed off to Stokes by Nayland to a nice little cottage be a creek.

The weather was great and the three of us spent part of the day laying in the sun on cozy loungers reading. Frank shared one of his many Zombie books with me so if we ever have a Zombie attack, I am fully prepared to defend myself and those around me.

One of the highlights of the trip was meeting the neighboor across the street. His name is Douglas and he is the owner of the cottage we were staying in. The place is called “The Pump House” because it was the water pumping station for the area at one time. Douglas invited us over to his place the first night I was there for drinks. His house was built in 1590 (if I remember right) and then there were two more sections added over the next two hundred years. He took us on a grand tour of the main rooms. It is an amazing place. During our tour a “small world” encounter happened. I have shared this story with a few of you so just bear with me……….After entering the dinning room, Douglas pointed to a small door at the courner of one wall and he called it his “secerat passage way”. Kristina asked where it lead and wondered if we could take a look inside. He said” Oh you want to know all of my secerats” and Kristina said “yes”. We laughed and he went over and opened the door to reveail a small narrow passage way that lead back to the main living room. Kristina and me walked down the short, low cielined hallway past boxes and a large wine rack to the end where there was another small door. We then turned around and headed back. After a few steps I stopped and stared in amazment at a poster that was hanging on the wall. It was the Bud Clark “exposs yourself to art” poster. I nudged Kristian and pointed at the poster. We both stood there dumb fowned for a moment, walked back into the dinning room and ask Douglas what he knew about the poster. He told us it was a gift from his Daughter years ago and thought it was taken somewhere in France. We told him the story of the poster and explained to him that the man was a former Mayor of our home town, Portland Oregon. We all basted for a moment in the glow of commanality by coiencadence and then went out into the garden to enjoy a glass of wine and naush on goodies.

The next few days were spent sight seeing, playing with the dogs and walks in the country side. Of course there were pub stops with beer and fish&chips. On one of our walks we went to a seaside community close to Ipswitch (I can’t for the life of me remember the name) where King Henry II’s castle is. Remember the movie “The lion in Winter”? That’s the one. We spent the day walking along a marsh with the castel in the back ground.

The great thing about the English country side is there are all these markted walking paths that whind through private and publice lands allowing the publice to take long walks just about anywhere. At one point the three of us walked across a field wheat field while the farmaer was out bailing hay.

My four days in England went by quickly, then I was back on the ferry towards Holland only to be on a plane to Portland three days later.

I will end here. Look for my next inslament soon!

Cheers

Kim