It's Sunday afternoon and I'm taking a day off (well, not really, still in my little showroom for the event a customer decides to take advantage of our 7 days a week open policy, but I have no 'real' work activities planned = day off) and spend this 'lazy' time to fulfil a promise I recently made Dawud and Adam, but also to Liz this
Monday: I'm showing my Face behind my Blog(s) (not counting the 'framed' one since 19 May). The 'Collection' meme was instigated by David Airey.
As luck will have it, recently my mother presented me with a wonderful gift: an 'old-fashion' picture book filled with pictures of......me! (Thanks moeder).
Let's start at the beginning:
This is me: 1 day old
Me, on the right, with my 'big' brother Pierre (now insisting to be called Fiep, don't ask why!) in the box
This was taken when I was around 4 years old, already at the same length as my 'big' brother (who was 6 then).
The arrival of our younger brother Pim (plus the arrival of colour pictures) I'm the one on the left. We still lived in an apartment block, but would move to a terraced council house (brand new!)with own garden the following year.
This was taken during our first foreign holiday (to Italy, but the old DAF 32 didn't take us further than Bavaria in Germany). We had loads of fun anyway, visited Schloss Neuschanstein, and swam and peddled a lot.
Normally we spent the whole of the summer holidays (6 weeks on a roll) and weekends before and after the holidays in Zeeland: Renesse.
Talking about holidays. The best one (the once in a life time I think) I ever had was in 1994: two weeks of canoeing in Sweden. I let the pictures speak for themselves, nature doesn't need words, not does pure enjoyment, relaxation (including 'home-built' sauna), great company (we started as 'strangers'), the best weather imaginable etc etc etc. (The first picture is the one I promised Liz)
And to finish, some more recent pictures from our latest travels to our home town Bergen op Zoom:
Diner with from left to right: nephew Gijs (son of my 'little' brother Pim), me, my mother, my 'big' brother Fiep, Ton my partner and my niece Marleen (daughter of my 'little' brother Pim). I seem to have ended up in the middle: middle in age, middle in length where the youngest (Pim) is the longest (almost 2 meter!)
And this was taken by my brother's Fiep mobile phone: me and my sister-in-law Carla (Ton's sister) enjoying the Jazz, warm weather and a drink at the cutest little square in Bergen op Zoom: Het Beursplein.
Well, that's me. Over to you now.
Karin! Fabulous! How wonderful it a gift that you shared here. Thank you so much. I see so much -- love, joy, and family. I feel like I've met them.
It's Father's Day here, so give folks some time to stop by to take a peek.
Thank you again!
Posted by: Liz Strauss | June 17, 2007 at 08:31 PM
Hi Karin,
Great post! I'm a big camping fan and love the outdoors. You look like you had some excellent times in Sweden.
Thanks very much for linking to my original post. I'll add this article to my list there.
All the best.
Posted by: David Airey :: Creative Design :: | June 17, 2007 at 08:53 PM
Hi Liz
Thanks for dropping by, glad you 'enjoy' my family ;-) They are nice bunch. Gift from my mother was really wonderful, don't you miss the 'old' times when you don't have pictures to look back on? I can 'travel back in time' any time now.
Hi David.
Sweden was extreme enjoyment, in every way possible. (Learned a lot about myself too those weeks.)
Camping, nature, it seems to bring out the best of us.
Thanks for dropping by and for instigating this collection.
Karin H.
Posted by: Karin H. | June 18, 2007 at 12:11 PM
Great pictures. The kid pix look like the ones my mother sends every so often of my childhood. And the canoeing trip looks like it was missing one thing - me!
Thanks for sharing these.
Posted by: Kent Blumberg | June 18, 2007 at 12:49 PM
Hi Kent
Don't we all have the same type of kid pictures to enjoy and remeniss over time after time? (well, the baby-boomers generation mostly I think, later boys and girls don't have that 'pleasure' - somehow looking at digital pictures on the MS-viewer doesn't really bring you back in time as holding those black and white, some even with ragged edges, in your hand ;-))
I have a full picture book (with notes and other memories written down during or shortly after the holiday) of the canoeing trip. Just recently 're-found' it in a cupboard and spend hours remembering every hour of it ;-)
Karin H
Posted by: Karin H. | June 18, 2007 at 01:04 PM
Karin, I love 'meeting' you again for the first time. What a wonderful sharing. Thank you so much for answering my tag.
And I just love the 1-day old photo...
Posted by: Dawud Miracle | June 18, 2007 at 01:41 PM
Hi Dawud
I was a very, very sweet 1-day old baby ;-) Didn't stay that way though ;-) (Very boisterous teenager I turned in to, just ask me mum - or brothers for that matter - they can tell lots of stories about their horrible sister ;-))
Karin H.
Posted by: Karin H. | June 18, 2007 at 01:48 PM