Living behind the dykes

Living behind the dykes is not something we are aware of every day.
Only when the water in the rivers is very high and it's on the news we realise that we live in a country that has been taken from the sea.

The dykes protect us very well.

Our house is behind the dykes, but it's on a higher level than the surrounding grounds. So we won't get wet feet, as we say.
It's an old fashioned way to protect people from the water if something is happening with the dykes.

The chance something happens is very low.
The dykes can cope with high and low water.
We've only once had a bit if a stressful time because of high water. It was the only time the schools were closed. It was before we were born, but some of my brothers remember it.

It's high water now, but it's not too high for the dykes.
There is surveillance though, because water can soak the dykes so they start to leak.
Men walk past the dykes to inspect each metre very carefully, and today an F16 flew over the dykes with special equipment under it to see "through" the dyke. That way they can find out weak spots and leakage.
All was safe though.

Our school is at a higher point of town and there's absolutely no danger at all.
Our house is safe too. The lower grounds around it can collect lots of water (which never happened) and we can go easily over safe roads to the bridge over the canal to the high part of town.

New recipe

I wondered what we were going to eat and when it was time to cook my mom said we'd never had it before.
She jad tasted something cooked by a woman in one of the main grocery stores and she likes it so much she took the recipe and sause with her.

It was great!

Small baked potatoes, baked pork and fresh vegetables, with the sause.
We all loved it and even though she'd made a lot and wanted to have something left for tomorrow it was all gone.

We talked a bit about the exchange students.
Will they like a dish like this?

And the next exchange student is....

I'm very happy with my exchange student.
We mail each day and it's nive to learn about who she is and about her country.

My sister heard today who her exchange student is.
As the group she exchanges with consists almost completely of boys, her student is a boy. She doesn't mind. We've got enough brothers not to make a problem.

We tried to find out how his school looks, but it's such a large school that we don't know yet.
Children go there from the first schoolday in Kindergarten to the last day of university.

Tomorrow those students will hear about their dutch exchange partners and I think they will mail too and we'll know more after this weekend.

Rain and dark grey skies

This winter is one of extremes.
We had snow in autumn until after christmas and old-and-new, and now we have temperatures in the double digits and lots and lots of rain.

The town is still dealing with high water.
All we can hope is that the rain won't cause such a rise of the river that it gets above the safety level.

That was stupid

I was so happy to hear about the exchange student and that we got in contact that I forgot that not only kilometers are between us.
In my mind she was already far more familiar than she is so I forgot that she might read my mails different from my intention.

I told her that my brothers have autism.
I'm so familiar with them that I forgot that many people don't even know what autism is, or have a completely different picture from it than my brothers display.
Autism is just a name for such a huge variety of problems.

Oh, I feel so stupid.

On top of it: I couldn't sleep and I was so enthousiastic that I asked if she was online, far too late in the evening.
It was irresponsible. Not only to her, but to me too.

As soon as my mother saw I was online she asked me if I was nuts and made me go to bed. People in Spain thought I was nuts.

I'm so sorry I caused a problem.

As soon as I heard that the people in Spain had serious questions about it all, I explained it and apologised.

I'm very happy that everything is alright now.

I'll be blogging about autism this week, but for now I say goodbye.

She's nice!

Today I heard the name of my student and I was able to mail her and receive an answer back.

She seems to be a very nice person and I feel so happy she's my exchange student.
It's great we can talk through internet and I'm sure we'll contact each other a lot before she arrives here.

Today I aslo heard that the brother of someone I know has died of the mexican flu last month.
That's so very sad.
More and more people are afraid that the flu comes back and even worse than before.
All I can do is to try to live as healthy as possible, sleep and eat well, and stick to the rules of hygiene.
I'm happy I don't smoke or drink.

I got an 8 for biology. Wow!
I worked very hard for it and it paid off.

Homework and reading

Today I worked very hard on a paper about a book.
I'd rather read books of my own choice tha books that we have to read for school.
It's like it's less fun.

Maybe it's because there are so many questions, so the whole story needs to be pulled apart.

Well, I could work on one of the computers, so it;s nearly finished.

I have always to plan my homework well, because on mondays I have my balletclasses.