It's the 30th of April again so Holland turns itself in Orange and acts weird

WHY ??

Our Queen celebrates her birthday today!
Okay for those of you who will do a search for her on the net. It's not her actual birthday. That's on January 31. Her mother Juliana's birthday though was today and when Beatrix became Queen in 1980 she just kept that date to honor her mother. The weatherchances are better too. Besides one of the familymembers, Mr. Pieter van Vollenhoven, is having his birthday today so... who cares he doesn't, he just joins the fun.

To give you an impression of what the country looks like just take a look

The little ones pimp their bikes aswell, the best pimped bike will win a price.

Trafficjams in the canals of Amsterdam. Just make sure that you're seen at the scene !

As you can see we're acting weird. But don't worry it's just one day a year and we have lots of fun.

Even the Royal Family had fun today while visiting Franeker and Makkum.
Both those places showed themselfs to the 'world' live on tv all morning.

And to finish the day in perfect order you could always
get yourself one of these.

On every other day their color will be pink.

But just for today it's orange.

You still don't understand why Holland loves orange so much?

Let me explain:
Our Royal Family's name is Of Orange-Nassau.
Named after two small counties that used to be owned by the family.

YEP !!! Everyone is back in the Twenty-First Century...
The Dark Ages are gone for now.

There is only ONE catch though:
The weathergods are not allowed toenjoy a storm.
When the wind-force comes above 6 then the cables
will be in danger and we'll be back in the dark.

So... let's hope that won't happen.

Last week the weathergods and mother nature
were proving to know something about art though....

As you can see mother nature did her utmost best to show
some beauty after all the darkness and coldness ...

Unfortunatly it's above 0 degrees Celsius again so...
a white white christmas isn't available in our country again!!!

All that's left is to wish everybody a Merry Christmas,
have fun with everyone you're celebrating this event !!

Wednesday about 7.15 pm an Apache-chopper flew into two pylons which support
the cabbles for electricity.

Our region entered The Dark Ages from that moment on.

No heating, no streetlights, no lights inside the house, no TV, no pc, no hot coffee,
no supper if you don't have a gas cooker, not hot tub or shower, no wireless phones.

Do you have any idea how fast a house cools down with 3 degrees Celsius outside ??

TOO FAST !!!

We DID have candles, books, boardgames, blankets,
heat from our gas cooker, hot tea, cellphones (if the batterie wasn't flat and wirephones.

Very romantic... wonder how many babies will be born in about nine months.
People in Haaksbergen have been out of electricity for 3 days a couple of years back.
Nine months later there was a babyboom.... What else is there to do, right...

About 3 am the lights went back on. Literal in my bedroom. Wide awake in 2 seconds...
Each time you enter a room autopilot kicks in and you turn on the light. But no lights so you forget
to turn them off when you leave the room....

Yep, that's how you end up wide awake at 3 am

Here are some images from the Internet I found concerning the accident. Just to give you an idea.

The apache-chopper made a forced landing in a meadow about 20 km from the site.
The two pilots were send to the hospital, but turned out okay, so that's the good news.

The pylon on the north-side of the river Waal has still one 'arm' left and will be used in
the restoringprocess. That's a bit of good news too.

It's an other story on the south-side of the river. Both 'arms' are missing.
Which will be temporarily replaced with two cranes who will hold up three of the six
original cables.
With three out of six our region will be restored with electricity. Because of the fact that all
six cables were destroyed the world turned black at once....

This is one of the broken cables. Some of themended up in the water.
Which must have caused some fireworks... Would have loved to see that.

Anyway... Bad news

This crash has put 50.000 homes including 110.000 citizens out of electricity.

Stores are closed. Simply because registers and security won't work.
One advantage... you can't spent any money either, saves you some bucks there.

There are a lot of dairy-farmers in the region who can't milk their cattle.
If they would milk them by hand they can't store the milk because of that same lack
of electricity... So that yummy milk will end up in... right a ditch behind the farm.
Have to leave it somewhere.

If everything goes according to plan... when does that ever happen... ???
Then everyone will reenter the 21th Century by Friday-afternoon.

But... It's really dark outside and really cold (3 degrees as mentioned).
The river Waal is really high, all the way at the dikes. So that doesn't help much.
The genies from the army do lent a hand, so...

Schools are out because there is no heating, no pc, no anything.
In our town one school was working but has to send the students home on Friday so the old
people's home can use the school. That home is from the wrong part of town this week

Who is going to pay for all this...
You, me, everybody... accept the government.
Just like the old days with the musketeers. All for One, One for All.

The department of Defense already stated that they won't accept any claims...
Who flew the damn thing??? Bugs Bunny, Donald Duck, Lucky Luke, Man in Black

YEP... ALL FOR ONE it is !!!

Long live the guy that invented the electricity, HURRAY, HURRAY, HURRAY.