What Sahara Said

We've been on winter holidays for the last week or so, and I've been very lazy about uploading photos. Gert's boss hired a fair for the families of the people who work for him on the first day of holidays, so we caught the tram in the freezing cold and rain to the other side of the city. We had to walk past the marina and port to get to the building where it was being held. Di pointed out a strange looking castle near the waters edge while we were walking past the marina. A little closer and we realized it was actually a boat made to look like a castle. And then we realized there was a pony wandering around on the top deck... Sahara was quite delighted. The fair was pretty awesome. We spent about 3 exhausting hours there, with Sahara dashing from ride to ride. The carousel was definitely her favourite, and she spent most of the rides having big conversations with both the man and woman running it. The man in the end pulled up a chair next to her pony and sat and chatted for two or three rides. Later she convinced me to go on with her. I asked her what her pony was called and she told me "Lisa". All Sahara's dolls are called Lisa, so no surprise here. I asked her what mine was called me and she informed me she'd given it the inspired name "Ian". We had our first smoutebollen there, which are kind of like hot doughnuts and, to be honest, the first food since moving here I've been impressed by.

Christmas eve we each opened one present. Sahara choose to open Nana Knopps. She wore the dress until she was dragged out of it for bed, and the first thing she did on jumping out of bed on Christmas bed wasn't look for the presents at the end of her bed but run to the closet and put it on again. Gert's parents, his brother Raf and Nikki, Marco and Anita came over for lunch and stayed until late. I'll post photos next week when Nikki gets back from holiday and I can ask her for them, as i didn't end up taking any.

Her friends, Chiara and Guilia, from Brussles came over yesterday. Despite having four languages between them they're not so good with names. Last visit they called each other "her", "that girl" and "that other girl". This visit Sahara was calling Guilia, "Guilita" and Chiara, "Tiana".