Dinosaur Party

Maud decided to throw a highly exclusive BDay-party with two VIP-guests: Kristien (first encounter August 1973, first day secondary school) and Dirk (first encounter May 1974, Kristien's 13th BDay-party). And of course Bram (first encounter summer 1997) and Tlo & Tau.
Kristien arrives first, so she has to listen to Maud getting the horrors of becoming an elderly person off her chest alone... Discussing the dismay makes it funny rather then depressing, so her First & her Last man really missed out on that one.
Dirk made it a real BDay by serving the traditional Dutch appeltaart with 47 candles - a baie lekker piece of art!

BDay

Baie dankie, kealeboga, muchas gracias, thanks a lot, mange tak, enorm bedankt, agradecimentos muito, tack så mycket for all my birthday e-mails, snail mails, e-cards, phone calls, text messages!!!


You made me forget to be depressed about being a fossil!


Ready to plunge into another fun-filled year...

Paul & Bram

Saturday morning Paul arrives from Scotland, loaded with presents for his daughter Raquel, who's surviving in Amsterdam, and us. Now that his suitcase is almost empty, it's time for heavy duty shopping!


We drift downtown by boat. Living below sea level has some advantages, like the web of waterways in our city. We park the boat close to the shops, plan our spree like a military operation, and attack.


Shop till you drop, when the going gets tough the tough go shopping makes hungry, so we introduce Paul to the only Dutch delicacy he doesn't know already: rookworst. After tasting the Chanel among the smoked sausages, a Hot Hema rookworst, the boys are in heavy need of a wee dram...


Still that suitcase has to be filled again, so we work our way through Leiden's 1 kilometre of shopping fun, on the beat of the many draaiorgels - another typical Dutch treat.


We don't know yet it is the last day of orange all around... That evening the Russians kick Holland oleole out of the European soccer championship. Now Turkey has to beat the Germans for us coming Wednesday!


Poor boys - instead of coping with their babbelas in bed they have to get up early Sunday morning. There's another serious task at hand: sketching.

Fiesta del Sombrero Mexicano

Paul must think we've parties always! When he was over last year we took him to Marjan's birthday party, and this year he has to attend Haroen's Fiesta del Sombrero Mexicano. It's a double festivity: Daniela's birthday and Bram's uncle & family are moving to Curaçao.


While the birthday girl is piling up presents the grownups work their way through an amazing amount of food & booze. They of course need constant refuelling - all this talking and dancing, on top of the pressure of another soccer match that night...


Someone is happy to swap the low lands for another part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands! Curaçao is one of the Netherlands Antilles, a group if isles in the Caribbean Sea close to the north coast of Venezuela.


Click on the picture and read that t-shirt - it's fabulous!

Folks @ Work

To commemorate their birthdays Janny & Cees wished for a weekend of labour and lekker food & fun with the kids at their Zeeland farmhouse. The first accomplishment is all of us actually arriving more or less awake Saturday morning, after an extremely exiting Dutch soccer match & party Friday night.


Every new arrival is well fed to regain strength for the zillion jobs. The experienced trampoline team first erects Janny's other birthday present, so we can put Jack & Tui in their new cage.


It's a miracle we get anything else done cause the kitchen team keeps producing food that has to be eaten.


In between meals a lot of restoration, painting, pruning and weeding is accomplished after all.


Mates @ Work: Jack & Bram put the old wooden bench back together before the painting team has a go at it.


The freshly pebbled terrace is the showiest result of a perfectly orchestrated group effort.


View the real slideshow of the mates and everyone else:

Alan's Zeeland pictures

Change Management 2010

Obviously during succer championships every bar & restaurant has to make a crucial marketing decision: big screen game watching (most) or soccer-free (a profitable niche-market). Another lucrative niche-market is courses; crochet your own igloo, produce the swirliest ice cream, expert bonsai pruning - succer widows & widowers will subscribe to anything to escape home game watching.


Home game watching? Yes, as the devotees get older, they're not up to bar game watching all wars with their fellow disciples anymore. Their first resort is 'It'll be so nice to watch together, all together - my succer friends & partners and you darling.' Although the heathens suspect they are invited to serve beers, cook, and wash dishes, cause the believers are too busy, it really is nice.


Organizing braais almost every day for over three weeks is a bit much, so their second resort is 'It'll be so nice to watch with you darling.' Yeah, sure, as long as there's enough cold beer and hot snacks at hand you'll never notice whether I'm there or not - darling! That's where the courses come in.


Being really old, we have our own solution for the non-braai events. Take Maud's fatboy & big tele, locate them strategically close to her computer, the fridge and the snacks cupboard, put Bram and our cats Tlo & Tau on top of the fatboy (yes, that's the big blue cushion), and there's a happy family!


For those who didn't believe our post 'Manual 2010': the Dutch national anthem is about the freedom war against the Spanish in (1568-1648)! And a running Low Lands joke is 'If we reach the next round, but the Germans don't, what's the point?'
What really irritates Maud is they took out everything interesting. Succer fasion used to be hot pants & tight shirts, but nowadays they're clad in these potato bags. On top of that they cancelled the charming habit of teams switching shirts on the field after the game. So what's the point of watching?

Manual 2010

Red Alert: in 2010 an invasion of weird & wild European tribes is expected in Southern Africa. How to recognize them? They move around in groups, wearing their tribe colours, carrying strange attributes in the same tints. They feed on liquid bread (beer) and chips only. It's not sure they have a language - if so, it consists of about ten words, of which oleoleoleole is the most important. According to recent research they communicate by varying the tone and length of 'oleole'. Before and after each succer match they roam cities & villages - an excellent chance to study them in the wild!


