Today I still have the day off. Normally, we would go to Gabi’s mother’s house the day after we got back and eat a box of donuts together. But right before the holidays, our washing machine broke and today someone is coming over to hopefully fix it. So that has to be cancelled, sorry. We are in luck: the mechanic identifies the heating element as the problem, has the right spare part with him and replaces it. After that, the machine is ready again, and has quite a workload to do. Two weeks’ holiday means a lot of laundry.

Then it’s finally time to unpack. And grocery shopping. And picking up the mail. And washing the car. And of course: doing the laundry. As always, it turns out: We bought more than we thought we would! You’ve already read about the pig, the deluxe biography of Scrooge McDuck and the Back to the Future breakfast cereal. The tiger vase, also from Liberty, in which Gabi wants to put her Lego bouquet, is also great. As is everything else we bought.