Returning

While Niki was making delicious cheese scones and another batch of delectable speculaas (aren´t they looking more and more like ´real´speculaas, by the batch?), yesterday I packed my bag to head off to Amsterdam, and on to Sydney, via Hongkong. Niki and I are entering the longest period of separation so far, 9 weeks. In situations like ours, where distance is a hard and inevitable fact of life, for now at least, such separations can not be avoided. The up side is it will give me an opportunity to spend lots of time with Tess and Yarrow, who have been troopers in accepting my long absences while Niki and I get ourselves sorted out. The last of the nine weeks I will spend for work in the Middle East, on IATEFL business, after which I´ll go back to Lisbon for a month.

So tears flowed, knots in stomachs were tied and untangled, but our journey continues stronger than ever! Another bit of good news is that I was not stopped at Customs this time, despite thorough checking of my passport, so The Other Johannes Mol (most of you won´t be aware of so I´ll fill you in when I get back) who is apparently much sought after, may actually have been apprehended... let´s hope so, because being mistaken for somebody on the wrong side of the law is no joy.

Obidos

Obidos is a small medieval town about an hour north of Lisbon. It is also known as the ´Wedding City´. Traditionally it was a bridal gift by the kings of Portugal to their queens. What a present to be given, hey! The custom was started by Don Dinis and Dona Isabel in 1282. Although much of Obidos was rebuilt after the 1755 earthquake it has really kept its medieval feel. The fact that it is walled all round probably helps that - and walking the ramparts was certainly no mean feat for me... it´s high and there are no rails... but I did it!

Plank

While I was away with Tess and Yarrow, Niki made another attempt at baking Speculaas cookies but this time with the Speculaas plank from the Zaansche Schans! You´d think that you couldn´t get more Dutch than that. Result: it´s an experience, but they did taste scrumptilious! Niki feels she still hasn´t found the magic touch but I for sure ain´t complaining...

Business as usual

The next few months are going to be nice ´n busy. At home, fortunately, Duncan the gardener has been keeping the grass and weeds down so that´s not too much of a worry. Some building work will have to happen, but seeing as I´m not a builder nor a painter (unless it´s of the artistic kind) I can happily leave that to those who are. There´s quite a bit of workwork happening, though, which will no doubt make the 9 weeks ahead rush past... A few highlights:

• FracasEnglish is going to need a lot of attention to make the company grow and develop into what is already an exciting future.
• The Eastern European primary course, Magic Adventure (level 1), a project in which Niki is also involved as the writer of the Teachers´Editions, is nicely coming together and should be on the market around May, after which we will speed on to levels 2 and 3.
  
• The Dutch Realtime project will ask my full attention as series editor: editing three of five levels (written by approximately 10 authors) is a magnificent challenge!
• I was approached by a UK publisher who wants to commission a new secondary course for Mexico and surrounding countries and Niki and I are pitching for this project.
  

Another interesting development, which I keep forgetting to mention, is the fact that a business course which I co-wrote some 6 years ago, together with Joanne Collie, and part of which was written by the late Gillian Porter Laddouse, is getting a new lease of life. We had never been happy with the way in which the German publisher of the course, Klett, (a giant in its own right) had plugged this course into the international, i.e. global market. That is to say, they hadn´t, as German publishers tend to shy away from international markets. (Had Germany been an island, German publishers could easily be accused of being insular.)

After a few years of complaining about this, and after some insistent negotiation, late 2009 we managed to retrieve the rights to the international edition of the course . I immediately took the opportunity to scout around for a new publisher and found one in Garnet Education, a middle-sized but prestigious UK-based publishing house with a big and active international network of distributors. (They have also published the Award-winning series that my Tourism and Hospitality English book is part of). They had the course assessed by an external expert and the verdict was ´This is excellent material, and why isn´t it out there!´ Nuff said. So, an agreement is in the making and Link-up will be published under a new name, early 2011. It´s wonderful, for once, to be working on a project which has already largely been written! It will no doubt take considerable work to update it and get it out there, but we´re happy that we´re getting this opportunity.

And so...

And so...

Tess and Yarrow have gone back to Australia, and Anjès has settled into her new home near Eindhoven. The Aussies arrived safely last (European) night, and Mieke picked them up from Sydney. Thank you, my lovelies all, and that includes Anjès of course, for spending the time with each other over the past few weeks and for being such wonderful, wonderful daughters! You make your father very happy and proud to have such sociable, intelligent, pro-active, polite and well-behaved children.

Oh, but Tess and Yarrow, you do have to cut down on the sweets... Hmm, what did I hear you whisper about pots and kettles, there?

I´ll see you next week!

Bon voyage

And yes, the time has come for Tess and Yarrow to go back to Australia. Their bags are packed, the forms are filled out, the plane is waiting. It was a fantastic time, my loves, and thank you for sharing that with Niki and me, and with all our other friends and relatives - all the people you have met, and the places you have seen: I hope they will stay in your memory for a long time to come. Bon voyage and, oh, see you next week...

