A dog of a summer





Last summer, we spent eight balmy days in Cataluña in Spain. Now that we are sliding inexorably towards winter, that holiday feels like it could have been a hundred years ago.

 

Outside the trees are bravely revealing their skeletal limbs, their cast-off clothes lying forlornly in a sodden heap at their feet.

Inside, the clocks have wound their limbs back, their cast-off hour lying hidden in the darkness of a shortened day.

As I scowl at the wind and rain, and pull what Ned Nederlander calls my "sleeping bag with sleeves" around me, I find myself yearning for some more Catalonian warmth, and feeling a little guilty that I thought the summer holidays dragged on for too long this year.

Who am I kidding? At the time, they did drag on for too long. They dragged on for sixty three days. To give that some context, it is equivalent to the gestational period of a dog. That gives the term "dog day summer" new meaning, especially since I think that being pregnant for sixty three days and popping a cute little puppy or two out at the end of it must surely be preferable to amusing De Jongens for the same period.



Vondelpark in summer - worth sticking around for

For a couple of reasons, amusing De Jongens was particularly challenging last summer. Firstly, there is the rather large chasm that exists between their idea of what constitutes "amusement" and Ned and my interpretation of the same term. Furthermore it was, by any measure – at least by any climatic measure - a complete dog of a summer here in The Lowlands, making it more difficult than it might have otherwise been to prise the game controller out of their hands and get them out and exploring. Then there was the surprise factor that we completely failed to anticipate - nearly every one of their friends returned to their homeland the second that school finished.  The prolific tears and heartfelt goodbyes (from parents, teachers and students) in the school foyer on the last afternoon should have sounded warning bells for me.  These were people who didn't exect to see each other for quite some time. A few of them were leaving Amsterdam for good, so even after only six months, we suffered our first ex-pat heartbreaks.
 
Us, we were the naive long-summer first timers who stayed put.  We had envisaged fun-filled days of hanging out with new friends, exploring our beautiful and fascinating new country together.  Instead, we rattled around an empty city, wondering where everyone had disappeared to, and finally understanding the sadness in the school foyer! 

Despite that, there were definite high points of the summer. Italy was one of them. So was Paris. Cataluña was another.  We struck a deal whereby if De Jongens came to Barcelona for four days and let us show them one of the world’s most amazing cities, we would balance the tour with four days beach/poolside.  The latter, they decreed (despite not being invited to negotiate), must involve no walks longer than 100 metres without prior approval from King Juan Carlos, no museum visits, no historical sites, and absolutely no art galleries under any circumstances. The promise of a trip to Camp Nou, the home ground of FC Barcelona, had Kleine Jongen, a long-term supporter of that team, eating from the palm of our hands. Grote Jongen, a Real Madrid supporter (ipso facto a Barca hater) took longer to convince, but in a rash moment I offered to take him to Madrid on a future break, and suddenly we had him onside too.
 
Negotiatons complete, all four of us willingly, even excitedly, set off for Spain. How I yearn for those warm, sunny days again now.
Barcelona was too lovely for words.  Ned and I revelled in the opportunity to bumble again through a language that we have some vague knowledge of.  It made a nice change from the usual order of things here in The Lowlands, where we are often cruelly ridiculed by our own children for our pitiful Dutch vocabulary and appalling accents.  


Un otra vino blanco por favor, y un poco mas tapas

We rented an apartment in the centre of the city, in a classic old Barcelona building, above an Iberian ham shop, next door to the world’s best churros maker.  In the same narrow pedestrian street, a stone’s throw from the Ramblas, was an antiquarian book seller, a milliner that looked like it hadn’t changed since Franco was a lad, and a dimly lit hole-in-the-wall bar.  The place was stacked literally to the rafters with wine, cheese, dusty tins and jars of artichoke hearts, pimentos, sardines, capers, tomatoes and a hundred other apparently-edible mysteries.  Cured hams hung from the ceiling, fresh copper-coloured bread sprawled seductively across the glass counter while all manner of cheese and olives beckoned from within it. As Ned and I stood transfixed in the doorway, a jovial Spaniard gestured to one of the three tables jammed into this cramped den of gluttony.  With De Jongens back at the apartment, mesmerised by the London Olympics, we obeyed immediately.
 

The pillars in the cathedral branch like tree trunks;
like strolling through a stone forest.
Look how the sun streams through the "forest canopy."

A definite highlight of Barcelona was La Sagrada Familia – Gaudi’s still unfinished, yet stunningly beautiful cathedral. I had last seen it in 1998 when it was pretty much an empty shell with a dirt floor and a lot of potential. This time I found myself standing inside the doors with tears running down my face, so breathtaking was the transformation. Even de Jongens looked impressed, not once rolling their eyes and asking "How long until we can leave?" 

