Posted on by — 2 Comments

Personal Scrum Day Europe Impressions

On 11 July 2012 we organized the first edition of the Scrum Day Europe (for which I previously published the abstracts of Ken Schwaber and myself). 130+ enthusiast people gathered, interacted and connected at the beautiful location of “Pakhuis De Zwijger” near the Amsterdam docks (Netherlands). I was delighted to see so many friends of Scrum; Professional Scrum students, colleagues, clients and personal friends. And I am extremely grateful for the appreciation and the energy received.

Ken Schwaber opened the day with an inspiring talk on the global accomplishments of Scrum, and how well this positive change for the software industry is currently being embraced in Belgium and the Netherlands. He announced he is working on further evolutions of the Scrum framework towards management and organizational improvement.

The CIO of Tele2, Svenja de Vos, talked us through the practicalities of their ‘big bang’, ‘no guts, no glory’-style transition to Scrum.

Subsequently the audience split up to (1) join an OpenSpace, (2) play some agile games and (3) enjoy more perspectives to Scrum (change basics, coaching people and Scrum in a hosting environment).

After lunch the full group joined again in the central room to listen to the highly energetic story of Amir Arooni, member of the ING IT management team. He gave the crowd an honest insight into their findings, impediments and future hopes after a 1+ year, large-scale transformation to Scrum. I was honored to be mentioned by Amir as one of the crucial guides of their transformation.

As Capgemini global leader for Scrum I was asked by Ken to do my talk on the ‘Emergence of the Customer-Oriented Enterprise’, an organizational pattern to build on the Scrum framework to achieve enterprise agility. Beyond the appreciation I received I was particularly glad for getting away with a form of humor. My presentation is free for download. All pictures and presentations of the event are available at the Scrum Day Europe website.

Here’s a very personal selection of (mostly mobile) pictures by friends:

A big thanks to Scrum.org, all co-organizers and I hope to see you next year!

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Geheimpje

Marc ‘Swoon Bildos‘ verklapte mijn geheimpje, mijn “Geheimpje van de dichter“. Lees het, of liever: kijk en luister, zelf:

(en kijk even op de swoon-bildos blog voor nog veel meer lekkers)

Geheimpje van de dichter

…’t woord is zichzelf
gedicht niet

tenzij niet op papier
zoekt het zich

in geblauwde inkt die druipt en bulkt
van handen en van taal

‘ongesproken’ per ‘definitie’
voor eeuwig

Het valt tegelijk binnen en buiten de dichtbundel “La NOuvelle Cycluste (ONgekelderd en NOg dicht)” die ik zelf-publiceerde op Wwaow, een site die ik met een Scrum Team ooit nog bouwde, en waarvan de kern nog steeds overeind staat (de buitenkant is lelijk gemaakt). Je kan de bundel nog steeds kopen zelfs via deze link.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Scrum Day Europe abstracts

On 11 July 2012 we organize the first Scrum Day Europe event in Amsterdam (Netherlands). The aim is to yearly unite executives, CxO persons, thought leaders and practitioners on agility via Scrum. Have a look at the program and register at the website.

Here are the abstracts from the session of Ken Schwaber and of me:

Ken Schwaber (“Scrum and Continuous Improvement”):

“Organizations need to be agile. This may mean responding to opportunities better, solving existing problems, removing waste, or just developing better software. Scrum is a tool many organizations use to gradually become agile. Ken will present a framework for continuous improvement toward agility. Stage by stage, the model demonstrates the application of increasingly sophisticated practices in the areas of value, productivity, quality, product development and change. Ken will show how these relate to metrics and the organization’s unique agility signature. An organizational model that drives continuous improvement is also demonstrated.”

