Dear mom, we love you, we miss you!

This time, we went by car and ferry: we drove to Dunkerque, took the ferry to Dover, and drove the last part, to their new house in Newbury. “What? Where? Didn’t they live in Bristol?” Yes, they did, but not anymore. They moved earlier this year. We hadn’t been there yet. In fact, we hadn’t seen them since December! Back then, Willem was 7 months and Marijn only 2 months old! So, it was very nice seeing each other again.

We had a lovely, relaxed couple of days. On Saturday, we visited Tintern Abbey and made a walk in the surrounding area. On Sunday, we just strolled around through town. Unfortunately, I was a bit sick both days, but that didn’t stop me from walking.

All in all, we had a nice weekend, some time to read a book, chat with each other, and relax.

On the “professional” level: my first month as a software engineer has come and gone. And I’m allowed to stay! I’m very pleased with the job, so far, it’s nice, it’s interesting, and it’s challenging. And with a bit of luck, before long, I will be able to do most of it from home!

So, we arrived on Saturday evening. We were picked up at the airport by my brother and his wife! (Last year, they didn’t have a car yet – they got it about one week after we left – so we had to take the bus then.) They brougt us to their new house.

“Hey”, the observant reader will say, “didn’t they move last year?”
Yes, you’re right, they did. But they moved again. That’s why we went to visit them, to see their new house!

This time they bought a house, and a very nice one too. Brand new, 5 minutes walk from the station, 5 minutes walk from a large shopping centre.

On Saturday evening, we went out for dinner. They said they hadn’t properly congratulated us yet with our engagement!
Weak excuse, but hey, you don’t hear me complaining!

On Sunday, we went to Big Pit, National Mining Museum of Wales. Big Pit is a coal mine, that stopped working in 1980, and was turned into a museum. Very interesting, the main attraction being an underground tour by an old miner with a terrible Welsh accent. Amazing to experience – albeit just a little bit – the dreadful conditions these miners had to work in.

On Monday, Irene and I visited @Bristol, “a place of discovery and surprise”. There are several attractions, such as Wildwalk, an indoor rainforest, and the IMAX Theatre, but we visited Explore@Bristol, a sort-of interactive science museum. No difficult science, all very easy, but with a lot of nice simple experiments – great for children! Even big children, like ourselves. Finally, the Imaginarium (see photo), something like our Omniversum in The Hague, showed an interesting short movie about our solar system, “Oasis In Space”.

I’ve been working on three articles at the same time.
We had a deadline for a conference on April 9, there was a deadline for a final version of an accepted paper on April 19, and I had a conference in the Slovak Republic from April 21 to April 24. On April 12 there was the registration deadline for that conference, and of course, the trip there had to be arranged. The final version of the article I had to present there was on April 5th, and the presentation itself had to be ready on April 22nd, when I had to present it.

In the mean time, there were the birthdays of both my parents-in-law, my girlfriend, her grandmother and my father, birthday parties for two other friends, and more.

Well, that’s why I haven’t had much time lately to update my weblog.

What’s worse, I got the key to my new appartment yesterday, so that will probably take all my free time in the next couple of weeks!

(B.T.W. For more information about the Spring Conference on Computer Graphics, in Budmerice, Slovak Republic, check out their website. I expect there will be some photos published shortly.)