Our fascination with the great Spanish architect continued as we toured Casa Battlo, the house Gaudi designed and constructed for an influential Barcelona family.  Lots of ideas there for our next home renovation . . .  ceilings shaped like shells, chimneys shaped like dragon's tails, attics shaped like a whale's rib cage. I loved it.


Add across, down and diagonally; all add to 33, Christ's age at death

Awed as I was by Gaudi's creative brilliance, I couldn't help wondering what ever happened to the tram driver who hit him in 1926, or to the taxi drivers who witnessed the accident but refused to take the unconscious genius to hospital because they thought he was a vagabond (like that's a reason for not helping him). He died a few days later from his injuries. Thankfully his legacy remains scattered through the city.
 
 







Cuter, cheekier, smilier

The relentless London Olympic Games telecast combined with a few jugs of sangria rekindled our latent aspirations to athletic glory, and we were feeling faster, higher and stronger than usual. 
 

Thus we felt compelled to visit the Barcelona Olympic Stadium  and nearby Olympic Museum – an inspiring and fascinating temple to human achievement, not to mention IOC politics (La Sagrada Sportiva perhaps?).



Barca boys

The city from the Montjuic cable car

Our lovely Amsterdam neighbours were in Barca at the same time as us, which turned out to be a very pleasant coincidence. Their boys are also football mad, so all the males in the group dribbled off to Camp Nou, while we mums moved effortlessly from morning coffee on Montjuic overlooking the city, through lunchtime sangria in a quiet cobbled square, to Spanish rioja and tapas with our families that evening.  

We then hired a car and moved to the Costa Brava, exposing ourselves to a different sort of temple. The holiday parc temple that we had taken such a cyberspatial punt on comprised one thousand – read that again slowly and let it sink in – one thousand – tent, caravan and cabin sites. Like us, the majority of the occupants seemed to be climatic refugees from northern Europe, all worshipping the plentiful sunshine. Dutch, Geordies, Poles and Finns bowed down, sunburned shoulder to sunburned shoulder around the enormous dolphin-shaped pool (sadly designed with no Gaudi influence whatsoever, so that it was quite simply a pool shaped like a dolphin, and only recognisable as such from a low-flying aircraft). The only real imaginative touch was the daily aqua-aerobics program held within the dolphin's belly! Ned Nederlander and Kleine Jongen were the only people in the entire place (one thousand sites, remember) who wore sun shirts. The rest simply fried. It is possible, but I think unlikely, that they had applied the Factor 5 sunscreen that we saw for sale in the local supermarket.

I was the only female wearing a one-piece swimming costume, at least in the traditional sense. Ned tried to make me feel less like a grandma by pointing out that he could see dozens of other women wearing one pieces too.  Eventually I realised he was referring to the many women, of all shapes, sizes and ages, who were wearing only the bottom half of a bikini – one piece indeed, but a very small piece.  As the lone Antipodean representatives on-site, and indoctrinated as we are with the Slip-Slop-Slap mantra for avoiding skin cancer (“slip on a shirt, slop on some sunscreen and slap on a hat” for non-Australian readers), it felt like a flash-back to 1970s holidays on the New South Wales coast, with their long seasonal cycles of burn, blister, regret, peel, repeat. 

Ever the revisionist, I developed a Slump-Slurp-Slink approach to the holiday; slump in a chair, slurp on a gin, slink back to the cabin for a nap.

 

It's a dog's life.

Fair-trade-coffee, Dutch style

If it wasn't for coffee I suspect the Dutch Golden Age would never have got off the ground (no pun intended). As early as the late 1600s the Dutch were the main suppliers of coffee to Europe, thanks to colonial outposts in places like Java. The brown gold was brought home to the Lowlands, where it remains an integral part of Dutch culture.

The Netherlands currently claims fifth position on the list of per capita coffee consumption. The Finns come first, while the Italians manage only twelfth place, and the Australians, who prefer their brown beverages cold, limp in at number forty two.

At a time of day when many of us are reaching for a corkscrew, the Dutch will fire up the percolator.

This national obsession with coffee, and it's subtle ongoing use as a form of currency, has become patently clear to me through my dealings with Dutch tradesmen over my first ten months in the Lowlands.

To set the scene, understand that one of the curious cultural quirks in this country is that her tradesmen expect to be fed and watered. I was advised early on to offer them coffee with a biscuit or a slice of cake shortly after they arrive at my house to do some work.

I call this fair-trade-coffee. I give them coffee; they ply their trade for me. This seems fair. Hence fair-trade-coffee. Note that this is different to Fairtrade coffee, which is a concept I endorse, but which has not always been adopted in the Lowlands  (don't mention the colonies).

Fair-trade-coffee is certainly cheaper than the fair-trade-beer I felt compelled, in a previous life, to give Australian tradies on a Friday afternoon.  I did this in the hope that they would actually return to finish the job the following Monday. 

