The Church Bells

6:44am and raining. Very dark out. Stays dark until 8:30 or 9 depending on the weather.
Should be suiting up for the run to the zwemen pool.
But I'm here with some hot chocolate instead.

So the firing went mostly ok.
The second batch is in.
The lace pieces are all dipped, with varying degrees of success and drying.
The immigration did not fare quite as well as all else. I have to leave asap and won't be able to return for 6 months.
Wonderful stuff. Lesson learned. Will do much more diligence before my next residency, or any other attempt to live abroad. Or, I'll have the section of my brain that follows rules and worries about breaking them removed and enjoy the bliss.

Couldn't spend the day dwelling on it though because I had to cook dinner for 14 people. It was a rather New York afternoon. Wind blasting out from unexpected corners, and alot of mileage -- kilometerage? -- with an overly heavy pack. Although I can't say I could ever imagine myself carring 3 jumbo cans of peaches and 2 bottles of wine, scallions, basmati, butter, eggs, honey (jarred) in search of fresh chickens. But no one knows what the future will bring. Me most of all.

Couldn't have imagined that not dealing all day long -- and maybe an unecessary extra glass of Albert Hein's finest bottle of 'Espana' would end me up -- wide awake at 2:30 and listening to the church bells for every hour thereafter. In between sorting through everything cycling through my brain -- all the work that needs to be done and seems farther away with every day, just how I'm going to get out of here with my ginormous suitcase and it's little friend, and just what route that now may take -- I wondered why the cathedral has the bells ring all night long. I never noticed them after midnight before. Not that I'm normally up to listen for them of course. But it's interesting all the same. Maybe they ring all night to keep time for the one bird on the canal that happily sings all night long. Who's to say?