Tag Archives: cat

Day 10 – … Shelter From the Storm

We woke up and it was still gushing down, as it had the whole night. Flo and Number 3 hopped into the house to prepare breakfast, the Agent and I took a little longer. It was not only wet, it was cold as well.

our kids win in the gear department, for sure. We have some things to add to our list …

We had breakfast with Emma (I completely missed Johan that morning) and then both of them were off. Our blog needed quite a bit of love and care and the weather was still miserable so we decided to stay on the porch next to the heating lamp and blog. When the rain stopped, the kids started exploring the garden and grounds around Emma’s and Johan’s house. This short pause in the rainfall fooled us and we prepared to go out to the lake in Länna. Right before we left, it started pouring down again so Flo and I threw on ponchos in the hopes to stay somewhat dry. Except for the core, it failed.

first you feed me the blue jummy, then you take a photo – you for real?

Back at the house, it was lunch time already and decision time was getting close. What would we do next? All this rain was wearing us down. Flo dreaded taking down the tent soaking wet and I just. didn’t. want. to. have. cold. wet. feet. anymore.

So Emma gave us shelter. Johan and her both let us stay in their driveway for one more night. Giving us shelter from the dreadful weather. With the urban camping came access to a house, complete with roof. It was dry and warm, had tea and coffee and cookies, a cat, a couch to lounge and everything else that one could want in a house. Shelter. Thank you so much guys to keep our lousy wet selves around.

Number 3 was quite smitten with Emma’s cat and managed to pat him in the afternoon. As Sigge is a rather old cat, he usually hides a lot but Number 3 was quiet and careful (for once) so he got cat pats as a reward. I’m actually quite proud of him.

Day 247 – Gate crashers

The chocolate sponge is done; the chocolate for the mousse layers is waiting...

The chocolate sponge is done; the chocolate for the mousse layers is waiting…

I promise, we did not know about the birthday before we decided to stay another day. When we told Lina and Michael that we would stay one more day before heading for Muscat, they said that today was Eric’s birthday and we were already invited to come along if we were still around. We liked Eric, his wife Emily and the other teachers we have met so far, so we were cautiously looking forward to it.

Going to any kind of celebration of people we have just met is always a bit stressful for us. Nina decided to fight this by channeling her anxiety into baking. This time we were prepared, though, and the triple chocolate birthday and goodbye cake came out pretty good for a spontaneous bake.

Isn't that amazing?

Isn’t that amazing?

The rest of the day was filled by active relaxing – a lot of TV on my part and sleeping for Nina. We also tried to tidy up the house a little (our mess, of course) to make it nice for our hosts when they come off work. Around 6.30 pm, they came home and everyone was ready to leave for the party.

The birthday was really nice. Our friends’ friends are pretty much all lovely, but probably the real kicker for us was that we had 80% introverts. I feel, that is just the right mix for any social gathering. Lorie Ann especially turned out to be blessed with a delightful sense of humor. The real star was the food, though. Eric’s wife Emily has outdone herself in my opinion with 27(!) different dips to go with the fresh fruit, veg, crackers and bread. It was a feast!

Nina’s comment: So.much.food. There was so much to try that by the time you were through once, there was barely enough room in the belly left to double up on your favourites. And there were dessert dips as well, including salted caramel, a key lime pie dip (my favourite!) and a whisky dip that had it in it. Our chocolate cake and Todd and Megan’s ice cream went well with everything else on offer, especially combined with the cookie dough dip…

And this is just the table with savoury dips...I had no time to take one of the sweet version of it =P

And this is just the table with savoury dips…I had no time to take one of the sweet version of it =P

Honorable mention needs to go out to their cat Solo. A rescued street urchin, he definitively provided ample entertainment for the night.

We also got to have a good chat with Jorge and his wife Abby. They aptly came to the gathering on Jorge’s KTM 950 Adventure (which he insists, he bought for his wife – to be pillion. His other bike is a single seat … 😉 ). He even was kind enough to bring and lend us one can of chain lube, which we forgot to buy in Dubai. Legend.

That was it then – our time in Sohar was almost up. Tomorrow, we will leave for Muscat.

 

 

Day 137 – Pleasant interruption

Nina spots all the cats

Nina spots all the cats

Relax and recharge, that is what we proscribed ourselves for today. The sun was out when we crawled out of our room after a decadently long sleep in our King size bed. Falling out of the bed. This was presently followed by an equally decadent breakfast.

After that, we went on a brief stroll around Tuk-Tuk to make use of the sunshine while it lasted. Truly brief though, and soon we were back at our Hotel, hogging Wi-Fi, milling about and doing some light blogging. Around 11 am two outside guests arrived while we were just finishing one of our blog posts. They had been around last night, and I could not help but comment on their rather lavish breakfast order. A brief conversation at shouting distance was sensibly brought to an end when we joined them at their table. Which is also where we spend the rest of the day!

Sorry Robin, 3/4 with eyes closed. I'd say that's a sign of inner calm

Sorry Robin, 3/4 with eyes closed. I’d say that’s a sign of inner calm

It was refreshing to be able to have an intelligent conversation with like minded people. Since Jogja, we were either missing the company or the language skills for it, but it was just the thing to get us in a good mood again. We sat with Germans Yana and Robin all day till 11 pm (way past bedtime for us ancient folk). The two are on a gap year / vacation before starting university. I must say, I was much impressed at the wisdom both of them already possessed – I am not sure if I was that good a company 10 years ago ;). It seems the FSJ (voluntary social service year introduced after the end of the draft) is good for some solid character building.

Thus, the day passed, as food and drink flowed in to keep up our discussions on traveling, politics, life and everything else. Not much to blog about really, other than to say that we had a great time. Maybe we will even meet the two of them again later on our trip.