Willothewisp

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The news from Nina and Judith in the UK is that everything has gone as well as can be expected, which is a great relief to us all. The meetings with the lawyers were horrid as expected and as expected the other side have declined at this point to settle, so now the civil case against the young woman who assaulted Nicky and Judith, ruining Judith’s eyesight in the process, will proceed.  It is hard to believe that it has been two years since the original incident and in that time her eyesight has gone from perfect to bad, to worse, to near blindness and then to poor but workable and now……………………………….. Well let us just be positive and send good thoughts.

Our biggest worry with this trip was how Judith would cope so far from her home ground given her acute problems with anxiety. The reports from Nina are that it has been hard work, requiring much deep relaxation, a lot of reassurance but that taking Jette along (their god daughter) has helped a great deal. Jette is great with the children and has a knack with Judith’s anxiety, all this in a petite package that is about to turn sixteen. Our very grateful thanks to Jette, and to her dad the ever patient Nick, for letting her go.

Nina has often commented that moving their family is like moving an army regiment, and being an army nurse I guess she would  know ! In this case it is an army of two adults, a teenager, three children, a baby and two guide dogs. Judith spent the last week before their departure  in a frenzy of organizing, ensuring that the right things were all washed, clean and in the correct bag.  The guide dogs had their vet checks and their doggy passports stamped. There was also the long list of instructions to the gardener brought in to look after the farm in miniature that is their garden. I was given a list of herbs, fruits and vegetables that I was to go and pick each evening with a promise on my part to feeding them to our family and not to waste them. We also got their cat Pip Amadeus. Pip is a little sweety, a twenty year old Birmin with a heart murmur, failing kidneys, arthritis, and irony of ironies, deaf and a little blind.

All this activity was of course Judith’s way of covering her terror at the prospect of the trip. On the plus side, in payment for looking after Pip she made us a liter of her strawberry  (aardbei) ice cream and another of Melon (Meleon). Strawberries from their garden, cream from her parent’s farm made from raw milk so believe me when I say “Payment made in full !”.

I can see I am drifting from the point here, so back to the report____________

Nina, bless her, let Judith’s frenetic activity and irritability of the week wash over her as the clock counted down. The girl has an endless patience with Judith that appears to be such a consummate skill that it can only come from a deep connection at a spiritual level, she is rock solid.  Before they left I gave Nina a prescription for Judith for valium should the worst happen and her anxieties overcome her tough self discipline. To date it has not been needed, I suspect this is down to Nina’s knowledge of her love and soul mate.

The girls engaged the services of a professional nanny during the day times as they would have to be in meetings much of each day. Happily London has kept it’s tradition of quality nanny agencies and the lady they provided was used to children with special needs. According to Jette she has taken even the prickly and smart assed Hilke and her body guard Jos in her stride. Between Jette and the nanny the girls have not had to worry about the children during the days which has been a great help.

On Monday Judith must be examined by doctors of the other side to ensure that her neurologist, neurophysiologist , neurosurgeon, ophthalmologist and family doctor (me) have not lied in our reports about the damage done in the assault  and the subsequent intracranial bleeds. It will be a tough day for both of them, for differing reasons, but we have faith in them. Above all else that English girl must learn humility. She must learn that you cannot take something so precious as good eyesight from someone as you stagger through life utterly selfishly, my family will not tolerate it. We are going to ensure she is impoverished perhaps through the loss of what matters most to her (money) she will learn.

On that vengeful note  I will say goodnight. Nina and Judith, our thoughts are with you and the children, as always.

Love, Nonke and Tyjardia, xxx.

Gelukkige Tiende Verjaardag

I fall in love with her every day as we wake and the first thing I see is her sleeping face, every time she smiles as she wakes. Her smile is the sun rising into my life. For eight years I have seen her smiles deepen the laugh lines like parentheses on her lovely cheeks, setting her mouth off from the sentence of her face as though it were a secret known only to me.”

These words were written by Judith a couple of years ago as part of a lovely story of love, passion, and wonderful celebratory sex. Ever since I read these words the passage stuck in my mind having sparked one of those “Yes!” moments.

Cees, Peter, Mia, Nonke and I would like to wish Judith and Nina a very happy anniversary, May 12th will mark their 11th year together.

