When I arrived at Schiphol, Nico was waiting for me with my wheelchair and a little bouquet (he remembered). It was great to see him again and we had at least 24 hours of "I missed you being around" bliss before the "oh, there you are" feelings arrived.

As we were in his parents' car, we dropped by their house to get his van. We 'visited' with them shortly though I can't say I had much to contribute to the visit. I was beat from jetlag and no sleep. We spent the afternoon out in his sunny garden which was exactly what I needed. I almost drifted off completely in his hammock but managed to stay awake until a reasonable hour. Oh, and it was great to see Hazel, too.

He really took care of me that day and the next, which was a national holiday, Pinkster or Pentecost. Dutch settlers in present-day New England brought the celebration of Pinkster to North America in the 17th century. However, by the 19th century, Pinkster had evolved into a primarily African-American holiday, celebrated by slaves and free blacks, and liberally seasoned with African culture and traditions.* (Interesting article link from *Wikipedia, if you're so inclined.)

I was glad to have Monday off as I was really not in proper shape to return to my full-on therapy. Suffering not only from jetlag but also the typical travel flu I almost always get on vacation. That lasted a week. By the following week, I would be totally ready for full-on therapy.

Titia, it turns out, was going on a 3-week holiday of her own to Crete. We had one day to catch up and I'm glad we did. My physiotherapy would be taken over by Ingrid, one of the therapists I just adore - we had a great time laughing it up during fall training.

I didn't get much done in the way of fitness - my 'flu' bug just kept me tired and more in need of recliner rehab than rowing machines. But by the next week (June 8), I would get completely back up to speed, even increasing some weights by Thursday.

All in all it's been a good transition back though wrought with the usual rough patches as I continue to answer the inevitable 20+ questions post vacation from everyone at Blixembosch. It just gets tiring after a while. Everyone always asked the same questions and you hear yourself trying to come up with better answers - shorter, more positive, more interesting, more true. Obviously no one at Bb knows about my blog...

I did get a chance to redeem myself last night and share the blog with Nico's parents - the photos and videos, of course. Nico's dad really liked the cars, as I thought. We keep forgetting to bring him the chocolate fudge, darn it.

Today, I have the day off. Fridays has been one of my meditation days but the class has ended so my Friday sessions have been moved to other days. I'm now in therapy three days a week, M/T/T.

I also met with the company doctor Wednesday. To my surprise, he was not prepared to set a date for my transition back to work. Again, he just said, "whenever you're ready." So, I told him that after my therapy ends in 2-3 months, I'm going to need something to do. Might as well start up then. Back to the drawing board!

Since conditions in his client's garden are too wet for work today, we're going to drive over to a camera store in Belgium (30 minutes). I have plenty else to do but it sounded fun. However, I wanted to get an entry in this morning since it's been too long with catching up - and there's still so much more to share: how my plants have grown, how the weather has been, what furniture has been added to the balcony, how my strength is since I got back, what about the bunnies. But there'll be time for that.

Take care and keep in touch.