Now I'm learning about wet.

For over a week now the clouds have been drifting over the country, making the weather unpredictable and generally wet, so apart from last weekend – more on that later – I have been mostly inside, getting to know my new housemates (all my old ones moved out, is that a hint?) and helping to start up Tafelstraat again now that the holidays are in the past.
As to my new housemates, they’re not a very varied bunch. One of them hasn’t arrived yet, but I already know that he, like the other three, is employed at Chateau Neercanne, the castle next to my house. They’ve all had education and experience of some sort in working at restaurants, and so thus far the conversations have mostly been about that. Which is, to be frank, duller than Braudel’s theory of the Secular Trend of history. One of them also has a tendency of boasting about his 125 DVD collection, which is a bit unimpressive.

As that’s about all there is to tell about them, I’ll return to the topic of the wet weather and recount the family day I had last Saturday in Wassenaar. Wassenaar is a town near The Hague where mostly rich people live, and so does a far-off branch of my family (it was the birthday of the widow of my father’s mother’s brother, if you follow).
My dad and I took the train to The Hague and there met up with my uncle and aunt and then walked over the beach to Wassenaar, a walk of perhaps 5-6 km. It went relatively slowly, because walking through the sand takes ages. The beach is not my favourite place to be, as the sight quickly bores me. There are dunes on one side, endless sea on the other and sand in between. Luckily there were seabirds to distract us, and we particularly saw the Nordic Stern in all its glory.
The family day was from 14:00-17:00, cleverly avoiding both lunch and dinner (there is a reason rich people stay rich) and so, as the weather was fair, we decided to walk back again, this time through the dunes, for some variation. This route, however, was somewhat lengthier.
Two-thirds through, the inevitable happened, and it started raining like mad. I only had a light coat with me – and a hat – and it proved most insufficient. In about fifteen minutes my coat had taken all it could and I got soaked through and through. However, my hat was of better quality than I had expected. My hair stayed dry throughout the ordeal. My right ankle also started hurting more and more and as there is no alternative means of transport in the dunes, the last trek was hell, with an ache at every step and double the weight (thank to all the water in my clothes).
Perhaps the three hours back home in public transport were even worse, as I was soaked to the bone and the trains were freezing. Luckily I had brought a spare vest, which had stayed dry in my bag, and my dad helpfully borrowed me his coat, which had stayed dry.

And yesterday I had to baby-sit four children, perhaps more on that later.

Terror of the Bed Bugs

Deep down in the mattress of an insignificant bed a great power is amassing its strength...
Counting its days, an invincible army has been nurtured...
Within hours, thousands will have fallen victim to this force, which aims not at installing democracy or deposing dictators, but fights only for complete and utter BED DOMINATION.

And queue another mindless National Geographic documentary about supposedly terrible insects or other animals. Insects are best, though, because they're not terribly feared and they're all around us, so, for all we know, they could be slowly infiltrating our society until the day of doom approaches and they'll turn us all into mindless ant drones after gnawing through the parts of our brain that allow for freedom of thought.

Yes, the past few weeks I have watched too much tv, and the first thing that leapt to mind was, why on earth is NGC considered a science channel? Most of their programs are rubbish, having either to do with long debunked complots ("The Templars knew the TRUTH! This grey haired man can explain why using a piece of paper and a model of the Titanic built with match sticks."), air crashes ("Not scared of travelling yet? Wait for the next installment of 'Crash, Burn, Horrible Death', up next!"), or aggressive animals ("The squirrel looks like a peaceful animal, but secretly he is building up a massive ammunition base of nuts. Will we as a nation finds these WMDs in time, or will armageddon dawn? Let's blame the UN for not taking action sooner.").

BBC 1 and 2 have higher scientific standards, to be honest, which is quite a feat considering most of their airtime is used broadcasting auction shows, cooking programmes, and ballroom dancing. Ah well.