2010 Reflections

Christmas and Year 2010 reflections

Another year has flown by and here I am again New Years day reflecting on the year that has passed. I feel like I am writing the last of the three books of the Swedish writer, Wilhelm Moberg, ‘Emigrants’, ‘Immigrants’ and ‘New settlers’. Sitting in our own home, looking out on our own garden. What a feeling. It felt nice and special to celebrate our Christmas here, and we had a nice cold white Christmas. I remember all they years I went looking at my furniture stored at our family’s cottage, and wondering if, when and where they would find their final spot, and now I have landed, and digging down roots.

Berge Veterinary Consulting and Professor Berge
This year was a bit slow on the work front. I guess I was hit a bit of the financial recession too.
I have expanded my consulting services to now include the Baltic countries and Russia. I enjoy working with Eastern Europe and I feel very lucky to work with businesses and farmers in all different situations and countries. In August I participated in the European Association for Animal Production on Crete for a week. A very nice place for a conference, and I enjoyed the conference as well as the placing.
I became guest professor at the Ghent University early 2010, and this is a nice position that allows me to keep a foot in the academic scientific world, while working in the real world with the animal agricultural industry. I assist Prof Jeroen DeWulf with his graduate students and their research projects. Jeroen and I co-chaired a meeting in the epidemiology of antimicrobial resistance at the annual meeting of Society for Veterinary Preventive Medicine that was held in Nancy, France.

Biking
In early spring I was training hard for some ultra rides. The early winter months were not conducive to riding outdoors and several miles were covered on the trainer trying to get fit for the season. I finally convinced Marc to buy a mountain bike, and during Easter vacation in Sweden, we explored the forest roads around our summer house on Hallandsåsen. My biking season came to a grinding halt on 8 May, when on a recovery ride after a 200 km brevet ride in the Ardennes, I hit a pothole, and down I went. I woke up on the pavement, and then ambulance to Halle Hospital. I was fortunate that I had no neck injuries, but my collar bone was crunched. It resulted in surgery. A trip to talk at the Alltech Annual Symposium in Kentucky had to be cancelled, and I was back on the bike trainer indoors.
Our focus then became to get me in good enough health to be able to go to France in July. The French Alps, again, offered us plenty of good riding. We spent 5 days in Vars, close to the Italian border and thereafter a week in Allemont, a village between Alp d’Huez and Croix de Fer. Then back to move into our new house, and biking became an occasional activity. We had a nice weekend in October when we went biking in the Ardennes and stayed overnight there. Fall colours were magnificent and the air was crisp and clear.


Oulstbergstraat 24.

On Midsummer Day, June 24, we signed the final contract for our new house and got the keys. We celebrated with dinner at our new house, and then left for France for our bike vacation. When we came back from France, we re-painted the living room and kitchen. We had our big moving day on July 26 (our wedding day), and a neighbour of Stuart and Micheline, Claude DeKeyzer, helped us with the heavy furniture. After 2 wonderful weeks in Sweden, we returned back to Belgium and continued with major work getting rid of debris from the garden and building the chicken pen. We quickly found that our neighbours Joseph and Annie were extremely helpful and skilled. It nearly became standard procedure; ‘Let us ask Joseph’. While I was on Crete for a conference, Marc became a frequent visitor of the container park, and I think he lost count at around 18 trips to the container park with a fully load Toyota RAV4. My parents visited us in September and were of great help to finish of several carpentry tasks, making curtains, etc. We had a great time together, and we had some of my parents’ old Belgian friends over for dinner and it was nice to see these ‘old acquaintances’. I contacted Claude, the man who helped us move, to help us finish off some interior walls in the garage and the ‘cat room’ that had never been done. Claude did an outstanding job and the garage is now all in wooden panels. Naturally, we have ‘childhood’ diseases that come with a ‘new home’, but Marc and I are slowly becoming knowledgeable home owners. We are so happy about this house, this garden, and this neighbourhood.

Family life
Our family has expanded a bit with new family members. My friend Ewout gave me two hens and a rooster belonging to an old Belgian breed: Antwerpse baardkrielen. Laura and Stina are good layers and hardy little birds that despite my best intentions insist on sleeping in the tree at night. I put them inside their new hen house when it is too cold, so that I sleep better. Oskar has taken his rooster tasks seriously and crows in the morning, and I hope that he also takes his rooster task seriously this coming spring, so that I can get little chickens. Pöna, one of my previous hens, left us, but Höna recovered from serious disease this spring, and Sotis is a fantastic layer and she is becoming very tame.
Leo and Sara like their new home and their own room has now been renovated to an extremely nice cat room.
Marc is becoming a good gardener. He likes cutting down branches and removing plants, and my dad gave him a few appropriate pruning tools so now we have many naked trees in our garden. We have prepared the grounds for a vegetable garden next spring.

One of Marc’s great passions is music. We have been to several great concerts this year. I am sure that Marc’s absolute favorite was Melissa Etheridge in Amsterdam. But we also had a great time at the Roxette outdoor concert in Halmstad. Other concerts included Natalia, Closeau, Silver and Milk Inc.

Friends, family and loved ones; we have so many, but most contacts have been through email and phone. A a few special ‘in person’ visits was Nancy Farzan moving to Belgium and visiting us, Monica Shipley, coming from California, and Stuart and Michelline coming from Italy. A short visit to Didier and Edith, Joanne and Nathan. When I was in Sweden before Christmas I managed to come right in time for glögg party by our cousin Mats, and a fun evening with Anna in Uppsala. We got to participate in Marc’s friend Patrick’s wedding to Shunyan, and I spent a Saturday showing Marc where I grew up in Berg, Linköping and a nice day with Kerstin and Janne.

I wish I could have time for more visits and that more friends will come and visit us in years to come. I wish that we all, you all, stay healthy and happy. I pray for blessings upon all of you!

So, I picked out a few photos of the year..
Click on link to see photos
http://cid-9c4b1255d491ba5c.skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?page=play&resid=9C4B1255D491BA5C!712

Cat.



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