Never Mind the Tulips

Never mind the tulips - it's all about the magnolias in my front garden. Over the last few days we have finally glimpsed some spring sunshine - and with it these beautiful magnolias which have subsequently attracted a lot of (unwanted) attention from passers-by (remember I have no net curtains or frosted glass in my very large front window). I’m seriously thinking of charging people who stop to admire the glorious white blooms. Some pretend they can't see past the flowers - others do respond to our waves. I suppose I shouldn't grumble. I am just as guilty as any of admiring plants in other people's gardens - I just try and do it a little more discreetly.

We've had house guests again this weekend and I've faced the usual questions about how we feel we are settling in and what we like/dislike about living in the Netherlands.

 To be honest apart from the weather (and even that's looking up - stripped off to a T-shirt for a couple of hours on Friday afternoon), there isn’t an awful lot to dislike about living here. As a Brit it’s very easy to fit in.  I almost feel like a native, apart from the fact that I am too short, not fit enough, and too polite of course.

Would I ever have 'said s**t' in front of a customer when I worked in a shop? No. Do I move out of the way for people on a narrow pavement? Yes.  Would I move over to an empty seat on a bus or a train to make it easier for another person to sit down? Yes.

I've noticed the Dutch don’t exactly co-operate - and I don't just mean with me, I mean with each other. When our neighbour changed his mind and refused access to the builder our landlords had engaged to replace the chimney pots on his roof, our estate agent assured us his attitude was nothing personal. He explained our neighbour was just ‘being Dutch’ – as I suppose he has every right to be. Personally I just call it being awkward.

Last weekend as we sat outside a café we witnessed a lady whisk away a chair from an occupied table, only stopping to ask the lone man sat there if it was free as an afterthought. Presumably if his wife had just nipped to the loo the man would have said something sooner, but surely it’s polite to ask first?

On the other hand, when we enquired if a table was available for four in our local very ‘bijou’ pizza restaurant earlier this week, the waitress assured us she could fit us in if we didn’t mind waiting for a few minutes.  I assumed she meant someone was about to leave, but no, she promptly asked a couple sat at a table for four to move onto a tiny corner table for two – mid-mouthful. I suppose at least she asked them – rather than just whipping their plates across to the other side of the restaurant while they weren’t looking.

On arriving at another restaurant the following evening with a larger group of friends we were again asked to wait as two customers sat at the table needed to make up the eight places we’d reserved, were still finishing their coffees. Fine, we said, no problem.  Twenty minutes later the two women still lingered over their coffee and the waiter seemed in no rush to hurry them up. He needed lessons from pizza lady. If ever there was an occasion for someone to be presented with a bill before they’d had a chance to order a second coffee a la USA this was it. When he finally took the hint (because they certainly weren't going to) and asked if they minded finishing their drinks at the bar, it was actually another hour before they left.

And in case this sounds like we spend an awful lot of time eating out - we do. Haarlem is foodie heaven, so why not? And just to add to the food-fest here are some pictures from our recent visit to Alkmaar Cheese Market. 

Een Thee

I more or less gave up drinking tea when out and about in the US.  I soon learned that the Liptons tea-bags offered up in cafes and restaurants were insipid imposters and best left well alone.  I’m a pretty traditional girl at heart and a cuppa just isn’t a cuppa when it’s served with a slice of lemon and a squirt of honey. I hoarded a secret supply of Sainsburys Red Label in my cupboards and the daily cuppa became a guilty pleasure enjoyed in the comfort of my own home.

A good old fashioned cup of milky tea is the perfect  pick-me-up; it’s refreshing, comforting and calming. It makes you stop, sit down and relax.  It doesn’t get your heart pumping at ninety miles an hour like a  shot of caffeine loaded coffee, and it doesn’t rot your teeth or pile on the calories like a sweet sickly cup of hot chocolate.

It was hot and sunny in California. It didn’t matter if I stuck to cold  drinks while out socialising with friends, but when it’s grey and wet, like it is in the Netherlands 90% of the time, I want tea.

So, what do they serve up in the café’s here? You ask for een thee and you will be provided with a glass of hot water.  If you’re lucky it may be accompanied by a selection of tea-bags, or sometimes the tea-leaves will already sit infusing in the water. Either way I have discovered the only way to elicit any great taste from either the bags, or the leaves, is to leave them in the water for a very long time.  It would help of course, if the water was boiling, but when it’s served in a glass, this is simply not practical.

I never thought I’d end up writing an entire blog about a cup of tea, but today I encountered the most pretentious tea-bag ever, and I just have to show and tell.

It was the usual thing, ask for een thee, be presented with the glass of hot, or in this case, not particularly hot, water, followed by the presentation of an impressive tea-chest full of tea bags. The selection is usually the same wherever you go, Earl Grey, Chamomile, Green Tea, White Tea, Fruit Tea. Today, I choose aardbei – strawberry, and it wasn’t a case of picking a tea-bag from the box, but a heavy duty envelope, bearing an artist’s colourful impression of a juicy strawberry. Wow, I thought, this is way better than the usual sachets - it was like opening up an Oscar nomination, and there inside, not just a tea-bag, but a letter. Yes, a letter, for me, Beste theedrinker (dear tea drinker…) from the tea-leaf picker himself. Strawberry, he wrote, is his favourite fruit (I suspect he says that about every flavour) and the fruit is chosen to ‘soften’ the taste of the tea, which as it had very little taste, I took to mean total dilution. I also learned from my letter that my theeplukster picks 18 kilos of tea leaves a day which produces 4 kilos of pure black tea. Incidentally, the Dutch for tea leaves is theebladeren, which sounds particularly unpleasant.