When our basement flooded during our first week here, there was such an assortment of tradesmen in my house that I had two plungers and a stove top espresso maker on the go simultaneously for about half a day. In the midst of our domestic baptism, while our belongings floated around our knees, I was running to the local supermarket to buy more milk. I had no idea who I was refreshing, and for all I know a rumour had swept Amsterdam that some hospitable ex-pat woman was offering coffee and biscuits to anyone who came into her house wearing steel-capped boots and carrying a toolbox.

Fair-trade-coffee can be quite educational and even entertaining. For example, when a carpenter came to our house to replace some damaged doors I made him coffee and we got chatting. We taught each other the word for “the machine that cleans up the mess” in our respective languages. He thought “vacuum cleaner” was weird; I thought “stofzuiger” was amusing, since it translates as “dust sucker". At the time, I was struggling to count to ten in Dutch, so "stofzuiger" seemed very sophisticated. I used it whenever I could.

"Wilt u de stofzuiger gebruiken?" I'd enquire regularly of De Jongens. "Would you like to use the vacuum cleaner?". Not once, in ten months, have they taken me up on the offer.

I had to arrange for that carpenter (milk, no sugar) to come back recently to rehang the doors. He didn’t turn up. It wasn’t particularly urgent, so I didn’t chase him up. Unbidden, he arrived 48 hours later.

“I expected you a couple of days ago”, I said when I opened the door and found him standing there.

“Yes, I forgot” he said, then strolled in with no further explanation or apology. I wondered if the coffee I had made on his previous visit was perhaps sub-standard, and a two day delay in services might be my punishment. Mental note to self: grind it fresh to order this time.

He gave me a second chance and accepted my offer of coffee. He fixed the problem with the doors. The coffee must have been okay this time.

A painter (milk, one sugar) also needed to be recalled. He didn’t turn up at the agreed time either. This time I rang. “I expected you yesterday” I said, a little of my old assertiveness creeping back.

“Well, I couldn’t come. My father is very sick.” A likely excuse.

He promised to call me in a few weeks to arrange a new time to paint the wall. I'm still waiting, while suffering a further bout of coffee paranoia.

Earlier in the year, a leak from our boiler had been repaired by a bloke for whom I'd made a perfect cup of coffee. He'd spent three months in a Bondi backpacker's hostel twenty years ago. He seemed to think that this made us compatriots, and entitled him to ask for a second cup of coffee, which I provided.

A month after Bondi Boy had been here, the boiler was leaking again. I can’t help thinking that if he hadn’t had so much caffeine coursing through his veins he might have done a better job at repairing the leak.

As well as a recurrent leak, the central heating wouldn’t turn on. So a new plumber (milk and sugar) was dispatched. He fixed the leak, but he couldn’t get the central heating to work. He ascertained that there was a problem with the control panel. He arranged for an electrician to come and replace it.

The electrician (no milk, but sugar) came and needed access to the building roof, which he gained through our upstairs neighbours’ house.

The electrician phoned me from the roof to give me a report on my electrical woes, and then assured me he was on his way downstairs and would see me in five minutes. I waited. An hour later, he was back.

He explained that he’d been waylaid by my upstairs neighbours. Actually, they’re not my neighbours; they’re my neighbours’ visiting parents. I’ve never met them before, although my electrician assures me that they are lovely people. In fact they are so lovely that they’d made him coffee and they’d all got carried away chatting. I wondered what his hourly rate was and was secretly glad the invoice would be going to our landlord.

Suitably refreshed, the electrician announced that he was sorry but he couldn't replace the central heating control panel after all.  Instead, he arranged for a central heating specialist to come a few days later.

The central heating specialist (milk and sugar) duly arrived. The first thing I noticed was that he had not brought a replacement control panel with him. The first thing he noticed was that the second plumber hadn’t in fact fixed the boiler leak after all, clear evidence of unfair trade. I fleetingly considered doing a barista course as a means of ensuring fairer trade in future.

The central heating specialist repaired the leak. Then he turned his attention to the control panel. He became the third person in a month to conclude that there was a problem with the control panel. And the third person who failed to fix it.

I glanced around for the hidden camera, which must surely be here somewhere, waiting to capture the moment when I finally snapped. Images of me, a desperate and deranged woman, my face smudged with freshly ground coffee, would be broadcast across the nation.

"Who does she think she is", people would muse, as they watched the footage. "Look at her, crazy screeching banshee, ripping the control panel out of the wall like that and shoving it in such an intimate location on that poor Dutch tradesman, making him spill his coffee. He was simply trying to do his job", they would all tut. "She asked for it; she should make better coffee".

Slightly unnerved by this potential notoriety, I smiled sweetly and told him I understood, and thanked him for his efforts. I told him I looked forward to seeing him on Tuesday...WITH A NEW CONTROL PANEL...right???

Tuesday came . . . but the central heating specialist didn’t. With a heavy heart I phoned him, and listened incredulously as he told me he was sick and would be off work for the remainder of the week. He assured me his colleague would phone me and come instead. Next week.

