Yesterday I spent the day with Tante Roelie (Mum's sister) and her son Gerben.  Gerben came and picked Maddi and I up and then we went to Tante Roelie's to have a cuppa, look at her house and pick her up.  She lives in a nice quiet neighbourhood and her house has 3 storeys with plenty of room.  She is also a very good artist (she does painting and drawings/pastels) and I got to see quite a bit of her work.  We then went to Germany (the border is 8 km away) to Gerben's house (4km into Germany).  He has a really big house (the biggest I've seen on my trip so far) and a good sized property (it looks like maybe 3 acres?) all in a very nice quiet farming area.  Gerben is actually a good artist too and it was nice to see some of his work.  I still remember trying to draw a horse on the board when I was a teacher and the kids asking me if it was a dog...

This is his house from the back.  It still needs a fair bit of work to make it extra nice, but the basics are very good quality and possible to work with.  The room with the balcony is a really nice sunny room as it has windows in the roof as well.  This is what he can see when outside the front :

Gerben also has a nice motorbike!  It is 1100cc, 160hp Honda Super Black Bird.  I got to have a ride on the back of it and see the beautiful farming countryside...

...we only went 190km/hour once....
All in all we had a very nice day together!

I had dinner with Tante Bertha and Oom Ben again that night.  Tante Bertha rode into Hardenberg and picked up some Kibbeltjes from the fish van which was luckily still there (small pieces of deep fried fish).
After dinner Oom Wim came over for a bit and Maddi read the newspaper with him and Tante Bertha.