Gunther Verheyen (“Emergence of the Customer-Oriented Enterprise”):

“Scrum and Enterprise Agility – Scrum is a widely adopted framework for complex product development. Gunther Verheyen, Capgemini’s global Scrum leader, has witnessed how Scrum is a powerful mean to adopt the new, Agile paradigm of software development. Gunther will share his observations how Scrum is currently surpassing the walls of the software department. Gunther has a vision that helps people and organizations capitalize on this evolution and use Scrum to grow into Enterprise Agility. Because organizations can do more than just faster and better software development to delight its customers. What emerges, according to Gunther, is the “Customer-Oriented Enterprise”. But Gunther will demonstrate why it is highly unlikely that this is the last stage of organizational evolutions…”

Posted on by — 10 Comments

Why It Took Time (to become what I didn’t know I wanted to be)

The terrorism of an alcoholic father left me with serious damages and memories of a loveless youth. Nevertheless I graduated as Industrial Engineer in electronics in 1992, age 22. An opportunistic choice of study as philosophy or literature didn’t offer the same job certainty. Purpose?

Time for a little retrospective exercise. What has happened in the 20 years since my graduation? What has been most influential in becoming who I am today? And why did it take that time?

The formative years

I was deeply disappointed when entering the labor market as my grade created the expectation of thorough technical insights while I had hoped for some staff position, and the possibility to work with teams.

My first job was software engineering on VAX but I remember most the great times I spent in the great country of Ireland. After a little project on OS/2 I moved to a small company in 1993 to do assembler programming on Micro-PIC controllers. My 6 months trial period wasn’t too convincing but a one month prolongation did show some success in planning and purchasing, combined with Borland C++ and Paradox programming.

Blind enthusiasm and overwork burned me out so I left in 1996 to take over a bookshop of a large chain on a franchising base. A client of our shop pointed me towards Nietzsche and his ‘Beyond Good and Evil’ (and later on his other works) was an incredible eye opener. Since then I kept saying that 90% of who I am, I am due to my wife and 9% due to Nietzsche. Nietzsche revealed the bare truth to much of my struggles with life to that date. Although my wife and I had the time of our lives being all around books, and we moved to a bigger shop twice, on the last day of 1998 we had to decide to quit. The reason was the imbalance of income, social life and personal development; and being on the verge of debts.

In 1999 I started as business developer for the first Belgian e-commerce site for books and CDs, where I soon grew into a senior management position. By the end of an exciting but burning period I remember me creating a mega (no, wait, giga) analysis for a complete new back office (from IT to logistics), which was my domain to lead. It only took me 3 hours to get a team through it. Once. I don’t know whether it was that analysis or the complete renewal of our server park, but just after I resigned in 2001, I was offered the position of IT director at the company. Although I did co-write a post-crisis survival business plan for the company, I still decided to leave. I felt too young, too inexperienced and -above all- my views on the people aspect were quite different from our investors and other leading managers. I rightfully left, is my opinion still. Later that year, our first son was born.

The Years of Dedication

In 2001 I started working for a large local (Belgian) consulting company.

For my first project I did a complete functional analysis, took the lead in contracting and other negotiations and continued as ‘project manager’. Management advised me not show the estimates to the team. But I did, and it didn’t prevent the project from ending up break-even where all other fixed prices ended in major losses. But I specifically remember helping a team member through a difficult divorce situation. Without minding the actuals.

In 2003 our second son was born. He turned out to have Down Syndrome. Professionally I got called to urgently lead a new project that seemed unfeasible despite the fancy MS Project promise. It took 15 minutes for 2 software architects to convince me about eXtreme Programming. It just had all elements fixed in the method that I had -to a certain extent- tried to do in my first project: communication, iterations, feedback. In December 2003 I presented this project as the first major production XP implementation in Belgium at Javapolis.

When scaling up with the next phase of the project we added Scrum in 2004. I went well-prepared, i.e. having read his 2 books at that time, to a CSM class by Ken Schwaber. And we replaced our organizational XP practices with Scrum practices and names, but we kept doing the core engineering practices (pair programming, TDD, continuous integration, automated testing).