Red eyes blue

A few more photos of the ´baboons´as Marc calls them, taken on Saturday when we visited Marc and Mandana, Mieke´s brother and sister-in-law and their six children. I took the liberty of doing a red-eye correction, though, Marc - I know you prefer the devilish originality of the red eyes but they did look sort of very nefarious and satanic, nay, even Mephistophelian...

Music photos

For those who´d like to share in the good humour and fun of our latest recording session, go here.

Moving out

Today, Sunday, we visited Anjès who moved out of the parental home today. She now lives in Geldrop, close to where she used to live with her mum Myrna and stepdad Wil, and her stepsiblings Martin and Julia. Anjès moved in with her friend and study partner Margé. She had been looking forward to inviting us to Tea in her new home, so off we went, by train, now speeding through countryside that looked decidedly green, no longer white. It was the last big excursion on Tess and Yarrow´s programme, as they will be leaving for Australia again on Monday. The photos below show you something of the very pleasant afternoon we spent at her new home - and we wish Anjès all the very best! Anjès´mum, Myrna, had made lovely pasta and I sampled Rosé beer ... an interesting (female) market-driven concoction and a variety of the delicious Hoechaarden Witbier... She´s made an important new step into her future and we hope she will enjoy every minute of it. Bon Voyage, Anjès!

At some point in the afternoon, Tess was invited to be a guinea pig for one of Anjès´school assignments and was treated to a professional make-up session.

Snow Queen

As we were recording, the Snow Queen waved her magic wand and lots of snow was dropped on the surrounding countryside - it made driving home a bit more of a challenge but once we hit the highway we were OK. When we woke up this morning, however, it was all gone and the streets and canals, which had had snow and ice on them the day and night before, were completely bare.

Music

Having dropped Tess back at Eve´s Yarrow and I moved on to Peter´s for another evening of musical delight. And musical delight it was, as well as a celebration of our friendship (witnessed by the photo...). We had to work on a few of the songs we´d been working on before, to complete the final recordings for our third (!) CD project, so after a delicious pasta dinner we filed upstairs to get down to it. Some songs just needed a phrase repairing, or a chorus resung; others needed re-singing altogether, with different intentions and intensities, and yet others needed new instrumental tracks added to them or redone. Apart from that, the usual banter, good cheer and laughter made for another unforgettable evening.

On a few occasions during the night Peter had the inspired idea of asking Yarrow to contribute to some of the songs and we recorded some lovely chorus harmonies! On one of the songs, Yarrow even sings the female part of a song that is, of sorts, a conversation between a man and a woman. Lovely! Over the next two months we´re letting Peter do his mixing and mastering magic and hopefully by late Spring / early summer Heartbeat, the working title of the CD, will have seen the light.

Kids

On Saturday afternoon we went to visit Marc and Mandana and Tess and Yarrow´s cousins - neither Tess nor Yarrow had actually met most of them as they have been out of the country for so long. Juliette and Carmen hadn´t been born yet when they were last there. They are four now, and Sophia and Leila are six and seven, Esmee is twelve and Nick sixteen. The young girls were totally fascinated by these strange people from far away who were related to them and didn´t seem to speak much Dutch, but within 30 minutes or so they were completely used to us and jumped on us, told stories and played practical jokes on us, challenged us (´Can you ....? Can I show you what I can do?) , told us everything about their pet guinea pigs, rabbits and cats and created a lovely chaotic atmosphere of hilarity and playfulness. At some stage the whole troupe, including Tess and Yarrow, so eight in all, filed out of the house to go to the local supermarket to get some things. The quiet descending on the house for a bit was breathtaking... but you should have seen the smile on Marc´s face when they all came back. He so much enjoyed the fact that his kids had been able to go out together with their cousins. It´s quite amazing to see how both he and Mandana deal patiently with the constant happy clamour and demand.

Make a Smilebox photobook

Moving on

And so the days in Portugal and Holland for Tess and Yarrow are coming to an end ... on Monday I will be taking them to Schiphol Airport to return to Down Under. I believe they´ve had a great time and no doubt they will not be looking forward to the long journey home even though they´ll love to go home.

It was more than lovely being able to spend so much time with them, so intensely, so thank you HEAPS, my dearest daughters for coming all the way over and being such wonderful people! I´ll see you back home in about a week, but first I need to go home. Sounds cryptic, but you know what I mean!

There´s this wonderful song called Home is where the heart is (Not the McFly song of the same title, but Elvis Presley - sorry, different generation...) The song will play automatically once if you click on the link above and go to that page. Home is where the heart is a lovely song that accounts for the fact that one´s heart is where one´s loved ones are, so for the moment that means that my heart is all over the place (which, in a way, is a great and precious feeling... and I count myself very lucky...). Or maybe I´ve got more than one heart, or simply a huge one...