It’s just not fair.

Thinking positively about the F-word

The beautiful Dutch receptionist acknowledged me with a friendly greeting and invited me to sit down in the waiting room. It didn't occur to me to make small talk with her; she was obviously busy and I was a little nervous about the procedure I was about to undergo...the less said about that the better.

Another patient entered - a smartly-dressed ex-pat man who, unlike me, showed himself to be completely unaffected by the receptionist's busy-ness and not the slightest bit nervous about whatever procedure he was about to undergo.  He instigated an astonishing round of trite and inane small talk with her for the next ten minutes.  They eventually settled on the topic of his recent birthday. His thirtieth, evidently. 

They discussed the significance of this milestone at length. She thought it was a good age; it hadn't worried her at all. Quite how she had any idea I'll never know because I am convinced she had at least a decade to go before she would be qualified to comment.  "Apparently", she mused, "they say that thirty is the new twenty".  Silently, I wondered who "they" were. I also wondered who on earth would want to be twenty again.

He, on the other hand was not convinced. The poor man felt positively ancient. THIRTY! Huh, he couldn't quite get his head around it, he confessed. 

"No", the  tall, svelte, blonde, caramel-voiced, silky-skinned, perky-breasted, immaculately groomed, dentally perfect, linguistically gifted, drop-dead gorgeous, baby-faced receptionist insisted. "Thirty is not old. After all, it's not like you're FIFTY or something". She spat the number out as if she was cursing. 

"Right", the young buck agreed. "Fifty is just .... pfff ... like REALLY old".

Fifty. Five O. Far out. 

Fifty. The new F-word.

I confess that I am a woman who has been enjoying her forties for let's say, quite a few years now.  Lately, I have become intrigued and a little excited by the Dutch tradition of making an enormous deal of fiftieth birthday celebrations, whereby in a weird cultural twist I will, in the next year or so, be compared with the wise and virtuous biblical figure of Sarah - although hopefully without the added complication of an unexpected late life pregnancy. 

So perhaps I gasped audibly at that point in the waiting room conversation, I'm not sure. I remember that part of me wanted to continue listening in case they came up with any other laughable pronouncements. Another part wanted to look over the top of my glasses while imparting one of my "wisdom of the elders" talks that De Jongens find in turns amusing, tedious, infuriating and "boooorrrrrr-ing".

I could have told Mr and Ms Thirty for example that there is a Dutch proverb that translates to English as "We grow old too soon and smart too late ". I would have liked to have tossed that across the waiting room, in a dignified and mature manner of course; a single timely comment from the sage in the corner. I could have patronisingly asked them what they thought the proverb meant, then followed that up with my observation that they in fact personified it. Yes indeed, that would have shown them. 

However, Magazina, the waiting room goddess mercifully smiled on me at that point; my name was called and I was spared any further agony, at least of the conversational kind.

I went over the interaction in my mind.  Initially, I tried to take comfort in the fact that I must look much younger than my actual 30 and 227 twelfths years. Certainly I must not even look close to fifty. Or even forty eight.  Otherwise they wouldn't have had that conversation in front of me, right? Two metres from where I sat.

But alas, in the end I spent the entire day desperately trying to compose a list of reasons why it is in fact good to be on the downhill run to the F-word.

I decided to come up with one point for each decade of my life thus far.

• Top of my list is that I no longer feel I need to make small talk with people, particularly in waiting rooms.  I realise, in my wise middle age, that filling awkward silences can sometimes make things more awkward than leaving the silence to speak for itself. Speak less and say more. I know at least two thirty year olds who would do well to remember that.
• Secondly, I am resilient.  Or at least I thought I was until I overheard two thirty year olds discussing the F-word in front of me. I'm currently telling myself that I'm resilient enough to bounce back from this latest knock to my self-image . . . now telling myself again . . . and again.
• Third, I no longer feel the need to articulate my views in every situation and convince other people of their obvious errors of judgement and flawed rationale.  Admittedly, it would have been good if I'd reached that point a few decades ago . . . certainly my waiting room companions should be grateful that I have mellowed to the point where I chose not to respond to their ageist generalisations.
• Fourth, I feel that I now have a more rounded perspective on life - my accumulated life experience enables me to fit together a kind of "big picture", albeit out of focus in parts.  As a result, I now know that the issues that cause a 30 year old enormous angst  (like turning fifty for example) are but single pieces in the 50,000 piece jigsaw puzzle of life. The waiting room duo's expressed fear of the F-word will probably taunt them for the next two decades and possibly prevent them from really enjoying their thirties or their forties. Serves them right.
• Fifth, I don't need a fifth point.  My journey towards the F-word has allowed me to let go of my exhausting, and ultimately unsuccessful youthful pursuit of perfectionism.  So now, when I set myself a random goal of say, coming up with five witty and pithy points in a blog, and I fail to get beyond four, it simply doesn't worry me. Well, not as much as it would have when I was thirty anyway.