By the end of 2006 we had successfully delivered 2 more phases of our early Agile project, and applied Scrum + eXtreme Programming in 2 additional large website applications, incorporating extensive front-ends, back-ends, integrations and interfaces. Those projects learned me that inclusion of incremental development of even major UX-components is feasible, and even to be preferred.

Due to lack of respect for our results and for the people I decided to leave in 2007. And to date I’m still struck by the observation of an esteemed colleague and team member that I had never consciously made myself, i.e. that he loved the way I tried to turn a project into a total, 360° experience of joy, fun, energy and… results. Never satisfied with less.

Richard Dawkins deepened my Nietzsche experience by adding a genetic and memetic dimension to it. By the end of the year I started at another consulting company, led and blinded by promises of a management position. Around that time our oldest son, age 6, was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Having read Richard Dawkins helped in surviving and dealing with the genetic flaws of our 2 children.

The empty management promises finally covered 2 years of my life in stress and agony. I fought, battled and barely survived, before returning to my Agile roots. I realized that I had never cared about any ‘CS*’ certifications or whatever career, that my satisfaction had been in working with teams and clients, joyful projects, and that I still didn’t care about careering. Therefore I was attracted by the community orientation of Ken Schwaber’s new platform, Scrum.org and followed and joined it from the early days in 2009.

2010 did not only see me giving consultancy a last chance at my current employer, but after 2+ years of medical uncertainty and wandering our daughter was born. No genetic problems, not even carrier of DMD. My first professional experience wasn’t too comforting, but I applied my iterative-incremental approach and turned my first project, once more, and once more against all odds, into a 360° success. In the mean time I evolved with Scrum.org and did the Professional Scrum Master assessments (level I and II), and decided to firmly proceed on that path. I applied for Professional Scrum Trainer for which I went to a PSM class by Ken by the end of 2010 in Zürich.

Booming Business

And then, suddenly, there was 2011. Dutch colleagues found me. I developed an internal Scrum training, which was highly appreciated and became very successful. It opened important gates at clients, caused some amazing breakthroughs and I mutated to another division. I followed the early Professional Scrum Product Owner program and soon became Professional Scrum Trainer in PSM and PSPO.

I had a boost in understanding and living Agility, not in the least through the mentoring and lessons by Ken. My perspective quickly broadened. Authors like Daniel Pink (“Drive”) and Nassim Taleb (“The Black Swan”) augmented my general world views, and greatly supported my belief to use people and empiricism to cope with the complexity of our world. I am now the global expert on Scrum at my company (120.000 people worldwide). And the end is not nearly in sight. Scrum has become a substantial part of what we do and offer. We train our consultants and our clients, we coach and guide them, we promote Enterprise Agility and we inject more and more agility into our own organization.

Soon I will be talking at the Scrum Day Europe event that Scrum.org initiated and that we co-organize. I will introduce how I perceive the Emergence of the Customer-Oriented Enterprise. Previous ‘confessions’ gave some insights in what might have influenced how I developed my views. Who knows what will happen next to change how I see things?

Not Future

Some things take time. Beauty. Growing flowers. Becoming what you didn’t know you wanted to be. Unlearning. Mastery. Dedication and determination.

I am still without much formal title or position. I regularly struggle with the gigantic, monstrous machines that corporations tend to be. I regularly want to flee back to the underground when balancing my personal ethics against my desire for impact. Overall however, I manage and it works out… without power games. I am epigenetically (the seeds sown in my youth) unable to play power games, but I’ve learned to use that in my advantage.

In 2012 I am even making enormous progress on my scales of valuation. In the past I usually was merely tolerated, in the best case appreciated.  Here I am now, not just being motivated, but even able to innovate.

