Or at least the houseguests. After train rides to Paris and Brugge and a trip on a tour bus to see the wind mills, the Move Goddess and Rose Princess returned to Seattle. Currently, the guest suite at Hotel Small Dog is occupied by Rupert and Meredith. Or perhaps I should refer to them as Lead Instructors from the School of Chillaxing. In other words, they specialize in the cross disciplinary study of chilling out and relaxing. They are a good influence.

This time last year, my last little bunny passed away. She was well over 12 and the last of the 5 Mom and I had rescued. She went in her sleep overnight and is buried in Lawyerella’s backyard along with her sister, underneath a fig tree. Today is also the 12th anniversary of Ninja’s passing. He’s the Akita we grew up with. As my mother was fond of saying if she had to do it all over again, she would have had four Akitas instead of four kids!

Today Eliza left Amsterdam, going back to the proper city of London. We had a last dinner on Wednesday at Café Goos a few blocks away with her friend, James and Rupert and Meredith. I know our table was laughing for hours. I am not sure if all the other tables understood all the crazy stories from the overgrown kid in big boy pants (Rupert). And this morning James came to drop off Eliza’s bike, two boxes of tea, a bottle of vodka and a bottle of red wine. I didn’t really think today would actually come but it did.

In a couple of weeks, it looks like I will be going to Africa for work for a week. I think it was sort of a case where I definitely leapt without looking. However, I think it will come out okay. At any rate I will end up with more story material! I will know more next week. This is not something I had anticipated but hey, with some serious vaccinations and a visa (which I will have to go down to Brussels to get) I will be ready to go. After all, it has rained here all day and it will be nice to get somewhere warm.