This was supposed to be yesterday's post. Since I'm always in Leiden on Tuesdays, and not teaching, i.e. not running around like a headless chicken all day long, I thought I'd make Tuesday the Leiden day on the blog too. However, by virtue of it being a Leiden day, it's also an Isabelle-less day, and so things being as they are, it's a day when I miss her real bad and get easily side-tracked into posting lovely pictures of her bench-sitting days.
Today, on the other hand. Our first bicycle ride to the biological farmers market in town was not quite as planned. For one thing, it was bloody cold, as in toe-splitting, cheek-cracking, butt-numbing cold. Being on a bike did not make it better. Isabelle started screaming after five minutes, and never stopped. Secondly, our brand-new bicycle bags which we bought just today, and whose job should have been to carry all the shopping, simply refused to be put onto the bike. So I had to carry it all on my back, with the added excitement of having Isabelle swinging the backpack from left to right (and back) in a desperate attempt at entertaining herself out of this eskimo weather. We almost fell a couple of times, but the funniest bit was when I got mad, and started shouting 'Isabelle' every time she did it, and there were at least fifteen women on the way home who turned their heads looking really worried. Apparently, it was a popular name 40 years ago too.
So today, I dream of Leiden, the quiet, the oldness, the brave white rose fighting her way into the spring.
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