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Warning! The weblog belongs to Siobhan, so it’s in English only. And it has almost nothing to do with tango... Read on.


23 April 2008
Identity Crisis

You would think that things should get easier once you can speak and understand a bit of the local language. Not so.

I’m at the rather annoying stage called ‘code–switching’. What this means is that I can babble whole sentences, but only by mixing Dutch and English (usually unconsciously) together. It’s incomprehensible to all but a few patient initiates. That this mixed–up language has a name comes as a surprise to me. The waitress in our favourite, smoke-free cafe hears us speaking together and comes over to ask if we would take part in her research. She studies linguistics and is doing a thesis on code–switching, only it turns out that she’s looking for people who mainly switch out of Dutch into their mother language, whereas it would be fairer to say that I mainly switch out of English into short bursts of Dutch.

Still, I’ve graduated to reading proper, grown–up stuff like the free newspapers on the trains, or sometimes a glossy magazine at the reading table in a cafe. I started this in the spirit of getting to grips with the culture of my adopted country, but if anything I’m even more mystified by the contradictions that emerge through the Dutch media.

It seems that the Dutch are going through the same kind of identity crisis as the British. They struggle with the same problems of pinning down just what Dutch culture is for the citizenship courses and tests required for non-EU immigrants. Habits, cuisine, language are all changing. No one knows whether they should kiss one, two or three times when greeting a friend, far less whether they should air-kiss, or actually plant mouth on cheek. My Dutch language book sniffily says that the most common 3–kiss custom is an unfortunate habit from the south of the country, and should be stopped forthwith. I think they lost that argument some time ago.

Every now and then the ‘What is Dutch culture exactly?’ debate flares up again, polarised into two camps: a nostalgic yearning for a kind of cosy pastoral or village lifestyle, and the sharper, metropolitan, ‘we’re all world citizens’ outlook. Princess Maxima tried to wade in last year to argue that there is no one, commonly shared, Dutch culture, and to plead for an acceptance of a heterogeneous, diverse, supra-national identity. She was loudly shouted down by just about everyone. At the time I remember being surprised when I read one commentator who claimed that more than one third of the Dutch population live, work, get married and die in the same village that they were born in. Can that really be so in this age of flexible workforces and easy mobility? Mind you, if he’s right this group are still in a minority. What kinds of experiences do the other two thirds share?

Nevertheless, the nostalgic camp seems to be winning even in the face of a changing reality. There was nearly a national crisis when the last episode of ‘Farmer Seeks Wife’ had aired. People went into a state mourning, complaining that they didn’t know what to do with their Sunday evenings. The Dutch press was filled up with editorials, commentaries and gossip about the show. We don’t have a TV, but I still know the names of the presenter and contestants. The whole love–affair with the simplicity and honesty perceived in the farmers’ lives puzzles me. From what I can see, Dutch farms are not cosy and rustic, they’re big and industrial. Farmers here battle with the same EC quotas and bureaucracy as everyone else. Village life is not always safe and friendly. I feel like the kid in the story shouting ‘The emperor’s got no clothes on!’

All this shifting ground means that even the Dutch can be unreliable guides to their own culture. For example, the continuing insistence that no–one celebrates Valentine’s Day here. At some point last year I had suggested doing some PR for our dance school around Valentine’s Day. Something cheesy along the lines of ‘do the dance of love’, blah, blah (marketing is not my strong point). Every time I mentioned it people threw their hands up in horror: ‘Oh no, we don’t take Valentine’s seriously here. Nasty, American, commercial, no one will come, etc, etc.’

Nevertheless, just as soon as the January sales were over, the slushy, hearts–and–roses advertising swung into action. Even the most unlikely businesses were trying to find a way to claim that their product was the ideal Valentine’s gift for your loved one. ‘Darling, surprise! Come and look at the romantic garden gnome I found for you on Marktplaats.’

