The Circle of Life

There are some days when I have to remind myself how lucky I am to be an expat and have the opportunity to experience life in a different country.

I’ve been here before. I know what I have to do to pull myself out of the doldrums. During  our first winter in the USA I resorted to filling my long lonely days with extreme jigsaw puzzling. I’ve always vowed I will never let things get that bad again. I’m in a different place now – quite literally.

In the US I pulled myself through that first year  by vowing to get outside every day for a walk. Our house nestled in the foothills of the magnificent San Gabriel mountains. I could step out of my door and stride uphill through the wide leafy streets of our affluent housing estate, admiring well-manicured lawns and exotic flower beds. Despite being in the middle of winter, I didn’t need a coat. The sun still shined. It was easy to be optimistic. I found a voluntary job doing something I loved – gardening.  When I finally managed to convince Mr T that I was never going to fit in to this quiet little corner of suburban America and we needed to move into town NOW, we found ready made ex-pat friends in our apartment block; I had a school run, a gym, a pool and then of course, I discovered the joy of blogging, and from blogging, came writing, stories, novels….

Here in the Netherlands it is a lot harder to keep that smile on my face. Mr T goes off to work at 7.30 and doesn’t get home much before 6. I know I should be grateful.  I’ve met other ex-pats whose husband travel continually. They are by themselves for days on end. You have to keep busy.

So when I find myself completing Facebook quizzes on the American constitution - yes apparently I do qualify as an American citizen, and discovering that I am Rosie and I am smart (who knew?), alarm bells start to ring.  Did I really just download an adult colouring app for my new tablet? What next?   On-line jigsaws? What am I doing?

Get outside. Get cold, get wet…get frozen, get soaked. There are days when I don’t even want to get out of bed, let alone out of the front door. The writing has come to a standstill. It is hard to remain motivated without a close network of like-minded encouraging writer friends.  I have a completed novel, which is doing the rounds of agents; I have a sequel, so far no more than a few plot-lines jotted in a notebook; I have another, unrelated story already in a reasonable state of beginning and end yet can’t get to grips with the middle, I have even started my How to Ex-Pat guide, several times. The ideas are there – the impetus to get them finished, evaporated (or as this is Holland, not so much evaporated as washed away….)

If I can’t get out, I should get cooking. Isn't that just as therapeutic? I’ve tried cakes – they don’t work unless I use self-raising flour imported from the UK, and there is only so much flour you can import from the UK, especially when you already have a car packed to bursting with cat biscuits, shredded wheat and orange squash.  The student suggested I should make my own bread. After all, she (correctly) pointed out that I am always saying I will do this when I return to the UK. Why wait? Why not do it here? Well the answer soon became apparent as four supermarkets later we finally managed to track down some gist (yeast). As for bread-making flour, that appeared to be non-existent.  Undeterred we soldiered on with what we hoped was a suitable alternative. It wasn't. The term wheat-brick springs to mind when looking at (and tasting) the finished product.

And that is why it is easy to become disheartened.

Another is the passing ships in the night phenomenon. This weekend friends we made when we first came to Haarlem but who subsequently returned to the UK came back for a visit.  It was great to catch up, but it only made me realise that in another six or seven months time I’ll inevitably be saying goodbye to the new friends I had to go out and find after the original ones left! It’s a vicious ex-pat circle.

That's What Friends Are For

Sometimes these posts are written in the heat (or the damp chill) of the moment, when I am feeling most passionate, or vehement about my current situation. I have to strike while the iron is hot, or before the inspiration evaporates into a sea of lethargy…Oh, who cares, it wasn’t that funny anyway….

Today was not funny; today was ridiculous, today seemed to sum up all that is so good (and so bad) with the whole ex-pat wife situation. Being an ex-pat takes you out of your comfort zone and you find yourself doing stuff that you would never do at home. Why would anyone set out for a 7 km walk in the pouring rain in the suburbs of Amsterdam with a half a dozen people they have only known for the last couple of months?

Because that’s what ex-pat wives do.

Ex-pat wives have to find ways to occupy the lonely hours while their partners are hard at work. Some fill their time with coffee mornings, card playing, and classes at the gym. I know I have to force myself to be sociable, so I have joined a walking group.

There is nothing I like more than a good walk. I’m hardy. I have a raincoat, boots, an umbrella. The group have a sort of unwritten rule that if the weather is atrocious, they don’t go, but rain doesn’t count, because in the Netherlands, if you only walked on dry days, you’d end up never end up walking at all.