To collect data, your research team staked their lives and went to Amsterdam during the Romania-France and the Netherlands-Italy tribal wars. Even though we disguised ourselves in tribal colours, we were lucky to find a safe h(e)aven to hide until the heat was off again. The UN managed to supply plenty food & drinks & bandages, and some charcoal to cook on - imagine!


There even was a tele so we could watch The War live. The day before the Germans took revenge for their silver medal during the Second World War by beating the Poles, but the poor Italians saw the gold going to the Netherlands again. Just so you know how deep this succer goes: a Low Lands - España match is a replay of the Tachtigjarige Oorlog (1568-1648; the guerrilla of the Dutch against their rightful Spanish King or the freedom war of the Netherlands against the Spanish occupation...). That's why the main tribal colour is orange, even though de Dutch flag is red-white-blue: Willem of Orange, forefather of the Dutch Royal House, was the leader of the revolt.

Folks again

We can hardly believe it, but the weather has changed! Right in time cause we planned a weekend in Wilsum with Bram's parents. Wilsum is a small village on the brink of the river IJssel, in the eastern rural part of the Netherlands. The yards are a bit more spacey, with room for vegetables, fruit trees and marvellous flower compositions. Bram's dad Ivan is a wizard with roses, just like his great-aunt Ma Jet!


After a lovely lunch Maud feels like a nap, so she misses the arrival of the sweeties. The boys make up by jumping on top of her after deciding sleeping aunties are boring. This is the perfect introduction of their new hobby: grapple.


It is also the first day of the European Championship Succer, so David has to join uncle B and oupa in watching all and every game, boring or not. This leaves poor Jelle uncle Ivan jr. (sorry, hernia), dad Maarten (sorry, pimping laptops) and, yuk, females for grappling. Though he must admit mom Christine is a good match...


Linde compensates for being the smallest by being the most strong willed, and a fierce soccer-player. No way getting past her and ouma Tineke for the boys!


We put a cherry on our cake by spending the evening in front of the outside fireplace with the neighbours and South African wine. No wonder everyone is latish Sunday morning! Again the weather is so nice: sunny and dry, perfect for sipping a cupper or two outside before really waking up.


Finally we manage to drive to the brink of the IJssel to do some bird watching and enjoy a light liquid lunch before we hop on a train back to urban Holland.

Kaasfondue

Here's a typical Dutch treat: Swiss cheese fondue. The recipe is simple: put grated cheese and white whine in a pot, heat until cheese is melted, add secret ingredient(s), and serve with bread for dipping. Like all simple recipes it's very hard to make a good kaasfondue; the result might be like well-used chewing gum, warm vinegar with a lot of salt, or even worse. Once again Carel proved he's an excellent cook. Perfect fondue, accompanied by just what the doctor ordered: jokes. Beware Batswana, when Margot, Mink and Melle decide an African safari is just what their doctor ordered, Carel will introduce kaasfondue in Morwa.


After dinner the boys decided to compare injuries. Yes, sure, charming, your ripped off Achilles resulted in one perfectly shaped calve and a funny floppy formless one for both.

More 'our Folks'

Although Machteld is much younger then Maud, in the matrimonial department she got a 1 year, 3 months, 4 days head start. To celebrate her fifth wedding anniversary, we hopped over to Amsterdam to kidsit our nephews, while Maggie & Alan went partying downtown.


We left for Botswana last September when Tui was just born, so he doesn't know us at all, but he was very cool about this strange uncle and auntie. In fact he refused to go to sleep, cause he really wanted to make up for lost time, and get familiar with us. He especially flattered Maud by crying if he was not in her arms.


Jack decided on a different approach by being a compliant angle. Maybe he was practising for loosing his status of 'terrible two' by turning three coming July, but we of course like to think he was just happy to see us. The bottom line is we've never seen a two-year old agree to 'let's bath', 'lets go to bed', and etcetera that easily! On top of that he was delighted to share is new 'big boy' room with us for the night.

more J&T-pictures

After a mellow, extended breakfast with Alan and the boys (poor Machteld had to report for work early), we biked to Bram's great aunt Loes. Ninety year old Louise Aisha is the last of Bram's granddad Bram many sisters and brothers alive. She's still incredibly sharp, and has all this amazing stories about colonial Suriname. Nothing beats oral history from someone who really lived through it!

Wildlife!!!

Hey, we got the perfect location, in the old city centre, with a patch of garden, and one of the famous canals right behind our miniature masimo! Those canals will take you everywhere in the city, so instead of driving to Trade Centre and Builders Botswana, we can boat to the shops, and load our petite vessel.
There's even some wildlife floating in the canals, like these swans, which exactly know which suckers will feed their offspring. Seriously, they have this fixed forage round, stopping at certain yards and houseboats to see if anyone is around to hand over their share!
Wanna check it out on Google Earth? Boat: latitude 52° 9'40.81"N, longitude 4°30'12.29"E. House: latitude 52° 9'41.70"N, longitude 4°30'12.07"E. Masimo: latitude 52° 9'41.19"N, longitude 4°30'12.24"E.

Transport

Since we don't have a car in the Netherlands, and still want & need to move around, we're subject to the joys & sorrows of other modes of transport...


Luckily public transport by train is quite good - if there are no accidents or maintenance works on the rails, broken down trains, or strikes. In fact it equals driving your own car, which is also hampered by accidents, road works and breakdowns, and, instead of strikes, omnipresent traffic jams.


The problem is getting to & fro railway stations, but we got the perfect solution: folding bikes. Bicycles are very popular in the Netherlands anyway, and the fold-in, fit-in public transport, variety is like the best invention ever to extend your radius!


A few 'big' cities in the Randstad (urbanized area in the west) also have metros and trams (like a goutrein), but biking is so much faster. And then there are the busses - well, avoiding experiences with those, we can't really tell you anything about them...