Doing Some Dutch Stuff

Entertaining visitors means doing some traditional Dutch stuff. It’s what they come for, and we don’t want to disappoint.

For starters,  we ordered some traditional Dutch weather, a sort of grim and tonic, half a day's sunshine followed by three days of dismal, chilly dampness. For the next course, we visited Delft, the town famous for producing the dainty blue and white pottery as synonymous with all things Dutch as tulips, clogs and cheese. So far I had resisted the urge to purchase any traditional Dutch ceramics, having found no place in my home for the Delft tulip vase, an object reminiscent of an upturned cow's udder. However, with the in-laws in tow we decided to head for the Royal Delft Factory, mainly because it was a good excuse to keep out of the cold.

It was our lucky day.  We had turned up on the Royal Delft’s ‘open day’. All entrance fees were waived, and we could wander around the museum and factory floor at our leisure. I was starting to like the blue and white stuff more by the minute; so much in fact that when it came to the ‘seconds’ stall before the main shop, Mr T and I found ourselves browsing amongst the chipped and faulty offerings to see what we could pick up. One tea-light holder, a beer tankard, and two Christmas decorations later, we’d completed our tour.

Back in Den Haag in the afternoon and it was time for some more traditional Dutch stuff, and a bad case of déjà-vu. There are some traditions that need to be quite firmly knocked on the head, and Zwarte Piet is one of them. Yes, it was that time of the year again. Sinterklaas had come to town.

 ‘Surely here in an international, liberal city like Den Haag,’ I said to Mr T, ‘they’ll have done away with Zwarte Piet?’

But no.  There were hundreds of them. Everywhere. I thought the spectacle was bad enough in Haarlem; but here in Den Haag, jolly old Sint arrived in Scheveningen Harbour at lunch time and at five o'clock in the afternoon he was still winding his way from the harbour to the city centre in a mile long motor cavalcade of all-singing-all-dancing Zwarte Pieten. I don’t think the in-laws knew what had hit them.

We needed something sweet to take away the bitter taste. Dessert is always my favourite course. The following day we set out for Kinderdijk,  home to a series of 19 windmills. Kinderdijk is now a UNESCO World Heritage site, and it’s pretty impressive, even to someone like me, who is of the opinion that if you’ve seen one windmill you’ve seen them all. It was a chilly grey day, yet the sight of those windmills rising out of the mist was quite magical.

And finally, for the cheese course, we headed to Gouda, where unfortunately as it was winter there was not a single piece of cheese on show. 

Oh well, a bit like Black Pete; you have to take the good with the bad.