Wednesday, January 13, 2010

The fine art of biking

...I learned to bike when I was quite young still. It can be tricky when you try to bike in big city traffic, through the wilderness outside my hometown (rarely happened, though), but generally biking is really easy. Piece of cake, once you know how it works.

Well. Now that I live in the Netherlands, there's a whole new level of biking. Dutch people do everything on a bike, they transport everything on a bike and bike in all weather. I've seen Christmas Trees transported on the back of a bike, MaxiCosi (the babycarryingthingies) on the back of the bike, bikes that can hold a grown up and three kids...I think Dutchies even MOVE with just a bike.

So. Now that it's snowing and icy all over, it's another level, too. At least for me. I was very hesitant to bike on snow and ice, but mastered it quite well so far. Our neighbourhood seems to be the last one to be completely iced over still. Ah well, I've been biking now for two weeks on ice and snow, never fell, I must be good at it by now.

Well. I thought so until today. On my way back from town, I took a corner too fast (at approx. 2miles/hr) or too steep (leaning in ever so slightly) and BOOM! I was sitting on my ass with a busted knee. FUN!

I haven't dared looking at my knee yet. I will have all colours and my bum will look fabulously coloured, too.

Soap Opera

Since starting my work in a Soap shop, my social life has increased tremendously. It's fun to work in a team, yet also very tiring sometimes. I'm an old fart compared to most of the girls, and I'm also aware of my impact on the business. Meaning: Everyone is replaceable.

However, the soap selling soap opera queens in my shop beg to differ. They are the next best thing to sliced bread - not all of them, but 3 of the 14 love the drama. 2 left the shop now after working there for 2 years and just knowing everything you need to know to make a shop run well. Apart from the fact that, erm, the shop was a mess until 6 months ago?

We have one special drama queen in the shop that makes everybody else's life miserable. Meet the 23 year old girl that acts like a 15 year old. Including the temper tantrums, hissy fits and the odd 'I asked one boss, and she said no, so I'll just ask the other one and try to play them up against each other'. Unfortunately (for her) her actions are so transparent - you can see what she's doing while she's doing it. Trying to be manipulative when you're too dumb to do it right is just a shame.

The rest of the team is chaotic but lovely. We need to find a solution to get rid of her. Unfortunately, nobody was strict with her before, and therefore we need to do the dirty work now. That shall be fun.

Happy New Year

We celebrated New Year's at the beach this year. It was amazing. Freeeezing cold, but so pretty. The Dutch love their fireworks, and even had a gigantourmos peace fire at the beach. From a distance it looked like a house was on fire.

Looking forward to next year. Including the 40 minute power walk to the beach to sober up