First it's on, then it's off.

The Kist Sisters:
Susy, Katy and Hanna.

We celebrated a small Thanksgiving at home before Hanna set off to enjoy the real thing with her parents and sisters in Maine.

Katy left from Amsterdam and joined Hanna in Boston so that they could travel together to our friend Becky's house to hot-tub in the snow! Then they made a snowy journey to rendez-vous with sister Susy at an organic turkey farm in Scarborough, Maine where they had just one reasonable sized (17lb) bird left. All the others were too big for the car, never mind the oven.

The last part of the trip was to Chez Kist down the Harpswell Peninsula near Brunswick where the snow was deeper. Driving down the path to the house was easy, but getting back up again, sideways,  was a bit more problematic and took at least half an hour to cover the 20 yards up to level ground.

Ice-Queen.

Snow like that can last for weeks. The temperature may just keep plummeting and I have seen the sea freeze in January. This time Maine was on the edge of a polar weather system that drifted in and out. On the next day the wind blew and the rain came down and then came black ice and, at low tide, the muddy channels were ice-rimmed.

That first night in Maine was a real treat for everyone because they had an impromptu party with carer Doug leading an hilarious trivia quiz and Opa Kist singing "Its a Long Way to Tipperary", "Goodnight Ladies" ( the song he always sang at bedtime) and "Aan de Oever van de Rotsen" which is a favourite Dutch song. I'm told that Thanksgiving went went very well too and Hanna's dad described his meal as being "like a small explosion". He can't always find the right words, but that describes Hanna's cooking perfectly.

After a week away Hanna came home to find Dan with a vomiting sickness, which she too caught. Our plans for celebrating the Dutch festival of St Nicholas were cancelled, then on again. But when Dan's problem moved down to his other end, we cancelled again.

So tonight we have celebrated St Nicholas with Dan and two carers. Instead of the Dutch/ Indonesian feast we has planned, we settled for a simple oven-baked chicken roast. It was fun all the same.