Annelies sent Koos a message about both books printed in a batch of five hundred. He promised that he and Olivia would make a nice outing of it.

The next day, they were at the print shop by 9.30am. Olivia introduced herself to Annelies and Bert: "I'm Olivia, I'm so happy for Koos that you wanted to make a photo book of his beautiful pictures. Five hundred, he told me, that's quite a lot!"

"Definitely, and I would love to take ten of them right away. I think it would be fun, Olivia, to go to Bloemenhof later on, give a book to the three couples, and take the rest home, I think, to give as a gift to someone sometime. After all, I could leave the selling to you guys otherwise, couldn't I?"

"Yes, that's basically through Ilse, and if people come here, they can always buy here too. We can also run it through the bookshops, but then you have to arrange all sorts of other things. If you want to know more about that, just e-mail me and I'll set it up for you."

"For now, it seems fine to me via the website. And if that doesn't run well or hardly at all, we can always adjust it. And that other stack," he said with a wink, "I'd like ten of those too."

"Would you take them, Bert, and I'll take care of the invoice in the meantime."

"Other stack?" asked Olivia in surprise. "What other stack?"

"This one," said Bert, handing her a stack of ten of her own books.

Bewildered, she looked at the front cover, the back cover and inside the book. She put down the stack and looked at Koos. "I should get mad at you anyway, that you arranged that without consultation, but I can't get mad at you, especially when you did something so nice for me! Taking pictures of my movies, you rascal!"

She put her hands in his neck and pulled his face towards her to give him a firm kiss. "Thank you, Koos, I would never have dared to do this myself. But now that they are already made, I find it incredibly fun!"

She turned to Bert and Annelies, who were smiling at them. "Sorry folks, I just had to deal with this!"

"You should especially do that, yes," Annelies said grinning.

Koos paid the bill for both stacks and, with a hearty greeting and the books in two bags, they left.

"Shall we walk to Annerieke's?" suggested Koos.

"Well, it's all so close, we'll pick up the car later."

A little later they rang the bell at the front door of the guesthouse. Annerieke was pleasantly surprised to see them. She immediately invited them for coffee and preceded them to the staff kitchen.

"Look who's here!" she said to the others.

"Olivia! Koos! How nice!"

The greetings were so heartfelt that it simply moved them. Bianca was a stranger to them, but soon it didn't feel that way anymore. Julian looked at them with a crooked head, observed them thoroughly and then started telling them a hugely incoherent and mostly unintelligible story, at which he himself again laughed the loudest.

Suddenly, he stopped. He was the first to see the door open and shouted, hopping up and down on Bianca's lap, "Kade, Kade!"

Bianca blushed, let Julian slide off her lap and let go of him. He dribbled up towards Karel with his little arms up high and was more than happy to be pulled up.

"Good morning Julian, good morning everyone," he said, looking around the circle. His gaze lingered on Bianca for a moment, then he looked at Annerieke: "Can I ask you a humble favour?"

"Always!" responded Annerieke with a smile.

"May I hijack this little guy and his mother from you this afternoon? If they want to be hijacked of course..."

Bianca blushed even more, but smiled and nodded. "I always help Annerieke with cooking, Karel..."

"... but not this afternoon for once, you're quite allowed to take an afternoon off once in a while!" Annerieke interrupted her. "I have two possible recipes for tonight, and I'll just choose the simplest one. Just agree on the whole afternoon, or if you have finished work now, feel free to meet the rest of the day."

Bianca looked at Karel questioningly. "Is that even possible with your work then?"

"I rarely have a day off, except Sundays, and I've decided that I'll take the day off from today, and won't appear at work again until Monday afternoon."

"What a great example," Margreet said, "Bianca, if you want, feel free to follow that example, and I'll take over household care from you for a few days."

"Yes but, you can't just do that, can you?" asked Bianca confused.

"If they say it can, then it can," Olivia said, putting her hand on Bianca's shoulder. "Looks like they are good for you!"

"Tell you what, Bianca, I'll walk you to your room upstairs in a minute and we'll talk about it together. And then we'll let you know afterwards." Karel looked at her kindly. "Shall we go upstairs for a moment?"