By chance I cycled through Gouda’s town square on Valentine’s evening to be greeted by the most surreal sight. To start off with you have to picture the market square in Gouda, already pretty striking at the best of times. It’s an unusually large square – Gouda has a long history as a major market town – flanked on four sides by shops, restaurants and cafes. Positioned just off–centre is the extremely twiddly gothic town hall, all encrusted pinnacles and leaded glass, looking a bit out of place in the desert of cobbles, surrounded by more sober 17th century buildings. In a suitably bizarre finishing touch the replica antique iron lampposts are usually decorated by large, fake, golden rounds of Gouda cheese, plonked wonkily on top of the pointed cap of the lamp.

For the 14th February everything has been transformed. The fake cheeses have gone, to be replaced by big bunches of heart–shaped red balloons tied to every lamppost. The cafes and restaurants are heaving, and queues are starting to form outside the most popular venues. The gothic town hall is lit up with huge magenta–pink floodlights and looks like a kitsch wedding cake. ‘This’ll be us not celebrating Valentine’s Day then!’ I think grumpily to myself.

Even now, when I tell this story, my Dutch friends try to persuade me that it’s not the Dutch way to bother with Valentines. But I’m ignoring them. In the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary all I can say is ‘You do so too!’



29 August 2007
Bikers rule!

There are two ways to see the Netherlands at its best: by boat and by bicycle. It seems that half the country shuts up shop for the summer and potters around on the water in all manner of unlikely–looking vessels. Normal traffic grinds to a halt at quarter hour intervals as the road hinges up and aside to let flotillas of small boats through. For the landlubbers it’s the time for biking trips out into the platteland.

The network of cycle paths is not completely sealed off from four–wheeled traffic, but when you get out of the town centre and onto the suburban cycle paths it’s like finding a secret world. Paths tend to run alongside small drainage canals, iced-over in winter, a paradise for baby ducklings, coots, and signets in spring, and full of the most incredible, luminous, green algae during the warm months. Willows weep, orchards blossom, and small steadings fringe the way, often with a couple of sheep to graze the grass and a clutch of hens scratching around. Look a bit further off and you’ll see familiar modern, suburban architecture, no different in most respects to home. However, I choose to focus on the fairytale pastoral idyll beside the cycle track and to leave my glasses at home.

All cycle paths round here seem to lead to the Reeuwijkse Plassen, a disconcertingly straight-sided lake, which is home to the local population of storks and millionaires. The storks live in big nests at the top of the trees that grow on little islands in the lake, and the millionaires live in big houses with unlikely decorative themes such as Palladian pilasters, a Tuscan balcony, or a low-maintenance version of the real steadings nearby – plaster–cast lambs and ducks grouped authentically on the manicured lawns. It’s a surreal vision. Cycle further and sanity is restored as you get out into real farmland, still the backbone of the Netherlands, and producing industrial amounts of food and flowers: not so much pastoral, as a green factory that keeps this overcrowded country going.

Back in town and cycling is rather less than idyllic, as you ride cheek–by–jowl with normal traffic along impossibly narrow, cobbled streets. The wider streets have cycle lanes, but the traffic goes faster too. The locals negotiate junctions and crossings with an aplomb that mystifies me. In fact the whole Dutch love affair with the bike is a source of awe to me.

Watching the cyclists fly around the narrow streets of central Utrecht reminds me of those Planet Earth underwater films of giant shoals of fish twisting and tumbling in perfect synchronicity through the water, apparently without one ever swimming off in the wrong direction, crashing into the others, or stopping in a moment of confusion (cyclists beware! I am that hapless fish). As I watch a heavily pregnant woman cycling serenely along, an infant in a baby seat at the front of the bike, and a toddler sitting, legs dangling, over the rear wheel, I realise that this is not some genetic miracle, but simply a knack developed from before birth and onwards. Two wheels good: two legs bad.

