A bookend type of month

I've been remiss, I know. It's three weeks since my last blog at the beginning of June, and here we are at the end of the month; mea culpa. I have to admit I've been finding it hard to focus recently and even took a month off Facebook altogether, but maybe I've mentioned that already.

Part of the difficulty has simply been the time of year. There's always a lot to do in May and June with the end of the academic year. Added to the usual course-end scramble, we have staff assessments, official English speaking tests, and coaching sessions for PhDers writing their theses in English. The speaking tests usually involve quite a bit of travelling around so at the end of the week, writing my blog has been something "I'll do later", except that later didn't arrive, not until today, that is.

I enjoy the speaking tests as we often go to schools to conduct them and I find it so interesting to experience the difference between them, which largely depends on where they are. 

Take your standard small town Dutch secondary school. Most of the children are competent, well-trained for the exam, polite and, well, dare I say it, a bit boring. They haven't seen or experienced much of life at all so their range of conversation is correspondingly limited, but they can do what's required and do it well. The city kids, on the other hand, especially those from 'alternative' educational backgrounds, are a world apart: feisty, often ill prepared but with so much more to say. They seem to have more life experience, more knowledge of the arts and literature and generally wider interests. It's fascinating to observe and one could easily be forgiven for thinking it's better for young people to grow up in a cosmopolitan, unusual environment if their ability to hold a conversation in English is any gauge of their educational and social development. I'm sure there's more to it than that, but on the surface, that's how it appears.

Anyway, back to our own world and tomorrow we will be testing the Hennie H in preparation for our summer travels. Koos has been away for a week on a well-deserved break to Hungary, so there's been a lull in proceedings there, but July is approaching and we hope to be on our way sometime in the first week. 

Last Monday, the bridge was returned to service (see previous post), so no more ferry, and life is more or less back to normal. We have painting on both boats to do before we go, fire extinguishers to have checked, fenders to pump up, diesel to buy and supplies to get in. Oh and in between all that, it will be Koos's birthday. I think things are about to get very busy!

To calm you down after all that exciting news, here are some photos from our world.

The Mark heading into Oudenbosch

The Basilica at Oudenbosch 

Snack hunting in Zeeland

The Vereeniging– just because

Horses and their foals at a nearby nature reserve

And again–just too adorable

Mummy and baby. The foal was very new

Have a good week allemaal, and I'll be back again at the beginning of July.