Bianca nodded, and Lisa held out her arms to Julian, but Julian didn't want to know about that, he wanted to go with 'Kade'.

Olivia looked at them smiling. "Preliminary relationship?"

Huib nodded: "Primal, but absolutely soulful!"

"Wonderful," thought Koos. "Fine for the kid too, he gets on well with the guy. But another thing, we came for a reason, besides the fact that we like seeing you again. We've just been to the print shop..."

They both reached for their bags, taking out a few books.

"For each couple a book from me," Olivia said.

"And one from me too," Koos complemented. "We will send photos of them to Ilse, so she can put the books on the website too, but we wanted to give you a copy of both of us."

There was silence for a moment, everyone was so surprised and immediately started browsing the books. The praise came pouring in, as they quietly browsed on.

"I had already seen your videos, Olivia, on the gallery site," Huib said, "I didn't know you had taken photos of them."

"Neither did I, I have not done that either. Koos was going to that print shop here in the village for a while, to have a photo book made from his own photos. I didn't know he had secretly taken pictures of my videos. This morning it turned out that he had a huge stack of books made from them. How many actually, Koos?"

"Five hundred, just like mine," Koos replied, looking at her over the rim of his glasses.

"Five hundred of mine too? Are you nuts?" exclaimed Olivia.

"Yeah totally nuts, that's what you get for following the impressions of your insides, Olive!"

"Ah you..." Olivia pretended to wave him off, but laughed anyway.

"Well just hope people want to buy this..."

Lisa countered, "Do you know what I think is the advantage of that site? There is so much to experience on it, so many different things, that people just love to browse around on it. I think those books will sell."

"Yes, maybe, but they can also see those videos on the site, for free, would they want a book with pictures from the videos?"

"I do, I'm happy with it," responded Sjaak, "thank you both, these are lovely books to crawl away in the couch with, just quietly watching something for a while. What do you think Lisa, shall we leave them up for grabs on the coffee table?"

"Yes conveniently, I'm sure William won't mind. Paper is fun to tear, then he can tear out all the pages and we'll pin them to the wall. That's something fun for a change!"

"Okay, you're right! On a handy corner in the open shelf then, so you just grab it easily."

Lisa nodded: "Good plan, Sjaak, let's do that! Ah, there are Bianca and Karel again. And are you guys out?"

Bianca nodded: "If you guys are really sure..."

"We are very sure! Go on...?"

Bianca chuckled nervously. "Okay, then I'll go pack my things, then I'll come back on Monday when Karel goes back to work. At one o'clock or so?"

"Totally fine, fine for you, enjoy!" said Annerieke sympathetically.

"Thank you all... Shall we have another cup of coffee along and then pack my things?" suggested Bianca to Karel.

"That seems like a good idea, if Annerieke has enough coffee?"

"Otherwise I'll put new ones in a minute," responded Annerieke ad rem.

"Bianca?" asked Koos drawing her attention, reaching out to hand her both their photo books. "Please, we had brought a set for all the couples at Bloemenhof, so for you too."

"Oh really? Photo books? Both of you? Yes, Koos, and Olivia... Oh, this is that funny stuff that's also on the website. Wait, only now it dawns on me, you are Koos and Olivia from the gallery! How funny, I didn't know you and had an image of a young couple in mind!"

"We are," Koos said gravely. "We just don't plan to ever grow old. Since I retired, we have actually discovered the purpose of our lives, that which suits us. Better late than never! And as a result, we have become young again. Never knew it could be done, but it works!"

Beaming, he looked at Olivia. "Isn't that what it feels like?"

"Oh yes, definitely!" Olivia confirmed.

"I have a good plan, Bianca, hanging out on the sofa tonight with a photo book!" said Karel.

"Totebook totebook!" cried Julian, "me!

"Yeah right, you can look too, with your eyes!" said Bianca.

"Fauj Kade au!" said Julian, seeing a picture of a fiery piece of painting by Olivia. "Kade au! Fauj!"

"Yes, that's right Julian, when I make fire under the pan, I have to be careful hey, otherwise I'll hurt myself...

Koos shook his head endearingly. "You are a great trio, no doubt about it!"

To chapter 80. Staying

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