And of course, there is every possible accessory available for your cycle. Saddle–bags are the most basic form of self–expression, and some people go further and decorate their handlebars with frivolous arrangements of flowers and feathers. But the most energy and attention is given to the incredible selection of ways to carry your children around with you (until they get their first bike that is). There are baby seats and toddler carriers, or if you prefer you can buy a specially adapted rush basket (I’m not joking). For the larger family there is a tented trailer, which can be attached to the back of the bike that carries 3 or 4 children. There’s even an amalgamation of a wheelbarrow and bike, the bakfiets, with the wheelbarrow full of kiddies carried in front of the bike. Usually seen in Amsterdam, it’s started to appear in Utrecht too. And if your bakfiets is not enough of a status symbol then you can have it customised in a shop just round the corner from the German embassy in Amsterdam. The shop is full of precustomised models – inlaid mosaic, mirrored tiles, Austrian–style painted flourishes and flowers, plaid blanket lining. You name it, they’ll do it for you.

The other mystifying thing about cycle culture here is trying to work out exactly what the rules are. Cycles are in general allowed to do things and go places that other traffic cannot, and even where this is not true the locals ignore the signs with a fine disregard.

The only two definitive rules that I’ve been able to decode so far are a) under NO CIRCUMSTANCES are you allowed to get off your bike before you reach your destination. I discovered that one early one morning as I tried to make my way through town. A lorry blocks the narrow street, offloading goods into a shop. There’s barely half a metre between it and the shop front but nevertheless the cyclists manage to squeeze through without dismounting. My balance isn’t good enough for that game so I get off and wait at one side until the oncoming file of bikes has passed and I can wheel my cycle through. ‘Mevrouw, you’re in the WAY!’ grumbles an old man as I stand politely aside.

Rule b) is that under NO CIRCUMSTANCES may you stop before you reach your destination, although in really dire situations it is permissible to slow down. Stopping at junctions, for other cyclists, pedestrians, crossing families of ducks, or in a moment of confusion only serves to disturb the finely tuned balance of the cycle–shoal, and is best avoided. And brakes are for sissys, OK?

On second thoughts, I think I’ll stick to walking.

24 April 2007
Een echte Hollandse Cumparsita

Every city and town has its own unmistakable signature, the immediate impression that you get when you first step out of the train or bus. In my mind Barcelona conjures up the memory of the heady smell of cigar smoke mingled with fresh sweat, and the endless buzzing of mopeds, driven fearlessly at high speed through the city, 24/7.

Gouda, on the other hand, is bound up with the unfamiliar sound of medieval church bells, which ring out in a constant reminder of the time. Living right in the centre, you sometimes have to pinch yourself to remember that this is the 21st century (although a quick look out of the kitchen window at the kids smoking their splifjes in the steeg behind the house reassures me that modern life is most definitely here).

Days are punctuated at quarter hour intervals by a little tune played on the bells of one of the many churches in the old part of town. Then at precisely two minutes past every half hour a different song is played by the klokkenspiel thingy on the side of the burgershuis on the market place. It has the annoyingly memorable quality of a Eurovision contest song, so within a few weeks of living here I found myself singing along to it automatically: nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, na-na-nahaah, nah. And so on.

Sundays are marked by a no–holds–barred cacophony of bells from competing churches, calling their congregations to morning and afternoon services. And no Saturday would be complete without the Hansel and Gretel sound of the ‘draaiorgel’, a portable church organ worked with a pianola system of punched sheet music fed over a cylinder. As I walked back from the station yesterday evening the unmistakeable sound of a draaiorgel floated up the street, and I rounded the corner to find the most shiny, pastel–coloured, fairy–tale contraption that I’ve ever seen, holding an impromptu outdoor concert for a small crowd of locals who clapped appreciatively at the end of every song. Someone tells me that these things are an important part of Dutch culture, and shows me black and white photos of his father operating the very same draaiorgel by hand in the 1960s.

It seems that all these tuneful machines have some cultural or historical importance. The klokkenspiel thing is meant to tell an important story in the history of Gouda, and little marionettes pop out of the wall, like a cuckoo clock, to re–enact the King giving the burghers their independence (or some such thing. History was never my strong point).