So this one is for Niki, and for you, Tess and Yarrow, and for everybody I hold dear...

Home is where the heart is
And my heart is anywhere you are.
Anywhere you are is home.
I don´t need a mansion on a hill
That overlooks the sea
Anywhere you´re with me is home.

Maybe I´m a rolling stone
Who won´t amount to much
But everything that I hold dear
Is close enough to touch.

For home is where the heart is
And my heart is anywhere you are.
Anywhere you are is home.

Maybe I´m a rolling stone
Who won´t amount to much
But everything that I hold dear
Is close enough to touch.

For home is where the heart is
And my heart is anywhere you are
Anywhere you are is home.

Home, home, home, home, home

Nemo

Friday was a quiet day - Cees took Yarrow out for a bike ride through Amsterdam, their destinations en route being the Nemo (the Amsterdam Science Museum) and ... the Belgian chips shop... Fortunately, they spent most of the time in the former (much to Yarrow´s delight as the Nemo is extremely hands-on and they had a ball) but the excursion was indeed wrapped up with a traditional bag of the yellow friend tatties ... In the meantime, I just lounged at Bertie´s, did a million things and nothing at all. I prepared an authentic Dutch dish, Andijviestamp with Rookworst in the meantime. Lisa and Milan came around during dinner time as well so we spent a few lovely hours together chatting.

Iconic

I love the iconic night time views of the old city, and the way many of the canals and bridges are lit up, throwing its light reflection onto the water, such as the Magere Brug (The Skinny Bridge), one of the oldest bridges over the river Amstel. This photo was taken a few evenings ago but my camera phone does not do it justice, so I found a more professional image on the net...

Rembrant Square

The Rembrandtplein looks particularly festive at the moment. Unfortunately the statues of figures from Rembrandt´s Nachtwacht that peopled the square, under the benign and benevolent eye of the Master himself, and which were a great hit with both locals and tourists have gone, but I believe they´re coming back - it´ll make the whole place look a lot less garish...

Good old days

Friday morning ... just had a visit from my good and lovely friend Jacomien and our wonderful family friend (Uncle) Cees is here as well. Memories of Amsterdam days flood back when I see Cees and Yarrow sitting on the floor in Bertie´s study, as I write, playing a card game. Cees brought a bike from the police station (where he works) and he and Yarrow have now gone off for a bike ride to the Science Museum Nemo. Tess has gone to stay with her friend Eve for a few nights.

Bloom

Mum insisted I take this photograph for Niki - they had talked about this plant when Niki and I visited a few weeks ago and mum boasted of having had hundreds of blooms in it. At the moment it hasn´t reached that record by a long shot but it still looked very pretty in the midday sun.

The Low Lands

Snowy days in the south of Holland. The moment we arrived in Roosendaal it started snowing - lightly, at first, but then more insistently until cold flakes flew into our increasingly cold faces and made us glad to be in the hotel, a 20-minute walk away from the historic Roosendaal railway station.

After a short pit stop we continued to my mum´s house, and she was very glad to see us. Not having seen Tess and Yarrow, in person, for more than six years, she was overjoyed to see them again (and, at the same time, saddened that my dad was no longer able to see them). Personally, even though I missed him acutely at some stage, clearly felt his presence and happiness that they had finally made it ´home´.

The linguistic barrier was one we gingerly overcame, with some translation and some gesturing. After a while we found that, in fact, Tess and Yarrow could perfectly understand everything that was said in Dutch, and my mum could perfectly understand what they said in English, as long as they didn´t get carried away by their usual juvenile verbal enthusiasm, i.e. talked at the speed of lightning.

My sisters and brother-in-law Jos were there, too. They left after a while and we had dinner with Oma, after which I noticed she was (physically and emotionally) tired and we strolled back through the snow to the hotel. There we spent the evening having showers, reading, chatting, mobile phoning, raiding the mini bar and watching inane programmes on TV. Just before turning in we realised it had started snowing again, but when we woke up to the sounds of the Church bells and carillion we saw that during the night the Big Freeze had turned into the A Definite Attempt At The Big Melt.

Even though there is still a lot of snow around us as we train back through Dutch countryside to Amsterdam it´s definitely started thawing. This morning we went for a walk with Oma, who met us at the hotel, and we ambled through old haunts and neighbourhoods to where we lived until I was 20 or so (see a post below with photos). Tess and Yarrow thought it was very interesting to see the old house, where my room was and where I played. We walked back to Oma´s, had lunch and then, after a teary farewell, went to pick up our bags from the hotel and on to the railway station. Tess had just invested in a packet of real Stroopwafels... multi-tasking, combining the Eating Of It with MSN-ing with her friends in Australia and reading a book (Stephanie Meyer´s Breathing Dawn). Yarrow, too, has delved into a book (Diana Wynne Jones´ House of Many Ways)