It was as usual, drama again before I was sitting my bum down in the plane. The Gauguin copy I have been doing was standing outside to dry quicker, and as I went out with my luggage, I saw it, and as the woman had already payed me, I did not want anything to happen to it, so I put my stuff down and carried the painting into the house, went outside again, got in the car, and away we went to the airport. We were a bit late, so I went completely numb as I opened the boot, and it was empty. I asked Irma where my luggage was, and she said that she didn't know, and by this time I was shivering like a bally blamange! We ran to the weighing-inn counter, and explained to the man what was going on, and he said well, most people are already waiting to board, but their was still some time, and he could maybe hold the plain for fifteen minutes at the longest, so Irma flew away like Walt Disney's roadrunner, and I stood biting my nails to the flesh! Luckily we were only about ten kilometres from the airport, and Irma must have driven like a demented racer, as the flight was only kept back about five minutes! I was very, very glad when at last I boarded, and did not even mind the accusing stares of the other passengers! I had to transfer at Johannesburg airport, and thanked the technology that made it possible for my luggage to be forwarded to my end destination!
I had to get the train at Amsterdam to a place called Zwolle, as that is where my new employer would meet me, and took a bus from the airport to the trainstation in Amsterdam, where I was almost flattened within minutes by a bally tram! The things are so silent, and although I was warned to watch out for them, I forgot, and walked ever so stupidly and without looking left or right, and almost expired!  After a bit of worrying I found the right train, and thankfully sat down for the last leg of my journey.
Arina, my new employer was a pretty woman of about forty five, and said she was very glad to see me, as she had a golfing tour with friends to Spain, and her husband was really poorly. As indeed he was! He was in bed when we arrived, and we went up to his room for me to be introduced, and I had a shock, as he was not only looking poorly, he looked to be on his last legs! I could not believe that the woman would go away and leave her husband when he looked to be at death's door, which he was, as he died suddenly, just after she came back from her tour! It was a shock, but Arina asked me to stay on and look after the farm while she went jauntering later. There was a man who came to feed the wild animals every night, as it was a game farm. I had to see that the fences were always intact, and just generally keep an eye. It was the most horrific ten days, just after the old man's death, as he was lying in state, in a glass cask in the entrance hall, and his face was pulled into a horrible grimace, and I had to pass him whenever I had to go into the house! The old Dutch houses creaked a lot, and every time it happened while the man was lying there, I jumped about a metre in the air! On top of all this, Arina played this heavy music as loud as she could, and I saw her having long conversations with him, and I wondered if she was trying to  maybe make up for her neglect, but a friend of his who came to pay his respects said she was ten to one trying to pry information about his estate out of him. Well, I did not want to think badly of her, so I tried not to think about it at all! But all this passed, and as I had the most beautiful cottage in the woods, I was content, by now doing quite well on the bicycle.