So, I've concluded that more use needs to be made of the F-word.  It's a word that brings wisdom, perspective, serenity and grace.  It's a word that clearly demonstrates that there's an element of truth in most proverbs. Especially Dutch proverbs.

And importantly, it's a word that reminds me to wear noise-cancelling headphones to my next appointment.

Olive tree friends

I recall that it was a Thursday morning.  Sunny, enticing, evocative and full of promise.  Certain adventure lay ahead; today had been long-anticipated.  I stood up from breakfast, kissed Ned Nederlander and  De Jongens goodbye, and walked out the door.  As I glided without a care through Amsterdam’s early morning light, I felt quite the elegant, mysterious, self-sufficient woman, and I wondered idly whether passers-by might have thought I bore an uncanny resemblance to Audrey Hepburn, with my Capri pants, ballet flats and jaunty scarf.  In reality I must have reminded them more of Mr Bean, as I wrestled comically with a pull-along suitcase that seemed intent on travelling in the opposite direction to me.  The bumbling likeness would have been strengthened by the maniacal grin on my face as I realised that for once I was not also wrestling two surly adolescents, intent on travelling in the opposite direction to me.

Twenty minutes later my dissenting suitcase and I boarded a train at Amsterdam Centraal, and I sank into my seat. My reading seat for the next few hours.  My thinking seat.  My listen-to-my-own music seat. My do-whatever-I-like seat. My selfish cow seat.  

The train slowly pulled out of the station and I was Audrey again. I cast one last pensive glance over my shoulder at the city in which I knew my family now trudged unwillingly to work and school.  I apologised silently to them for being so excited about leaving them. 

A little over four hours later, I was in the reception area of a quaint little hotel opposite the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris.  I told myself I was a veritable picture of sophisticated European chic. There’s a very real chance, I suspected, that I reminded the rather charming French concierge of Grace Kelly.  He failed to vocalise that thought, but informed me with a knowing smile that “yur friend es waiting fer you in Room Ferty Wern on ze second fler”. I considered swooning, but instead I sashayed to the lift, all independence, style and deportment, under his watchful eye. Sadly, my recalcitrant suitcase didn’t quite make it before the doors closed, and independence, style and deportment met bumbling, uncoordinated fool in a most unpleasant collision. I believe I heard the concierge snort. Grace Kelly disappeared and Manuel from Fawlty Towers took her place.

My suitcase and I made it to Room Ferty Wern, although my composure and self-image lay in tatters on the floor of the poky lift.  The anticipation of the imminent rendezvous and my excitement about the planned events for the coming three days didn’t help matters, and I knocked a little too enthusiastically. The door opened and there she was – my fabulous friend Lisette, all the way from Australia. We shrieked, we hugged, we giggled.  Both Audrey and Grace, if they were ever there, left the room immediately.

Rather bizarrely, Lisette’s husband and children, with whom she’d been chatting when I pounded on the door, watched our reunion via Skype.   They probably thought they were watching a personalised version of Absolutely Fabulous. Clearly bemused, they hung up.  That left Lisette and I channelling Patsy and Eddie.  In no time at all we were celebrating our absolute fabulousness, lunchtime champagne in hand, in a cute brasserie somewhere near Boulevard Saint-Germaine.   We talked animatedly without drawing breath, and laughed with, but mostly at each other, with the easy comfort and ready familiarity of old friends.

There really is nothing like an “old friend” . . . those people with whom you have shared your school lunch breaks or perhaps your first university lecture.  They’ve celebrated your first “real” job with you, waved you off (or joined you) on your first overseas adventure, and welcomed you home again on your return. They’ve run, cycled, climbed, abseiled and paddled with you through life's challenges. They know at least one excruciatingly embarrassing story involving your past (and you know one about them, thereby assuring each other's silence on the matter). Old friends are the people who stood aside and gave you space while you fell in love, but who then stood close and reassuring when it turned out not to really be love after all. They are the ones who assessed when the “keeper” did come along, and then told inappropriate stories at your wedding, and will no doubt do the same at future celebrations.  
To earn an “old friend” badge, people need to have accompanied you on significant life transformations over protracted periods of time.  They may have journeyed with you for example from flagons to bottles, from pizza to degustation menus, from poky renovator’s delight to separate guest room with matching towels.  In Lisette and my case, we were marking a 15 year transition from dodgy backpacker hostel in La Paz to swish boutique hotel in the 5^th arrondissement in Paris.

(Actually, the truth is Lisette has never been a dodgy backpacker hostel kind of girl, and after enduring a night or two of debilitating altitude sickness amidst shonky electrical wiring and poorly-laundered sheets in our shared La Paz accommodation, she moved to a posh hotel - with flowers - on the other side of town and occasionally summoned me to visit her during the subsequent weeks.  Consequently, Lisette’s transition to the 5^th arrondissement was not quite as dramatic as mine, but technically we had shared the journey).

