December 2017.
Dear all,
This is our fourth Christmas in Vienna, we’ve been here a long time now. We still enjoy this great international city with all the beautiful buildings and not to forget the magnificent balls in the Hofburg and Rathaus.
This year we’ve been to the Hahnekamm races in Kitzbuhel. Rob was on national television with his participation in the Kitz charity race, also Max Verstappen participated; we can definitely say Max has other talents than skiing. Rob skied with Hans Klaus und Michaela Dorfmeister, two famous Austrian ski racers. In the evening at the gala we spoke to Max shortly and of course Rob took a photo of us!
In the summer we saw the F1 race at Spielberg. Max was in it for maybe 20 seconds before flying out of the first corner of the race. It took me twenty laps to overcome this disappointment and cheer for Ricardo. During the free trainings on Friday I slept on the roof of the building above the garage boxes of Max and Daniel. I was so tired I fell asleep on a sofa there surrounded by roaring engines and with a temperature around the 30C. On Facebook you see many great moments of me, those are the good moments, but that’s not always the reality. With Pieter and Tineke we were allowed in the Paddock and could almost touch Max’ car. We could hold his steering wheel though. What a special day it was!
Our kids are suddenly growing up so fast. They’re big, independent, witty and you can have great conversations with them. Time flies with kids that are growing up.
Robin fell in love with her Austrian boyfriend Armin this year and now they’re living together just outside Innsbruck. She’s occupied with the last year of her masters degree in strategic management. Just like the last two summers Robin worked for controlling at Brau Union. Whenever they can Armin and Robin will be found in the mountains every weekend. Armin is a marathon runner and practices a lot in the mountains. In November they’ve already been skiing; what a great location to live! Hopefully she’ll find a nice job after the summer somewhere in Tirol.
Jack lives in St Andrews since September. He’s doing a masters of one year in economics. It’s challenging and different than he expected. He’s looking around for another master some place (country) else for the next school year. His girlfriend Ailsa is in her last year in Stirling, where they’ve met. This year in the summer Jack graduated with Bachelor of Art in Economics with a first, a brilliant result. The move to St Andrews was a special one. Two days before he had a terrible stomach ache which it turned out was appendicitis. He had surgery Thursday evening around 21:00. The next day, on Friday, Rob and I arrived from Vienna by car in the Netherlands and so we fetched him from the hospital. I expected that he would stay home for at least a week, being pampered by his mum, but no he insisted in moving the next day. Rob and Jack left Saturday morning to his new home in St Andrews with Jack essentially unable to walk! Rob carried everything of course and made his room nice and bought a bike and grocery shopping for a few weeks. Jack was “installed” after all.
Noa stayed almost 3,5 months with us in Vienna, this was really great. She enjoys every minute of her stay in Kamloops in Canada BC. Since October she’s already had a lot of snow. She’s now living off campus with two friends Claire and Kiana. They’ve organized a huge surprise party for her 21stbirthday this year. This summer she worked for Heineken Export again, perfect to get her German up to scratch and to see her numbers go up in her bank account. In Vienna she started with Thai boxing, she continues with this in Kamloops. It certainly keeps her fit!
Hugo is the second who graduated this summer. Again there was a Graduation Ball in the Rathaus. Together with his Swedish friend Elvira they did the debutant dance. This was again so magical and beautiful to see how they danced! He finished his IB with flying numbers. So good that the University of Sussex gave him a scholarship, how cool is that! The bank, a.k.a Rob, could really use this windfall with four kids at university. Both boys worked for Randstad in Vienna nearby our house. They worked together, ate 4 Leberkase Semmels each day for lunch, came home, played video games together till very late, and scared me half to death once by claiming (falsely) their boss had sent them home for yelling at each other. Without a doubt we can say they’re each other’s best friends. As a parent this is so wonderful to see.
Rob has had a tough year and this is not only with me. SAP is gradually heading in the right direction. However, at the time of writing this there are dark clouds once again hovering over the project. Hopefully they will go “live” January 1stand otherwise one month later. When I got diagnosed with breast cancer Rob made a decision to take care of his own body and started walking every day, using a pedometer app he walked 10.000 steps a day. This has now been upped to doing 15.000 steps a day and he has never skipped a day! He has lost 9 kilogram doing this and it seems very contagious because I’m doing it as well and so are the people working for him. From the 170 working for Rob 147 are walking the “Virgin Pulse Global Challenge”. Its excellent he got so many people on their feet.
In February we joined Anna und Thomas in Villach for the carnival. A big surprise was waiting for Rob, after the break he and several other people came on stage and were made members of honour of the Villacher Carnaval Vereins. “Lei Lei” they say there with carnaval.
Sam was bitten on October 28th by a boxer and got seriously wounded. Rob went into the dog park, unleashed him and before he knew a boxer grabbed him. He had an arterial wound which we tried to stop with our hands. I informed the police, names, addresses and telephone numbers were exchanged before we went to a vet. Sam needed surgery, just after midnight he went in, after 03:00 he came out. He had stitches on his leg, but the two big wounds under his armpit were too big to close. It took a month before it closed and all these weeks he had to walk with a funnel. Poor Sam. Luckily he is still with us and on December 18 he’ll be blowing out 14 candles, he’s and old man now! Another sad aspect of this whole tragedy is that we’ve never heard of the owner of the other dog at all. Not a phone call, nothing what so ever. Horrendous!
This year we’ve said farewell to a few special and very dear friends. This is unbelievable and undoubtedly sad and they all deceased because of cancer.
Like most of you know I got diagnosed for the second time in my life with breast cancer.
I got diagnosed after a check up mammogram end of January. Half of February we saw the Professor, he told us I have “triple negative” breast cancer, this is an aggressive and fast spreading cancer. The tumour has been removed, lymph glands were clean, no metastases, so a very good scenario. I only needed 8 severe chemotherapies and 20 times radiation therapy to be totally certain there are no darn cancer cells left behind!
This is all done! The timeframe of ten days between knowing what was inside me and the surgery, where perhaps the longest days of my life and Rob’s as well of course.
We’ve managed quite well, with help from family and friends who came over from the Netherlands to stand by me during the chemo week. Rob travels every day 400 km, this costs him 4 hours commuting time per day. But many friends have helped from near and far in so many ways; sitting next to me whilst the chemo was dripping, or with cards, phone calls, texts, presents and visits. Without all your help I couldn’t have done it. Thank you for that from the bottom of my heart.
I’m now in rehab for almost three weeks to get fit again. My aim is that I start working in January.
I’d like to end this Christmas greeting with something I sometimes hear in Austria;
“Alles hat ein Ende nur die Wurst hat zwei”. Literally translated; everything has an end only the sausage has two. It’s a bit philosophical; it means enjoy life by the most before it’s too late.
Rob & Viv, Robin & Armin, Jack & Ailsa, Noa, Hugo and Ayo.