Note

I started writing this blog note to give people insight in what it sometimes takes, at least time, to learn and evolve. I was long in doubt whether to continue this text when I started reading Lyssa Adkins’ book Coaching Agile Teams. Having read the first chapter I decided to go for it. Because my message reflects how I became to ‘be’, not only what I ‘do’. Painful sometimes, but honest. Hoping it might help or inspire others. Hoping it helps people understand that it takes time. The path and the patience pay off. I can now go back to Lyssa’s book again and finish reading it.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Bezeten Vuur Brandt

Bezeten vuur brandt in Samizdat, de nieuwe worp van Aroma di Amore. Het album opent met het beklemmende en desoriënterende Schoenen. Even lonkt het vermoeden dat de oude heren van stand de vroegere bloedlijn van pan-europese wave-waanzin wensten door te zetten. Maar met Stront en Hunker ontploft het album in post-industriële kortklanken die de scherpte en stacatto maanzin van Wire op het album Send lijken te evoceren, de vertaling ervan maken naar lokale kleivarianten.

Steeds baadt het album in een verontustende sfeer veroorzaakt door de unieke, bijtende teksten van Elvis Peeters en zijn unieke, bijtende voordracht die perfect versmelten met de muzikale onderbouw van de companen van nu en van weleer. Soms zakt het tempo, en nemen de beats en elektronica de tripperige overhand, met krakende en andere ontstemmende uitwaaiieringen. Dan weer exploderen de neuroses van stem en gitaar in gezamenlijke zenuwuitbarstingen en drift. Opvallend hoogtepunt is de dubbele uitvoering van de korte-benen-pijn en snijdende eenzaamheid in Nu we allemaal alleen/bijeen zijn.

Alhoewel een aantal nummers qua aanpak en sfeer herinneringen aan de jaren van de zwarte jassen oproepen, is Samizdat eerder een uitspansel dat Aroma di Amore bouwt op de wegen die onze eigenste Elvis reeds insloeg met De Legende dan een louter nostalgische trip naar de oude jaren 80. Geen verloren taal. Gelukkig maar.

Omdat de heren ook live een ode brengen aan Wire, hierbij:

Posted on by — Leave a comment

The importance of Done in Scrum

In the last Scrum Guide (July 2011) the definition of Done was given considerably more attention. Rightfully, as “Done” is crucial in Scrum.

The Importance Of Done

The definition of Done is essential to fully understand the Increment that is being inspected at the Sprint Review with the stakeholders. The definition of Done implements the expectation of an Increment to be ‘releasable‘, so ideally it is comprised of all activities, tasks, qualities and work that allow releasing an Increment in production. The addition ‘potentially‘ to releasable refers to the Product Owner’s accountability to decide over the actual release of an Increment; a decision that will likely be based upon business cohesion and functional usefulness. But the Product Owner’s shipping decision should not be constrained by ‘development’ work.

The definition of Done should be clear and concise for the Scrum Team as it will determine how much work a Development Team can reasonably take in into a Sprint during the Sprint Planning meeting.

The empiricism of Scrum only functions well upon transparency. That includes the definition of Done. Transparency means not only visible, but also understandable. Besides being available, the content of the definition of Done should be clear by just reading it.

A New Scrum Artefact?

Should we make the Definition of Done an official Scrum artefact?

It would seem like adapting Scrum to reality, a mere formalization of an existing practice; because it is extremely important to put quality even more at the heart of what we do; because we want to clear out that little grey zone in the base Scrum framework allowing some people to doubt the formal need of a definition of Done. With regards to the latter, it would provide additional guidance for people and organizations to improve, and investigate the next steps on the cobblestone path to Agility, although probably not the guarantee hoped for by making it a mandatory artefact.

All existing Scrum artefacts support the ‘inspect & adapt‘ cycles of Scrum; they provide accurate, up to date and transparent information to be inspected and adapted at the rhythm of the Scrum events (or sooner). In that sense, Done is already an artefact; it is in the Increment, making the state of the Increment transparent.