Of course the existence of “old friends” in no way undermines the great value of “new friends” or “old family”, who are essential for a whole range of different reasons.  It’s just that Lisette and I were the first of a bunch of “old friends” to arrive in Paris for a milestone birthday celebration, and they were on my mind.

We returned to the hotel after lunch and were reunited with another “old friend”.  While we’d been out, the hotel staff had somehow managed to fit a third bed into the room, despite our combined knowledge of physics and spatial geometry suggesting this was impossible.  And there we passed a couple of hours; three old friends, literally shoulder-to-shoulder and pillow-to-pillow, re-living past glories, re-telling stories we’d heard a hundred times before, readily sharing current secrets, laughing about nothing in particular and generally marvelling at how amazing it was that we were where we were.  Eventually, we wandered off into the Paris evening together; quite confident that to the outside world we were Juliette Binoche, times three.

Several more “old friends” came together over the next few days.  By the third day, we were a happy group of twelve, including Ned Nederlander and De Jongens, holed up together in a wonderful rambling house. At the centre of the house was an olive tree, planted incongruously in the living room beneath a soaring translucent roof.  I liked that – a universal symbol of peace, longevity, renewal, strength and victory, at the very place where a group of old friends had gathered. None of us mentioned dull foliage, gnarled trunks, dead wood, weathered crowns, or stony ground. Probably just as well.

And at the centre of our gathering of old friends, celebrating her own longevity (and peace, renewal, strength and various victories) was our great mutual friend Marguerite.  She planted herself at the head of the table, beneath a soaring silly hat that was a constant reminder of why we were there. Happy birthday, olive tree friend.

An abundance of cheeses, baguettes, olives, pates, croissants, pastries, coffee, chocolates, apricots and raspberries were shared around our table . Empty champagne bottles piled up and the noise levels beneath the soaring roof seemed to grow at much the same rate. Excursions were undertaken; the local market, the banks of the Seine, Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower were the obvious first choices. An unforgettable birthday dinner was shared. Dinner with old friends. 

All of us will long remember the amazing views, ambience, food, wine and company that evening on the river. No doubt, for years to come we will all roar with laughter whenever any of us recounts what Lisette did to that poor waiter - although the details must remain a secret among old friends . . .

Then all too soon it was time to say goodbye, as we have all done many times before, and no doubt will do again. It was time to return to our separate lives in disparate countries, to gather stories for next time we meet, and to start an appropriate detox program. It was time to think about the great value of the olive tree friends in our lives, both established and emerging, and be grateful for them all.  It was time to acknowledge Audrey Hepburn who once wisely noted (perhaps as she hurled a malfunctioning suitcase off a Parisian bridge) that “the best thing to hold onto in life is each other”.

 

 

 

A close shave with a dozen wise men

Sometime last century, when Grote Jongen was three days old, I suffered a classic case of the aptly-named third day baby blues. Ned Nederlander had, somewhat unwisely in hindsight, left me at home alone with our precious newborn for about an hour. When he returned, he found us both sprawled on the bed - Grote Jongen sleeping peacefully in my arms; me weeping inconsolably.

Now, poor Ned had recently accompanied me through a gruelling 27 hour labour, during which he found himself on the receiving end of some rather cruel and threatening outbursts from me.  So he was understandably tentative as he sat on the edge of the bed to ascertain the cause of my anguish, lest it be revealed that this current problem, like the exhausting labour, was also his fault.

“One day . . .”, I began, gasping between heaving sobs. Ned looked distraught. “What is it??? One day, what?”, he coaxed, possibly recalling the various accusations and warnings I had levelled at him during the delivery of his heir.

“One day, these cheeks...”, I gulped.  My hand rested gently on our son’s perfect skin, and my chest heaved. “One day these magnificent soft cheeks will be ruined by stubble; he’ll be SHAVING, and what’s more, HE WON’T NEED ME ANYMORE!!!” I wailed pathetically, unable to articulate any further details of my distress.

Fast forward thirteen years.  Grote Jongen’s gorgeous, smooth soft cheeks remain for the time being, unblemished by stubble or any other hormonal affliction.  However, it is becoming clear that his constant need for his mother is definitely on the wane. ("I told you so", I'm tempted to hiss at Ned). Of course, this separation, this not-always-gentle pushing away is as it should be. The invisible elastic that binds a mother to her child must stretch, if it is to do its job.

The mix of pain and pride that comes with this realisation is discomfiting, and definitely requiring some adjustment on my part. After all, I have sat by this boy's side through two general anaesthetics, one ambulance ride, three trips to Emergency, two broken arms, 37 stitches, five dental fillings, and 641 bandaid removals (each one more traumatic than any bone fracture), all in some 4,745 days of life.  Surely, I need to at least remain on stand-by?

