What have I become, my sweetest friend

Gotto love public holidays after submitting assignments! Time to catch up on all the exciting chores and procrastinate on the computer...

The sun has been shining a lot more lately, being reason to do more outdoorsy things!


We had a visit from Emme and Kit, entailing a bike-ride into Antwerp, under the Schelde to linkeroever for an icecream, followed by a wine in the city. The evening before was Maarten's birthday barbecue on the kattendijk, and here is Emme with Jenthe...

Tom and I took a drive to Herentaals (only to get seriously lost on the way) in the Kempen, winding up in Geel first. By mid afternoon, we found the only nice piece of nature Flanders has to offer, and had a lovely walk.

Yet another work function... am lucky I have a boss who enjoys putting on a do every now and then!

Some more shots from the 10 miles... couldnt believe these guys ran 16km in a rubber ducky! There were so many amazing different costumes and contraptions! Some old dude retiring from the fire service ran the entire race in his fire-fighting costume! CRAZY!

A shot of whitey showing off lack of muscle - clearly before the race (no sweat marks just yet!!)

A little bit of bragging

Antwerpen: End April 2009:

Tom - ran 10 miles (approx 16km) in 1hr 26mins

Ingrid - ran 5km (approx not that far) in 31mins and 9 seconds.

Thoroughly enjoyed the day - 25 000 people ran (including a bunch a kids in the 1km run!) and the atmosphere was amazing. Especially when the boss is a health-nut and sponsored a VIP tent on the finish line - a good incentive if you ask me!

Video of Ingrid crossing the line

My video is crowded with heaps of women, but if you  look carefully, there is a countdown (around a minute) and I am wearing pink on the far right of the screen.

Video of Tom crossing the line

Tom's video is with a huge amount of people - his has a 15 second countdown, and is easy to pick as he crosses the line, he stops his watch (also on the left of the screen).

Official Photo of Tom (copywritten...) looking completely buggered! You need to click on the link for Antwerpen 10 miles and marathon (in April) and his number is 4951.

Can you tell how proud I am?! Next year, we both aim to do better (can I manage the full 16km - through two tunnels, with an uphill tunnel at the end of the race?! I have heard one too many stories of people collapsing in the 'konijnenpijp' tunnel and am slightly put off...).

Gaan we wenen?

Clearly due to lack of any sort of blog activity in the past 2 months, I have been short of time (not to mention any interesting European activity!)

What has happened since 6 February? The first wedding from Tom's group of friends - an extremely elaborate affair (involving top hats, suits with tails', 200+ guests, a new dress for me, a new waistcoat for Tom), but a lot of fun. Plenty of dancing until 4am, a power-spew from Tom (making the night extra special).

In line with our wedding... my dress is being adjusted to fit, so no more stressing - no more losing any weight - bring on the calorie bombs! We have also ordered our rings from Wim Meeussen which went rather quickly. Two huge costs, but exciting!

The invitations are ALMOST ready to send to oz. Hopefully noone will be too upset receiving them this late in the game! 

We are off to Vienna (Wenen) for a few days on Wednesday - finally I will visit my classical and romantic dream where Beethoven, Mozart, Hayden, Strauss etc. spent much of their lives, while Tom will be able to visit the beginning of psychology. We have booked ourselves something fancy (for the first time ever!) so are looking forward to some luxury!

Pics to follow