So who knew one tea-bag could produce such a fascinating insight into the world of an entire tea plantation. Ten out of ten to the packaging guys. Just a shame they didn't put quite the same amount of effort into the actual taste of the tea.

Waste-Not-Want-Not

Welcome rays of sunshine have arrived in Haarlem. We’ve had the first dry days since our return from the UK at Christmas; the bikes have been retrieved from the shed and are back in their racks. It probably seems alien to those back in the UK that although we don’t have any car parking for our house, we do have our own personal bike rack.

I’m still in awe of this whole Dutch cycling phenomenon. Yesterday, I spotted a snaking line of young cyclists all in matching fluorescent jackets up ahead. It was a school trip – teachers and pupils all out on their bikes together. It would be unheard of anywhere else but here. I really don’t think my teenager (wants to) believes me when I tell her if she lived with us she’d be off on her bike to go clubbing every Saturday night.

The unexpected sunshine has heralded a few days of hectic activity. I’ve been feeling particularly creative. I made my own soup for lunch and even baked a cake – that’s a first for many months, and definitely the first since we arrived in the Netherlands. The urge to bake came on very rapidly and required a quick dash to the supermarket. When it comes to grocery shopping not knowing the language is not such a problem as I first envisaged. I managed to work out the Dutch for caster sugar is fijne kristalsuike – pretty simple - and as for self-raising flour, that was even easier to find - it’s self-raising flour. In typical Dutch fashion the cake came out of the oven a great deal more sturdier and solid than it does back home, but it’s a start. 

Perhaps Dutch frugality is starting to rub off on me.  I can shrug off consumerism and commercialism and head back to basics.  There are several what I would call old fashioned haberdashery shops in town, catering for those who like to make their own things. A couple of months ago there was an entire Sunday morning market dedicated to sewing and upholstery. It was positively inspiring – I wanted a sewing machine; I wanted to buy reams of fancy fabric, colourful buttons and paper patterns. Fortunately the urge soon passed, but I'm seriously contemplating knitting after I spotted a kit for making woollen cupcakes - seriously, the baking and the knitting sorted in one go. (Do you follow a recipe or a pattern???)

Here, people make do and mend. When  your  shoes wear out  - you take them straight to the cobblers. This is not a throw-away-society – in fact  it’s a hassle to throw anything away at all. The local council don't provide a bin collection service.   We have to take our general household rubbish to an underground bunker in the next street which can only be opened by a personal swipe card. Presumably this is to monitor how much each household wastes, and to encourage re-cycling, although our  re-cyling point – for glass, plastic and cardboard is a further five minute walk away.  It's a definite deterrent. I’m already thinking some sort of water-collection device for plastic bottles,  wine-bottle garden art, and perhaps a sort of giant cardboard/papier-mache Wendy house for the summer. Who knew after all these years I'd finally get my chance to become a budding Blue Peter presenter?

Perfect Guests

I’d say for 90% of the time, Mr T and I get on  very well, but after an entire month (bar one weekend) of no-one but each other for company, even I'm starting to see why lighthouses always have three keepers. Mr T has his work colleagues to talk to most days, I just have the cat. This week we played host to a flurry of visitors and these guests were very warmly welcomed.

The first to arrive was an old college friend, and the chance to indulge in some much missed girly time. We tried clothes shopping, although it is becoming more and more apparent that the friend who intimated I’d end up buying my Dutch clothes in the children’s departments may well be correct. And while I probably should say the highlight of our trip into Amsterdam was the thought-provoking tour of the Anne Frank house (unbelievably with no queues) I’d be lying if I didn’t say I found the glass of gluhwein and the apple cake that followed a lot more enjoyable.

As soon as one visitor left, another two arrived. This time the sister and brother-in-law who provided further excuses to sample some Dutch culinary delights. There are over 180 restaurants in Haarlem, and if ever I fancied a career as a food critic then this would probably be the place to begin. Mr T has already started posting regular comments on Trip Advisor.

Our first stop for an evening meal was the Jopenkerk Brewery, where instead of a wine recommendation, beer suggestions are made to accompany each dish. I don’t do beer, so for me it was an easy choice but the brewery has a humongous selection of flavours on offer – from original 16^th century recipes to fig beer, which my sister described as liquid Christmas pudding (cough medicine was the term that sprung to mind when I tried a quick sip).

While out and about the brave brother-in-law was perfectly happy to sample the traditional Dutch delights of croquette sandwiches (indistinguishable ingredients mashed up with potato, rolled into a sausage shape, deep fried in breadcrumbs and served between two chunks of bread) and bitterballs  (more unidentified ingredients mashed with potatoes, rolled into balls, deep fried in breadcrumbs and served with a pot of mustard). I like to know what I'm eating so  I happily stuck to yet more apple cake and slagroom (whipped cream).

Haarlem has restaurants to suit all tastes and budgets, and despite eating out every day for nearly week, we've only just dipped our toes into the culinary waters. 

But it’s not all about the food. We walked for miles, proudly showing off our new home town and exploring more unchartered territory in Amsterdam. We braved the cold and headed up north to Volendam, another former Dutch fishing village now reliant on the tourist industry where we resisted the urge to buy cheese, clogs and tacky model windmills (although we are quite tempted to return for a Christmas card photo-shoot in traditional Dutch costume….)

All in all it’s been a good week. We’ve a brief respite now until our next visitors arrive, but already the house seems all too quiet. Anyone looking for a Dutch city break, happy to stay in a 'Make your own Bed and  Breakfast' - just contact me. I know the perfect place!