Back on my feet

Three weeks after the surgery we had planned to go back one week to Lagos. Reason was that I wanted to be back in the office to check on the company and his finance team. December is high season and has a big impact on the final result. By staying away too long I did not feel comfortable. I was flying back business class and Viv was with Ayo in Economy Class. In reality it turned out that being in Business Class with your foot in a cast is an expensive form of economy class when you can not put your ‘bigfoot’ on the couch. I really struggled the whole week at work. It is different making coffee and sit the whole day on the couch at home versus being a whole day in the office. Climbing the stairs on one foot, walking the whole time on crutches and having serious back pains from the leg length difference of the walker. In the whole recovery process my ankle was not the problem, my biggest suffering has been back pain. In the Netherlands Viv pushed me around in a wheelchair. this way we went to see Jack playing badminton competition. Normally we aren't around, be now we could see him play.

On December 18th we were at the orthopaedic surgeon for check-up. At the end of the check-up she asked me, did you bring your normal shoe? Which I had not… But the great news was that when I was home I could remove the walker (plastic cast) and as long as I was using a brace for my ankle, I could start walking with crutches and normal shoes. The other good news was that if the recovery process would be normal, I would be able to ski in March! Suddenly I was ‘mobile’ again and earlier than I had expected. The week after that we went on holiday with the Kleinjan Clan we first went to Bad Gleichenberg, the town where Robin and Armin live, to celebrate Sinterklaas. We had rented a 9 person van to make the travel do-able. Since I could not drive yet and Noa, Jack and Hugo still do not have their driving licenses, Viv did all the driving and she did great. It remains for me a wonder that you can finalise a Master Degree but fail for the driving license theory exam. But I will not mention names. We had a sleepover at Nurnberg Airport and arrived Christmas Day at Armin & Robin’s. After dinner Viv and I went back to the apartment and the younger generation agreed to go out. Robin was the voluntary Bob (driver). At 03.30 am Vivienne wakes me up that Hugo is already since 01.30 in the bathroom/loo. Robin brought him home earlier since he was ‘drunk’ and he wanted to take a shower. 03.30 is not my favourite part of the day so I went ‘full speed’ on my crutches to the bathroom, but in the middle of the living room I stepped with both feet in ……. water, coming from the shower……. While I was knocking on the door (no reaction) I opened the lock from the outside. By that time Hugo was standing in the middle of the bathroom looking very surprised by my action. I told him that the living room floor was full of water. Hugo than spoke the famous words; No Way, not true, I do not believe you. So what happened: Hugo was tired and sat down under the shower and with his butt he blocked the sewage. Luckily it was Sinterklaas the next day so we all updated our poems for him. Especially when Robin told us that when she was bringing him home by car, she had to make an emergency stop, since Hugo did not feel too well and left a souvenir downtown Bad Gleichenberg.

We went to see Armin's parents, Fritz and Edith. They had prepared a wonderful lunch. Robin and Armin picked up 90 year old Oma Victoria/Vicky. We drove through the hills of Bad Gleichenberg to their friends house, because that was a bit bigger to host the whole Kleinjan family.

From Bad Gleichenberg we drove to Brixen in Thale, close to Kitzbuhl, for skiing together with Ard and Louise and their girls. We slept in a tiny little garden house. Never ever seen anything like this. With the five of us we could hardly fit. Friday morning Ailsa flew back to the Netherlands to pick up their dog Zara, she didn't fancy skiing.

The apartment in Brixen in Thale had a perfect location, very close to the ski

lifts and we had beautiful weather. I can not comment too much on the skiing itself. The only remark about the skiing is that I sometimes joined for lunch and took the cable car up the mountain. And it is really one of the worst experiences in the world is look at other people skiing while you can’t. One day we went to St Johan in Tirol to ski with the Zuills and had lunch on the mountain. Armin was also not skiing, he was focussed on getting fit and decided to go cross-country skiing every day. But since it was relatively warm, the group very often stopped already after lunch with skiing. We had a great week and as usual good fun with the vanderMeijsjes. We decided to leave on Friday-afternoon and drove the same day home. The good thing that during the week I stopped using crutches and also started to drive again, just two little bits, but it helped Viv to drive home in one go.