If you are new to this site, or a casual visitor you might not be aware of the extraordinary and painful events that brought them together, but from that dreadfull time we have watched this beautiful partnership grow as they have both grown. Despite some continuing challanges they have forged ahead to build a nurturing home for four children.
When Nina started dating Judith I seriously wondered if poor Nina had any idea of what she was getting herself into but then as I came to know her I realised that she knew exactly what she had gotten into, indeed she was just where she wanted to be. She has a warrior spirit and one who had found a cause she that felt was worth fighting for, it was perfect timing and Judith’s very good fortune. In return Judith brought the partnership the stability offered by a rock solid family ethic and the discipline of a sharply focused mind.
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Happy Anniversary my darlings.
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Lots of Love from all of us, XXXX
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The screaming headline on the front page of Germany’s big newspaper Bild seemed to say it all “The Greeks want even more billions from us! – 25,000,000,000 Euro !” it shouted out in huge type face.

The paper was positively apoplectic in response to alarming estimates which confirm that if Germany (and most of the EU Euro Zone) is to bail out Athens, it will have to put three times the amount of money on the table than the sum that was being discussed only days ago, and that is just for one year. A German friend summed up the German view;

“Suddenly our politicians have got billions of euros for Greece. It is a country that has been living beyond its means for decades. It has lied and cheated as a nation to get the Euro. Then it lied to hell and back to the rest of Europe.Their politicians and civil government (there is a joke in itself!) are no better than common fraudsters, and the Greek people have been their accomplices”.

• Greece’s 180,000 teachers would give it one of the world’s best teacher-student ratios but about 20,000 teachers are in administration because there are no classrooms for them.
• One small state school on a tiny island was found to have 15 physical-education teachers, while another had more teachers than students.
• A senior government official says some tax offices operate a “4-4-2 system,” a reference to soccer tactics. If an individual or company owes €10,000 in taxes, they slip €4,000 to the inspector, keep €4,000, and pay €2,000 to the state.
• In the month before last autumn’s election, the government added 27,000 people – friends of the party – to the public payroll. Many had no position to fill, and not even an office to go to.
• The health-care system is a hotbed of corrupt procurement. Many hospitals do not use proper accounting, making it hard to supervise purchases. As a result, public hospitals ran up billions of euros in suppliers’ bills they cannot pay. The previous government understated those liabilities by more than € 5 billion when it gave European authorities an overly optimistic budget forecast last fall. Think about that figure for a moment,  € 5 billion !
• Government employees can get paid 13 to 15 months salary a year.
• Parliament employees and Members of Parliament have beem receiving, in addition to the 13th and 14th salaries, a 15th and a 16th, tax-exempt salary, upon opening and closing of Parliament!
• Government employees can get a “long service bonus”
• Government employees can get a bonus for turning up to work regularly
• Government employees can get a “special holiday bonus”
• Government spending accounted for 50 percent of GDP (USA is 35%).
• Only 450,000 citizens (4% of the population) pay direct taxes, while the rest evade illegally.
• Further, only 37,000 homeowners (0.34%) pay property taxes.
• The bailout is predicted to bring down Greece’s deficit-to-GDP ratio from 8.1 percent to 2.6 percent by 2014, putting it under the Euro zone’s recommendation. But the bailout will do nothing for the debt-to-GDP ratio — except raise it, from 133 percent this year to 144 percent in 2014.
• Under the bailout, Greeks government empoyees must now work until they are 67 years old. Up until now, they have been able to retire with pensions at 53 complete with bonuses!

Bribery & Corruption

In Greece two words sum the country up:fakelaki and rousfeti.

Fakelaki means “little envelopes,” the bribes that affect everyone, police, doctors, patients, business people, everyone. Rousfeti means expensive political favors, which pervade everything. If you are a teacher and want a job, if you want to rebuild your house, get electricity connected, you name it. Together, these traditions of corruption and cronyism have produced a state that is simultaneously bloated and malnourished.

Bribery, patronage and other public corruption are major contributors to the country’s ballooning debt, depriving the Greek state each year of the equivalent of at least 8% of its gross domestic product (GDP), or more than €20 billion ($27 billion) according to the Brookings Institution. Even Greece’s Prime Minister George Papandreou said after he took office late last year, vowing to change a mentality that views the state as a resource to plunder. He later berated the chief of public prosecutions, saying Greeks believe “there is impunity in this country.” but in true Greek fashion the chief prosecutor continued in his delusional state and said that wasn’t so. 13.5% of Greek households paid a bribe, €1,355 on average, according to a Transparency survey published last month. Ordinary citizens hand out cash-filled envelopes to get driver’s licenses, doctor’s appointments and building permits, or to reduce their tax bills.

