First of all, wish everyone a very happy and healthy New Year!

Having said that, I would like to explain why this blog post has taken so long. When I started my blog, my son Larsen installed an old computer as a server and my blog runs on that. That way, I had no hosting costs. Unfortunately, the power sometimes goes out here and sometimes things go wrong with the server. No idea how or why, but when that happened, Larsen was always around to make it right. However, now that he lives in the Netherlands, he’s not around anymore to help. The server stopped working after another power outage and he couldn’t fix it remotely. So I had to wait until we came back from the Netherlands, where we celebrated Christmas. He and his girlfriend Manca drove back with us and spent another ten days holiday here. Larsen then got the server up and running again. But since I came back from the Netherlands sick and stayed sick for almost 3 weeks, I was unable to write a new blog post. But tomorrow I finally go back to work and it was therefore high time to write another piece.

As said, we celebrated Christmas in the Netherlands and we enjoyed it immensely. My mother, whose birthday is December 23, celebrated her birthday on December 28th so that we would be there to see all friends, family and acquaintances. That was amazing! It was no less than four years ago that we were last in the Netherlands. Unfortunately, we were only there for six days, of which of course Christmas Day, which we spent with my brother and his family and Boxing Day which we spent with my niece and her family. And with the party on December 28, there was little time left for other things and visits. We did, of course, enjoy some shopping and that is always fun to do :).

And even though I always love going back home, this time I had quite a bit of trouble with it. For the first time, I actually realized that I miss having my family around me. Of course, I see my parents 6 months out of a year because they live in Slovenia for that time, but uncles and aunts, for example, I would also really like to see more often. And of course my brother and niece with their families. Maybe it’s because I really thought it was too short this time, or because I’m getting older. I can’t say it, but it hit me pretty hard. I therefore sincerely hope that it will not be another four years before we go again. It is always a consideration since Bine and I also really enjoy holidays by the sea and unfortunately, we are not able to go on holiday several times a year. And no matter how nice and cozy it is when we are in the Netherlands, it is of course not the same as a holiday. It’s really just a really long family visit. The trip up and down also costs quite a bit, so that’s why we don’t go every year. That’s another downside of emigrating. We actually shouldn’t complain, since we can drive to the Netherlands in one day. The daughter of a friend of my parents lives in Indonesia and she also came to the Netherlands for Christmas, but for the first time in ten years! She had not seen her mother for that long because she cannot travel to Indonesia due to health problems.

Well, sometimes it remains difficult, especially now that we are getting older, and my parents and other relatives are also getting older. When I think about that, I can panic a bit, because what if something happens to them? Not that it is a certainty that you can be there for them if we did live in the Netherlands, but still. For the time being, I just assume that everyone is and remains healthy and that we will see each other many more times to come. Thank you so much to everyone who welcomed us so warmly to the Netherlands!! We enjoyed it so much, even more so because of you all. And hopefully, we will see you again soon!