Last Sunday we returned from the Netherlands. Fortunately, both the outward and return journeys went smoothly. Still, the journey started just as excitingly…

The evening before we were to leave, I suddenly received a text from the hotel where we would sleep the first night. The message asked me to make a 3D scan of my credit card and to transfer the amount of the overnight stay. According to the report, they had a lot of problems with ghost bookings. It all looked quite professional and believable.

Still, I didn’t quite trust it. When I googled the sender’s name, it turned out to be a company from India. Aha… so we won’t fall for that. Ten minutes later I received the exact same message again, only this time in German instead of English. This time it supposedly came from “Reception Hotel”. Only I happened to know that the hotel had no reception at all — it had been replaced by a check-in computer.

The messages looked so realistic that I can imagine people falling for them. After some searching on the internet, it turned out that my booking details had probably been stolen in a hack. Afterwards I also noticed that the number of spam telephone calls suddenly increased considerably. Fortunately, that largely stopped after the overnight stay.

Anyway, apart from that we had a really nice time in the Netherlands. It was nice to see everyone again. Sometimes it was quite busy, partly because we also helped with a move, but that didn’t spoil the fun.

And of course we thoroughly enjoyed all kinds of things that are not available here: a smoked sausage sandwich, Chinese food with babi pangang, hair salon, egg balls… you name it. The strange thing is that, as long as you live in the Netherlands, you hardly think about that kind of food. It is always there, on every street corner or can simply be picked up quickly. It’s only when you live somewhere where it isn’t available that you suddenly start to really want it.

Yesterday we finally returned home. First we drove from Emmen to Weeze, returned the rental car there and then flew to Porto. From there we return home with our own car. What I can’t get used to is the time difference between Portugal and Spain. You drive into Spain at nine o’clock in the evening and think: “Great, another hour and a half drive.” And then suddenly the clock jumps to ten o’clock. I continue to find that confusing.

This morning we immediately started assembling the IKEA garden furniture for the veranda. They were delivered exactly one day before departure, so that job was still waiting for us.

In the meantime, Yvonne still has plenty of work to do in the vegetable garden. To be honest, I have never seen such huge heads of lettuce. Unfortunately the tomatoes did not survive the rain, but the broccoli is really doing well.

First fill the cupboards with groceries again and mow the lawn tomorrow. After that, hopefully we’ll be a bit more “attuned” again. According to the weather forecast, it will be 27 degrees again later this week, so we also have to go out for summer duvets.

In short: back home, but still plenty to do for now.

P.S. Last week in the Netherlands I apparently got the Dutch pace back, because I wrote a blog almost every day. So you may occasionally receive a blog from last week in your mailbox this week. However, this blog is just from today.

Because there is a time limit on responding, this option may have expired for older blogs.

I’ve set up the newsletter so that a blog will appear in your mailbox every morning at 8 a.m. this week — that is, if you’ve signed up for it.