We were supposed to be walking around a lake, but by the time we’d all gathered at the designated spot and stood around for fifteen minutes waiting for somebody who took the wrong bus and then VERY SENSIBLY gave up and went home, the morning’s drizzle had turned into persistent rain.

The whole walking around the lake idea was starting to look very unappealing. Instead, we set off in search of somewhere dry and warm – and discovered we were in the only part of Amsterdam devoid of a coffee shop (of any description).

The poodle parlour, launderette, and the sunbed studio were all starting to look like very tempting alternatives before we finally stumbled into a Turkish café, which shone like an oasis in the middle of a faceless 1970’s shopping precinct.  For once, no-one had the slightest qualm about ordering the chocolademelk met slagroom. Days like this you don't count calories.

After we had held a competition for who had the coldest hands and the wettest feet, we decided there was no point waiting for the weather to get better. It was time for damage limitation - who knew the quickest route home. A tram, a bus and a train ride later and I was back in Haarlem, wacking the heating up on full and devouring the remainder of a box of Christmas chocolates I’d vowed would last until Easter.

No matter how diverse a crowd, ex pat wives will always have one thing in common; when you are forced into an adverse situation, you make the most of it. The friendships might not last, but amidst the vagaries of international re-locations, we will be there for each other, whatever the weather.

Happy New Year

It’s been nothing but doom and gloom since we returned to the Netherlands from our Christmas/New Year break in the UK. Our hearty Dutch immune system must have temporarily slipped while we were out partying (all that hugging and kissing - so unhygienic) and we have been laid low with coughs, colds and general apathy, only venturing out to stock up on emergency supplies.  Finding any motivation to do anything has been a struggle.  The student returned to Haarlem with us, but she is studying vigorously for exams, and doesn’t want the distraction of having to get dressed to leave the house. With Mr T in bed for three days it has been like living in the Twilight Zone – curtains not opened until gone ten o’clock in the morning, and closed again by four, while outside that grey Dutch sky envelopes everything like a chilly damp blanket.

I knew Mr T was feeling better when he started to moan about day-time TV. I tell him I don’t usually watch any – apart from Escape to the Country which is one of my guilty pleasures.  This week the programme featured a single woman looking for a character cottage somewhere remote but still part of the community (a regular Escape to the Country oxymoron), a view (naturally) and a dining room that would comfortably accommodate 14 people.  In a cottage?   It could be a long search.

We returned to Haarlem with a car full of British goods – orange squash for Mr T, tea-bags for me and cat biscuits for Ed.  Why am I importing cat biscuits? I know it is totally irrational. The fact is, I have tried weaning him onto a different brand and the results were very unpleasant. Cat vomit and diarrhoea certainly take the shine of my vintage wooden floor. I may have miscalculated exactly how many sacks of cat-biscuits I need. Forgetting that we were only back in the UK in October, I still had two bags left in the cellar. It’s the overstock situation we had in the US all over again. No UK visitors were allowed unless they came bearing gifts of Sainsburys red-label tea-bags. When we left after three years I was giving the stuff away. I had also stock piled spray deodorant - not quite such an easy one to pass onto friends.  It’s the little home comforts that make the difference. (And in case anyone is wondering why I hoarded spray deodorant it was NOT because I had an issue with over-perspiration; in the US I could only buy roll-ons.)

The Dutch keep their Christmas decorations up until way in the new year so we have followed suit and kept our tree in the front room, despite my usual desire to have all things festive removed as soon as possible (I have even taken trees down on Boxing Day before). I have to admit it does bring a welcome cheery twinkling glow into the dreary January evenings. I bought Mr T a Crooks radiometer (a light mill) for Christmas. I don’t think he was overly impressed but I liked it. I saw it in a vintage shop in Amsterdam whilst out shopping with a new English friend and a Dutch woman I’d never met before. The Dutch woman instantly dismissed it as a useless waste of money (I suspect Mr T might feel the same) while I thought it quite fascinating.

For the uninitiated a Crookes radiometer (and this is totally lifted from Wikipedia) consists of an airtight glass bulb, containing a partial vacuum. Inside are a set of vanes mounted on a spindle. The vanes rotate when exposed to light, with faster rotation for more intense light, providing a quantitative measurement of electromagnetic radiation intensity.  

See - fascinating. Needless the say the damn thing doesn’t spin at all in the gloom of our living room. It has now been relegated to the kitchen where with the spotlights on, and the light from the extractor fan, it just about turns.  I knew all that December sunshine was just too good to be true!