I suggest to formally include inspection of the Definition of Done at the Sprint Review, along the inspection of the working Increment, which it is a characteristic of. This pair-wise inspection serves to get feedback and input from the stakeholders that goes beyond mere functionality and business requirements. It will invoke a collaborative conversation over quality, and requirements with regards to the quality of working software in the organization.

The Sprint Review is also the time to inspect the current state of Product Backlog, i.e. what is now Done, what was left undone in this Sprint, what was additionally turned Done. From this current state, including the latest Velocity measurement, the actual product progress is available to the stakeholders.

I suggest to lay ownership over the definition of Done with the Development Team. A definition of Done can’t be forced upon a Development Team. Neither can it be cut short by forces outside of the Development Team. The Development Team will obviously include functional quality expectations from the Product Owner. The Development Team will obviously include general, organizational expectations and compliance (e.g. from the development or engineering organization). But it’s up to the Development Team to process it in the definition of Done. Decisions over the definition of Done will depend on the presence of skills, authorizations and availability of external systems, services and interfaces. Probably a Development Team would include stubs and simulators for non-available systems, add this to their definition of Done and make the impact of these dependencies clear to the Product Owner for ordering the Product Backlog. The effect on the planning horizon will no longer only be clear to the stakeholders by inspection of the Product Backlog at the Sprint Review, but also via explicit inspection of the definition of Done accompanying the working Increment.

The inspection of the working Increment and the definition of Done at the Sprint Review, and the related collaboration of the Scrum Team with the stakeholders, will provide the Development Team with important information to sustain, evolve and grow the definition of Done. They will probably have a deeper conversation over it at the Sprint Retrospective. The self-organizing drive of the Development Team will include all that’s actually possible, dig deeper, taking into account the feedback from the stakeholders, and evolve it as part of their continuous improvement of quality.

This ownership is comparable to the Product Backlog ownership. The Product Owner has accountability over it. But it won’t withhold the Product Owner from taking into account the technical and development input from the team. It won’t withhold the Product Owner from taking into account dependencies, non-functionals and organizational expectations. And after all, the frequent inspection of a working Increment provides information on reality to all involved so they can incorporate that in their work via their accountability.

A Desirable Side-effect

Although the goal is not to promote the Definition of Done to a Scrum artefact (as shown that is not needed), I do see an optional side-effect in explicitly inspecting it at the Sprint Review: additional transparency to the overall agile adoption.

Obviously the definition of Done will not always immediately, from day 1 of the adoption of Scrum, hold every possible task, activity or requirement to render every Increment completely production-ready. There will be a gradual evolution in applying Scrum. This is good as it helps all players continuously exploit the possible to a maximum extent.

Promoting inspection of the definition of Done with the stakeholders will help identify improvement areas in capturing enterprise agility. The finding of what is/is not included provides an indication on involvement of the broader organization in agile product development, even of organizational impediments. And stakeholders, in consultation with Product Owner and Scrum Master, might want to act on these from a management change perspective.

In a transformational period, including the definition of Done as an explicit artefact in the Scrum framework will help people and organizations in the software industry to… improve from better and more realistic insights.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Semper Fidelis. En een ster.

Met De Allerlaatste Caracara Ter Wereld schreef Peter Verhelst een prachtige roman vol uitgepuurde observaties en zonder overbodige woorden, maar veel werkwoordloze waarnemingen.

De schitterend aaneengeregen poëtische vaststellingen voeren ons weg van de (bewuste) bombast van Zwerm. Het verenigt de talige overtreffing van Memoires Van Een Luipaard, het vuurwerk van Tongkat, de romantiek van De Kleurenvanger en de maatschappelijkheid van… Zwerm. Het is een verhaal over de macht, de onmacht en de wezenloze kracht van verhalen, en de zinloze kwestie van het waarheidsgehalte ervan. Peter Verhelst brengt een paradijs tot leven in woorden en in zwijgen, vanuit een onmetelijk verbeeldend vermogen om ook de kleurenpracht en geluiden van de lokale fauna en flora te verlevendigen, in verhalen en verhaallijnen die op zich een paradijs vormen. Een waar bordeel van korte verhaalstoten, zacht deinende hoofdstukjes.

