One thing great about being born in the Netherlands or up North is that we know from humongous experience that we will not melt with one drop or a bit more of rain. How blessed we were to ‘have’ Maarten, the tall blond Viking-surfer who came driving all the way down off the tip of Groningen who withstood the many hours of grayness and rain in November.

During his stay we first finished filling up line 12 with cuttings and seed and after that we managed to prepare the southern half of line 11 till 8 and the shorter lines 7 and 6. Meanwhile we made a visit to the municipality depot for mulch and created another monster of a compost pile which Maarten duly fed with a powerful batch of his own urine. Well done Maarten, you are the Real Thing.

In the nick of time, the ordered trees arrived and we planted them in the rows that had been waiting for them on our very last working day.

It goes without saying that Maarten had no need to fear Sinterklaas and could drive
down South the morning after the party with a rightly satisfied feeling.