All the best

Unfortunately, I do not have the opportunity to write a personal message to all of you, although I wish I had.

It must be the time of the year, as many memories cross my mind while sitting behind the stove at night.

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to each and every one of you.

Waste

The butterflies are still around and birds are nesting. One couple of birds has made a nest in the drain coming from the roof. Since a few days I hear little ones.

A very dangerous spot this is, because as soon as it will be raining water will be running through the drain.

Last spring, the same thing happened and one morning everything came out with the water.

Yesterday morning, it was all clouded and a cold wind was blowing. Afterwards it rained a little bit. We all thought “the rain” had arrived, but today it is sunny again.

The soil is all dry and dust is everywhere. The sun is at its lowest and days short. A reminder that it is winter.

Zakaria is having a lot of fun helping out Papa (or “Baba” when he’s talking to his Dad) with the cutting of the olive trees. Dead or superfluous branches have to be taken away to keep the trees healthy. This is usually done during the picking of the olives, but this year we hired a group of about 20 young women to harvest. Not only did they need supervision, but they also worked fast. In 2 days they had collected more than half. The rest of the work was left for the family.

Zakaria talks quite well these days, sometimes more clearly than other times. He still loves to babble in a kind of baby language.

Sometimes it uses a copy of a phrase that I use a lot or one that he learned from the fairytales. Sometimes he uses a word of which he didn’t get quite the meaning. I always tell him that leaving the tap open is a waste of water. Every time I open the tap, he tells me it is a waste in a disapproving tone.