Een jonge, Belgische arts spoelde aan op een exotisch eiland, 15 jaar geleden, met een boot of zo, op zoek, vooraleer vrouwen uit de zee nu datzelfde doen, via vissersnetten, uit de zee of zo, en minder op zoek.  Het is een rietsuikereiland van vissers, een wat besloten gemeenschap. Het is een eiland van schaarse hoofdrolspelers; dokter Victor Duval, de priester Coriolan, een commissaris, Madame van het koffiehuis. Langzaam versmelten hun verhaallevens, vanuit de zoektocht van de dokter en de vraagtekens over zijn militaire vader.

Zo komen we uit bij Cassandra, eilanddochter, die haar geliefde verloor aan de zee, zuster en ontfermster over aangespoelde wezens. Het verleden eist een prominentere plaats op naarmate ook de hoofdstukken langer worden, en de soldaten landen. Opnieuw. Zoals het verleden. De militairen komen om de aangespoelden, vrouwen en intussen ook kinderen, te beschermen tegen zichzelf. Vrouwen en dieren uit de zee. En wie weet waar nog vandaan? En waar terug heen? Ze hebben geen tong om verhalen van een toekomst te maken. Maar ze spelen met de wind, de laatste wind die zich niet vangen laat.

Posted on by — 2 Comments

2012. Towards the end. It’s a beginning.

2012 is turning out a great Killing Joke year. Again. As pledger, I already downloaded the fantastic live album Down By The River. And now there’s the second album of the re-united original line-up of the band. Although the resurrected formation already produced the compelling Absolute Dissent in 2010, it seems they have truly blended all they were, are and will become on the majestic MMXII. The band keeps looking behind the wave of changes but they do not only feel the future taking shape, they help shaping it themselves. And as I understood from an interview by Jaz, that includes doing a little wardance with faith and destiny by organizing an end-of-the-world music festival by the end of MMXII in New Zealand. Who says they don’t have humour?

My first impressions were that MMXII has the philosophical fierceness of Pandemonium (1994), the political views of the highly underrated Democracy (1996), the melodic beauty of Night Time (1984) and some fuzzmetaldronepulsarbeats blasting through your brain alike Killing Joke (2003). It doesn’t have the explicit, outstretched, introspective anthems of Hosannah From The Basements Of Hell but incorporates trance and the feeling of what it means to be Killing Joke in the ever-present anger and virulent indignation found throughout their collected works.

But that won’t do to describe the richness of MMXII. The album has much variety and subtleties, and that’s being brought in by every band member; lyrics, vocals, synths, guitars, bass and drums. For the latter let’s be grateful once more for the glorious return of Big Paul! But the complete band is outstanding, clearly lifting each other up to new heights. MMXII sounds very dynamic, with its clear mix, its fade in-outs, the use of echo and backings of all sorts. It brings much joy to my heart as the sound balance shows what a great singer Jaz is, and how brilliantly Geordie masters his guitars; 2 aspects of Killing Joke that were frequently lost in the mix of previous albums in my opinion. The songs themselves don’t only swirl around Youth’s bass playing, the complete record is full of change, in rhythms, in tempo, in atmosphere and in pace. And somehow the band has managed to greatly melt their live playing urge with knob turning production demands.

MMXII mirrors a state of the world. I sure hope the world will last a bit longer than the end of 2012, so I can witness further evolutions of Killing Joke. This is rock music in a great guise; deviant, evil, melodic, driven, convincing.