Furthermore, in addition to the mandatory provision of early lessons in reading, writing, colour identification, shoelace tying and toileting, I like to think I have also contributed to his ability to argue a point, cook pasta, get lost in a good book, stay calm in a crisis, choose the best nectarine, stand his ground, be discerning in his chocolate selection and other essential life skills. Can he really be preparing to take it from here on his own??? I swallow, disbelieving.

Ned and I decided we wanted to meaningfully acknowledge Grote Jongen’s upcoming entry to adolescence.  Becoming a teenager is surely one of life’s significant gateways, and we wanted to assure him that his parents were (despite appearances) coming around to the idea that he could indeed soon “take it from here”.  The sudden awareness that we had brought him to the other side of the world, reducing his access to trusted and familiar external male role models at a time of his life when they are most needed, loomed large before us.

Having long been fans of the it-takes-a-village approach to communal child-raising, we decided to deal with our latest parenting challenge by pounding the village drum.  We e-drummed a request to a number of significant men in our lives; good and wise men of all ages whom we hoped Grote Jongen might turn to as he inevitably (at least for a few years) grows away from his own parents.  Our brief was vague – essentially it was to send him something for his thirteenth birthday that might help him on his journey through the wilds of adolescence and beyond. A quote, a photo, a letter, a talisman . . . free choice. Ideally, we hoped the contributions might also help forge a lasting bond between Grote Jongen and the said Wise Men, despite the inter-continental drift we had imposed.

They did not disappoint. On the day of Grote Jongen’s thirteenth birthday, we were able to present him with a box of mysterious envelopes and packages; the consolidated wisdom of men who our whole family is incredibly fortunate to have in our lives. Ned and I were not granted access to the words contained in the offerings – that will remain between the Wise Men and Grote Jongen, which is a shame really, as I’m quite sure there’s a book in it.  That secrecy is part of the “let him go, he’s learning to live on his own” training to be endured by us as parents. It’s both beautiful and dreadful, excruciating and exhilarating to experience. 

Yet, even without knowing the details of the dispatched wisdom, we have watched in wonder throughout the last week as our fledgling sat and pored through his box of treasures. He smiled, his brow furrowed, he laughed, his lips twitched, he sighed, and at times he looked quite overcome. He deigned to show us various books he’d received, ranging from “Oh the Places You’ll Go” by Dr Seuss to “Nineteen Eighty Four” by George Orwell. He looked positively smug as he showed us a stuffed Gruffalo that one of my favourite Wise Men had dispatched, and then left us completely in the dark as to its significance. That particular Wise Man has even written directly to me to blatantly and insensitively taunt me about my innate control freak tendencies and to speculate on how I must be coping with my son’ secrets. Not at all well, although I'll never admit that...

Ned and I are overwhelmed by the generous response, and so grateful that we overcame our initial hesitation to request it. I don’t think I’m imagining things when I say that I can detect a very subtle change in Grote Jongen since the Wise Men answered our drum.  He’s more mellow, less angry. Perhaps even a little meditative. There's a new tolerance of parental presence in his vicinity, I hopefully think.  I swear I can detect a slightly more confident bearing. He seems taller somehow. There might even be the slightest swagger developing...

Why might that be? I can only conclude that just because we don’t require our junior warriors to prove their emerging maturity by enduring weeks of self-sufficiency in the wilderness (perhaps without social networking tools), or by slaughtering a wild beast (albeit without a fully-charged game controller), or climbing to the top of a mountain (carrying fifty kilograms of mobile phones) doesn’t mean that they don’t need the acknowledgement of the wise men in their village.  They do; they need to feel part of a safe and varied circle of men. And their mothers need to have confidence that the circle is wise and good and compassionate and reliable and trustworthy.

The newborn that slept so peacefully on that London bed in 1999 while his weeping mother drowned in hormones, knows absolutely now that he is part of a safe circle of men. His mother knows it too, and is feeling much better about what she has to do next.

But she still doesn’t want him to shave.

Still wet behind the ears

Avid readers of The Low Down may recall that within days of moving into our Amsterdam abode, we experienced a basement flood of near-biblical proportions. A burst pipe in our absent neighbour’s house turned our guest room, study  and storeroom into something resembling the lost city of Atlantis.

Five months later, with the gentle lapping of water against our precious belongings a distant memory, we were preparing to embark on a summer break in Tuscany with our regular family holiday companions, the Broken Hill-billies.  With thirty minutes remaining until we needed to depart for the airport, Ned Nederlander discovered what could only be described as “a big puddle” in the basement and a disturbing drip coming from the boiler.  Survival instincts kicked in; flood or flight? An almost unbearable decision.

Readers should note that European domestic boilers are possibly one of the most intimidating of all appliances, combining complex electrical engineering principles with the temperament of a tired toddler and the predictability of a drunken unicyclist.  They are simply not to be meddled with. Ned and I could no sooner have turned the thing off than we could have shut down a nuclear reactor.  