Incompetent & Corrupt Government

In 2007, the government was found to have sold billions of euros in overpriced, complex securities to public pension funds, resulting in large losses at the funds. Shortfalls have to be covered by the government, worsening the budget deficit. Following a public outcry, a state commission on money laundering probed some of the transactions, concluding that there were “clear indications” of bribery, tax evasion and other wrongdoing by Greek officials.Cases of corruption in public procurement are rarely resolved, thanks to a slow-moving justice system that deters people who have paid bribes from becoming witnesses. Politicians have escaped corruption charges because probes often are held up in parliament until a statute of limitations expires. The public prosecutors’ office, dismissed the findings because the report was signed only by the head of the money-laundering commission, not by every member. The head of the commission was fired, basically for telling the truth and being honest !

The national sport is bribery of tax officials allows individuals and companies to bribe inspectors and evade taxes so there is a dearth of income into the state. Couple this with truly massive overstaffing in public administration, the result of decades of both major political parties creating unnecessary posts for their supporters, saddles the state with a high wage bill.

In short Greece is a nation steeped in state malfeasance populated by amoral fraudsters and theives, one in which every single citizen must bare their share of responsibility, protesting the measures now needed to correct their collective mess just shows how immoral they are in that they cannot recognise their own guilt. The international banks undoubtedly have a measure of guilt but it pales in comparison to that of the entire Greek nation.

But we should not think that Greece alone is to blame. The political class of the EU are equally responsible, driving as they have the continued hurried growth of the EU in the face of common sense, and probity.Not only is Greece a complete basket case it is one that should never have been allowed admittance to the EU, and now it should be thrown out in disgrace. It should also show the rest of the EU the idiocy of unfetted expansion. Sadly the EU political elite will now close ranks and pressure the media into the deflection of their own guilt.

It is Germany and France who really stand to loose out if Greece goes under because French and German banks have been the prime buyers of Greek Government bonds and the biggest lenders. This of course raises the question of the banks competence. Deutsche Bank, Hypo Real Estate, BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole, and Societe Generale all have a great deal of explaining to do about how their “due diligence” failed to spot Greece’s financial black hole for so long.

Once again the so called “financial experts” have been shown for what they are, a bunch of monkeys with a gigantic bunch of over ripe bananas !

You may have noticed that Willothewisp has been a little quiet of late, there is a reason for this. Judith has had to go back to hospital after she developed some problems with the area around one of the metal plates in her skull. She had been scheduled to go back later this year to have both the plates replaced with new ceramique ones after it was noticed that she was developing early signs of her body rejecting the original plates. A couple of weeks ago things suddenly started worsening and her vision was again in trouble so it was back into hospital with her. Given the amount of work already done inside her skull, and her reduced senses, we do not take any chances with her health, hence the swift hospitalisation. The timing was rather unfortunate with Joost so recently added to their family so we have been pooling resources to help out with the child care and as a result we have all been rather busy.

Judith was released today and is convalescing at the town house in Amsterdam. She is comfortable though she does get tired very easily. Happily it is clear that her vision is within her normal range again. Her scalp is sore where it was peeled back for the surgery but it is healing well with the help of Far Infrared Light Therapy.

A big concern for us is the impact on the children, especially Nicholas who has never quite recovered emotionally from the incident with the English tourist and seeing his mother unconscious and bleeding in the street. He finds seeing his mother hospitalised very tough going so we are investing a lot of time in him right now.

I expect things will return to normal by this time next weekend, until then we are forcing rest and inactivity on Judith while supporting Nina and the rest of the family.

Kind regards, Tyjardia vL

Gelukkig nieuwjaar aan alle Geelse lezers  -  Happy new year to all our readers!

What a wonderful way to start a new year……..

This morning at 08.30 CET Nina gave birth to a baby boy here at her home amongst her family. Baby is fit and well at 3284 grams, 50.7cm long. His name is most likely to be Joost Karl van der Roos, though this has not been fixed yet ! His birth was faultless and he nursed within a couple of minutes of emerging. Birth mother Nina is also well, displaying few signs of having given birth only this morning, she is in all ways a professional ! Two hours after delivering baby she was playing Monopoly with Nicholas, Hilke and grandparents.

Mother Judith has spent most of the day holding baby Joost, unable to talk without crying for much of the day, overwhelmed by the truly wonderful gift of her own child that Nina has made her. She has been a picture of utter contentment, and perhaps still a little overwhelmed. This afternoon exhaustion finally overcame them and their children and we got everyone to bed for a long afternoon nap.

I doubt that I could ever properly express how immensely proud we are of Nina, and how happy we are that she has so firmly established the family she wanted, and in doing so brought such happiness to our beloved Judith, but we are.

Author: Tyjardia.