Happy Christmas

Three little words I’d never thought I’d end up writing in the same sentence: December, Netherlands, warm.

Yes I’ve just returned from a last minute Christmas shop and I’m positively boiling, despite the fact that I replaced big winter coat with middleweight jacket. I even wore canvas shoes instead of boots. Yesterday,it was warm enough to sit outside when I met up with a couple of friends for lunch, and we didn’t even need the patio heater and blankets provided by most Dutch cafes for those hardy souls who will brave the outdoors whatever the weather  (aka smokers). 

There’s part of me that thinks this is great, and another part which wonders if I am being lulled into false sense of security. Short term, of course, there is the worry that the price of all this pre-Christmas warmth will be a big New Year freeze – and of course long term, the worry about global warming. And in any case, if I am going to have unusually high temperatures I’d like them in the summer please – not the winter. It’s all right basking in the sunshine now, but where was it June and July? It certainly wasn’t shining in the Netherlands (incidentally a lot of Dutch people  think the summer of 2015 will go down as a good one, which is very worrying).

But despite the warmth, Haarlem is finally feeling very festive. Albert Heijn have introduced their range of feestdagen goodies – chicken roulades, pork joints and some very suspect looking stuffed eggs and ornate pats of butter-cream in a display that takes up only one end of a cold-cabinet.  After watching BBC2’s Back In Time for Christmas (Back in Time for Dinner has to be one of my fav programmes of the year) I realise I have become commercially brainwashed by Christmas in the UK and the ‘need’ to go overboard to stock up on Christmas gifts and goodies.  Here in the Netherlands they do it the old fashioned way. Christmas doesn’t begin until the week before the 25th December; there is no need for mammoth shopping expeditions and crazy check-out queues. There I was bemoaning the whole I can’t buy any decent wrapping paper thing, and now I realise, so what? It’s wrapping paper. You rip it off and put it in the bin. It’s what’s inside that counts – and even that doesn’t really matter. The Dutch give each other very little in the way of presents. What is important  about this time of year is counting your blessings, not your gifts, and spending time with the people you love and care about.

This Christmas will be extra special for my family because we will actually all be together in the UK at the same time. It doesn't happen every year. 

So children, if you don’t like the way I've wrapped your present, and in fact your present isn't what you wanted at all, remember the real treat is being with me. 

Happy Christmas!

Feeling Festive

There is nothing like Christmas to get the creative juices flowing again. I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t been particularly inspired to post any blogs just recently – life in the Netherlands ticks over very simply and quietly  (dull is another description which immediately springs to mind). Nor do I do an awful lot to write about.

However, daughter No 1 moved to Budapest this week, and had published her new travel blog within hours of stepping off the plane.  It made me realise I need to get back on track. What sort of writer am I if I can’t make my mundane everyday life in Haarlem sound interesting enough for people to want to read about?

So let me start with my evening in Amsterdam. I’ve met some new friends through an international women’s group, and this week’s activity was a walking tour of Amsterdam’s Christmas lights.  

I like meeting new people, I like being ‘included’ but I’ve come to realise, a bit like in the US, that not liking coffee is holding me back. Sitting in a café with a glass of boiling hot water (I really don’t get why you would ever put boiling water into a glass with no handle) and a selection of very weak tea-leaves is no fun.  If I want my tea to taste of anything other than hot water the tea leaves need to infuse for a good 30 minutes, by which time my very hot water is cold and everyone else has long finished their Lattes and is ready to move on.

So – no more cups of tea for me, I’ll stick to wine. With a half hour wait before the start of the walking tour one new friend suggested we share a bottle of wine (don't panic - there were five of us!). We called over the waiter. Ten minutes later no sign of bottle of wine, and I started to get slightly agitated.  Just as we decided we’d cancel the order, wine arrived. It was quite tempting to ask for paper take-away cups, but funnily enough, none of us actually had a problem downing a glass of wine in ten minutes (which says an awful lot for the life of an expat wife).  It’s just that when I’ve paid six euro’s for my glass, I’d have quite liked to savour it. Dutch service can sometimes leave a lot to be desired.

We had a good walk and a chat, admired the lights – which really are very pretty indeed – discussed the merits of various Amsterdam eateries, marvelled at the Bijenkorf’s window displays and lamented the demise of C&A in the UK.

Most of my new friends are just like me – husband at work, hours to kill. They play cards, attend book clubs,  meet for lunch, go for walks.  I find myself turning invitations down. Does that make me unsociable? I want people to like me, yet…if I am out all day walking, lunching, swigging wine or sipping hot water, then I don’t have the time to write…and how am I ever going to get a second novel finished, and never mind having the time to try and find a publisher and/or self-publish the first….and then also I don’t particularly like telling my new friends that I need time to ‘write’ because then they always want to know exactly what it is I write, and what I've had published (and that's where the conversation always ends!)

So should I be highly sociable and non-productive, or a productive-recluse? It’s a dilemma.

Meanwhile, back to the Christmas festivities. People travel all over Europe for the Christmas markets and we are lucky enough to have one right here on our doorstep. Haarlem’s Christmas market only comes for the weekend, but it’s probably long enough – after all how many fir cone angel tea-light holders do you really need?

Christmas over here is generally very low key – our local Albert Heijn has a meagre selection of three different rolls of Christmas wrapping paper, two which aren’t very festive at all (and could double up as birthday paper – which probably suits the Dutch sense of frugality) and another which depicts Zwarte Piet (definitely a no-no). Anyone who lives near me back in the UK will know that you can’t move in the local Tesco for shelves of gift-wrap. Still at least  lack of choice speeds up the decision making process.

Also this weekend, Mr T’s Christmas work-do and a rare opportunity to dress up and wear heels. The dress and the heels had to be specially purchased – no point having heels in Haarlem because of the cobblestones, and the dress was bought in the UK because I wanted something above the knee (I am too short for the Dutch fashion industry).

A good evening was had by all – although Mr T and I did realise after the event that we were actually the only guests staying in the hotel, but I think I might save that story for another post...