Now, the Hill-billies are great friends of several decades standing.  They have weathered many previous melt-downs with us, along with occasional instances of marital fission.  As Ned and I struggled to retain our composure, the Hill-billies sensitively picked up on the imminent fallout, and before you could say “chain reaction”, they had grabbed De Jongens, their passports and bags, and headed to the airport, gaily farewelling us with promises of postcards and a souvenir jar of olives.  As they disappeared out of sight, Ned and I briefly entertained the idea of putting a bucket under the boiler before running away together for a romantic week in Mauritius.

Instead we activated a dizzyingly complicated barrage of instructional text messages, phone calls, emails and heartfelt pleas to friends, plumbers, neighbours and landlords.  That took us just enough time to ensure that the Hill-billies shepherded De Jongens through check-in, baggage drop, passport control and hundreds of duty-free shops at Schiphol without the need for Ned or I to be involved in any way. We figured that was almost as good as a week in Mauritius, so we decided to join them on our planned Italian family adventure after all.

The next ten days were spent trying not to think about what might or might not be happening back home in our basement. Aquatic reminders were everywhere.

For example, at our farm-house hideaway in the hills above Lucca, De Jongens made the most of the swimming pool in the olive grove.  They were unaware of the mental anguish they were causing me with their constant refrain of “I wish we had a swimming pool at our house in Amsterdam”.

In Florence, while other tourists marvelled at Renaissance masterpieces featuring countless images of cherubic archangels, I saw only ark angels. 


The Ponte Vecchio in Florence

Venice

A charming Venetian gondolier emphasised the convenience of being able to moor a boat at one’s front door, and sometimes inside one’s front door. My blood pressure soared. A fellow ferry passenger on the Grand Canal regaled us with stories of flooded houses and the associated need to build new upper storeys as previously-dry basements succumbed to the murky lagoon waters.



Each time someone farewelled us with an “arrivederci”, I heard “a river Dutchie”.

Venice

An enormous information board in front of the Venice campanile outlined innovative new flood control measures for the famous piazza.  The board included photos of grave-looking engineers standing in ankle-deep water in front of St Mark’s Basilica, and I’m sure I looked pretty grave myself as I struggled to rid my mind of my own domestic flood imagery.


Kleine Jongen at the helm

Terror on the Cinque Terre

On top of all that, Ned and I were exposed to a steady stream of whinging from De Jongens, which at times felt like a raging torrent. The cause of their complaints varied, but essentially they were afraid that they would drown in culture, the poor things.  They were bored with being pumped full of useless explanations about the incredibly boring and irrelevant Renaissance, they were sick of swimming against the endless tide of tourists, they were being unfairly and unreasonably flooded with religious history, their holiday was awash with art they neither liked nor cared about.

Cinque Terre

Ned and I simply fed them another gelato and ignored their wishy-washy complaints.

Despite the mental anguish caused by such constant watery images, Italy proved to be an extremely pleasant place to contemplate our aquatic future.  In contrast to the lowlands, it was hot and dry – really hot and really dry.  The food was fabulous. The wine was copious.  The architecture was astonishing.  The sense of history was at times overwhelming.

Sadly, our sense of aquatic dread as we returned home was huge.

Lucca

 It was heightened by a meeting with our elderly neighbour - yes, she of the burst pipe fame - about 100 metres from home.  “Oh hello dear”, she smiled, “I hope you’ve had a lovely holiday.  I have a few things to tell you”.  We were in the middle of a pedestrian crossing on a busy street, moving purposefully in opposite directions, calling politely to each other over our shoulders. But I froze when she said “My basement has filled with water again, but I’ll have to tell you about it later. Cheerio”. That would be the basement that shares a common internal wall with our own basement.



Venice

Ned and I momentarily contemplated returning to the airport and taking the first flight to Mauritius. But, with the Hill-billies by now on a flight back to Australia, we would have had to take De Jongens with us, so we dismissed that as an option and bravely continued our homeward journey. You can’t imagine how gingerly we entered our house, how expectantly we sniffed the air for evidence of ark angels, how reluctantly we descended the stairs to our basement to find... a floor as dry as a Tuscan road. Not a drop to be seen.

We soon realised that the desperate series of phone calls, emails and text messages sent before we left for the airport had generated the required chain reaction.  A plumber had managed to get into our house to assess the situation; he had expertly turned off the intimidating boiler; he had recognised that the said boiler needed a major overhaul; he would be back to conduct the necessary repairs and reconnect the hot water . . . in three days from now.

I have decided not to fret about our temporary lack of hot water, nor to make waves by asking why it was not fixed during our ten day absence.  Instead, in the hours I saved today by not having a shower and not doing the required six loads of holiday washing, and while looking forlornly out the window at Amsterdam's wet and chilly attempt at summer, I embarked on some detailed research into the possibility of squeezing in one more holiday before school resumes.

So I might just get to Mauritius after all.