The single In Cythera refers to idyllic times and charms, the lyrical theme equally reflected in the musical textures. Does it also suggest that Killing Joke aims at revitalizing their heavy, overloaded interpretation of rock music into a less severe appearance, like French painter Antoine Watteau did with old school baroque via rococo touches? Or is the desire for romanticism rather something for later, more after-world times, as the lyrics might hint at? A last goodbye to Paul Raven, the Raven King? We’ll meet again. At the greatest banquet in the world, a bottle of wine with some bread and cheese somewhere on a beach. To live like kings & queens?

Check out the video interview of Jaz Coleman on the album, and the band’s intent to respect the ancient calendars:

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Paaszeeland

Het paasweekend van 2012 zal herinnerd worden als het paasweekend dat we doorbrachten in Kamperland, Zeeland (Nederland). We hadden een huurhuisje geboekt in het park Beach Resort van de Roompot. Hmmm, ontbijten met zicht op haven en op de Oosterschelde. Mooie vooruitzichten. En aangezien het paasweekend was, was een weekendarrangement ook een dagje langer, dat wil zeggen tot en met maandag. Leuke gezinsbelevenis.

Op vrijdag waren we wat te vroeg al ter plaatse, en dus maakten we een kleine wandeling nadat we onze auto alvast al wel aan het huisje hadden geparkeerd. Vooraleer de sleutel af te halen en onze intrek te nemen, genoten we nog van een kleine maaltijd op het centrale terrasrestaurant. Vervolgens was er het gebruikelijke ritueel van uitladen en huisje inrichten, omgeven door een bende joelende kinderen (3 in ons geval). En kijk, de eerste avond ben ik al onmiddellijk beginnen genieten van de nieuwste Peter Verhelst, “De allerlaatste caracara ter wereld”. Die had ik me nog snel aangeschaft voor vertrek. Niet omdat ik niks anders te lezen heb overigens, maar uit pure opwinding.

De zaterdag begon (na een ontbijt) met een bezoekje aan het tropisch zwembad van het park, wat erg leuk is met 3 waterratten van kinderen. Vervolgens brachten we een leuk bezoekje aan Zierikzee, waar we ons weer eens positief verbaasden over de leuke uitstraling van de gemiddelde Nederlandse boekhandel, en ons ook een huisnummer aanschaften in blauw emaille. Langs Neeltje Jans keerden we huiswaarts om vanuit het restaurant de kitesurfers bezig te zien, en ons eraan te herinneren dat we onze vlieger hadden meegenomen.

Op zondag, paasdag, leek het even of er zich een drama ging voltrekken, aangezien er geen paashaasbezoek leek te zijn geweest. Maar allicht was het gewoon even zoeken voor de paashaas, een vriend van Koos, vooraleer hij de weg naar ons huisje had gevonden. Oef, de kinderen konden paaseieren rapen.

En, zoals het zich had laten raden de dag ervoor trokken we ook nog naar het strand. Qua wind was het niet helemaal ideaal voor de vlieger, maar we hebben wel zandkastelen kunnen maken. We sloten de dag af met een Astrid Lindgren spel, een ganzenbord met figuren uit haar boeken. En dan kon mijn pret alvast helemaal niet meer op aangezien ik niet alleen mijn verjaardagsgeschenk 2012 veel sneller ben beginnen benutten dan de voorbije jaren het geval was, maar het bestond dan ook nog eens uit een borduurwerk, van Pettson & Findus, 2 leuke zweedse figuren (enfin, een kat en zijn baas). Wow, jaren geleden lijkt het dat ik nog borduurde. En plezier dat het deed!

Op maandag was het te regenachtig voor vele buitenavonturen. Dus na een ontspannen zwembeurt in het tropisch zwemparadijs genoten we binnenshuis van de regen en lekker eten. Veel paaseieren gegeten, amai. En intussen blijven borduren en lezen (niet tegelijk weliswaar).

Op dinsdag keerden we huiswaarts met een jarige dochter. Gelukkige 2e verjaardag, Nienke!