I realized on Friday that none of the poeple I need to work with will actually be here for the last couple of weeks of my time in the Netherlands; the main Taiwanese guy goes home on April 12, and the main Dutch guy will be on holiday after the 7th. I was thinking of making the point to my boss that I ought to leave a bit sooner myself, until I realized that I had just committed myself to plans for every weekend I’m supposed to be here. Mostly they’re just rowing, but there’s also a confirmation for a friend who’s joining the Anglican Church.
I think it’s safe to mention here that I realized I also had the perfect gift for her: the socks I’ve just finished (the first one is on the left in this picture). I asked around among mutual friends for her shoe size, and I think they will fit.
Speaking of the socks, I had a bit of trauma with them this weekend. I was knitting happily in the nice warm upstairs lounge of the RIC rowing club, went outside to cheer for Rudder and his partner as they rowed by in their race. I finished binding off just as they came back into the dock after their race, stuffed the sock and needles into their bag and the bag into my handbag, and went downstairs to help them in. A little later while I was waiting for the guys to change, shower and come upstairs, I looked into my bag and realized one of the needles was missing. I looked everywhere I could think of, couldn’t find it. That was upsetting, because though Addi is a German company, and you’d think would be easily available here, they’re not sold in the local yarn shop. (In the process of asking others if they’d seen it, I described Addi Turbos as being “like the Empachers of the knitting world”. I don’t know if any knitting rowers or rowing knitters read this, but I’m pretty sure any who do would agree.)
Despite his lingering cold, Rudder and his partner did fairly well in their race – they came in right at the middle of the pack, which isn’t bad in a race full of Olympians and national team members. There was a lot more wind than they’d have preferred, and a bit more chill, but it was warmed than it’s been and the on and off sunlight was very welcome.
That night I proved to my satisfaction that it is possible to knit magic loop method on a 24″ circ, at least with a children’s sock. It would have been a bit easier with a longer one, though.
The next day, we went back to the boathouse to watch my former doubles partner compete. For that day I’d arranged to borrow a bike from someone else who as coming to cheer her on – she also lent me a spare pair of rainpants. For once they weren’t much too big, mostly because her daughters wore them at around age 12. The weather was a little better than when I did the same ride 2 weeks ago, but still windy, cool, and raining on and off. Unfortunately my friend went into the race a bit overtired (she erged a marathon three weeks ago and has been training very heavily since) so she didn’t do quite as well as she’d have liked, but still finished respectively in the pack.
Rudder leaves this Saturday, but may actually be back for my last week here. I’m into the second half of my time here and am beginning to look forward to getting back home: the ability to cook for myself, all my clothing, several Beads of the Month packages and an order of yarn that have arrived since I’ve been gone, and the chance to get my life a bit more in order.
(Especially that last part. This morning featured the discovery that my Taiwanese credit card is NOT auomatically paid, as I had been told. The results were as ugly as they are predictabe – good thing I still have a US card! They claim I can transfer money to pay off the card from here at an ATM but I’ll believe that when I see it happen.)