St Janskirk, the other dominant feature of the town centre, also bongs out the hour, although it does so, confusingly, half an hour in advance: in its own time zone perhaps? It also possesses the most memorable Dutch sound of all – a carillion played in a public concert every Thursday and Saturday morning, and around Christmas time in the evenings as well.

I was puzzled when I first heard this, as I couldn’t understand how a team of bell ringers could manage to play such intricate, twiddly music. It wasn’t until I saw a live, streamed concert in the Dom Kirk in Utrecht that I realised that the music is not produced, British–style, by bell–ringers pulling ropes, but by two guys operating a piano-like contraption, hooked up to a bank of bells – which I now know is called a carillion. The piano-like construction allows for all the intricacy and twiddles that your heart could ever desire, and the heart of Gouda desires twiddles to excess it would seem.

The concerts are great fun. Some days it’s a classical feast – Mozart, Bach and the like. At other times it’s a wild–card choice. Last week we had La Cumparsita, complete with Gothic flourishes, follwed in short order by the theme tune to Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Maybe the regular guy was on holiday... In a nice bit of synergy a friend emails us two days later with a sound clip of another ‘echt Hollandse Cumparsita’, not as twiddly as the Gouda version, but unmistakably the sound that I have come to associate with Holland.



27 March 2007
Double Dutch

Finally, I’ve had to bite the bullet and overcome my great resistance to learning Dutch. My tourist vocabulary just isn’t going to cut the mustard, as everyday life needs to revolve around more than being able to order a cup of tea with fresh, cold milk on the side. Admittedly this is quite an involved process, as the Dutch habitually serve up koffiemelk, a kind of condensed, sweetened milk substitute when asked for some milk for the tea. Somehow they seem to feel that fresh milk lacks something, so if I’m not super–vigilant the kind waitress will have steamed it on the coffee machine, proudly serving up hot milk with my cup of Earl Grey. Which as any self–respecting tea drinker knows is just plain wrong. It took a while to understand all of this, but now I smile sweetly and ask for ‘een kopje tee engels–style’, which seems to do the trick.

I have been meaning to learn Dutch ever since I arrived, but, well, life sort of got in the way. And I have a wicked stubborn streak which brings out the worst in me when the inevitable conversation opener is ‘Oh you just moved to the Netherlands. Are you speaking Dutch yet?’ As every incomer that I’ve spoken to tells me that it takes a minimum of 2 years to be able to speak Dutch with any degree of comfort, this is a silly question. So far I’ve managed to stop myself from growling ‘I’ve only been here 5 minutes. No!’ but the inward growl effectively blocked all my good intentions of finding a nice Dutch course and getting to grips with the culture of my new home. However, the time has come, and anyway the 5 minutes excuse is wearing a bit thin 10 months in...

Luckily, as an EU citizen, I don’t have to do the ‘inburgerings’ thing – the equivalent of the UK’s ‘citizenship’ course for immigrants (the issue of immigration is a BIG deal here too). Instead I work with a friend who allows me to design my own language course. At the moment this revolves around buying a good quality newspaper on the way to her house and picking my way through it, reading a bit out loud, puzzling over the words I don’t know (that’ll be around 80% of it), laughing at some of the sillier sounds or turns of phrase.

Last week’s hilarity was provided by the strangeness of a language that has fewer words than English. This means that words get recycled, often in fairly odd and unpredictable ways. In a scary story of street life in Rotterdam the article mentioned a ‘camera plough’ that had witnessed the events. Whoa there. Camera plough? What the heck is that? Finally it clicks – duh! Camera crew. Not sure how you make the mental leap from plough to crew, but in any case, my new method of learning beats the stilted dialogue tapes of Piet telling us about his family, job, house, and whatever, that came with my first (and only) beginners Dutch course.

Oliver tells me that he also learned Dutch the unconventional way, in his case reading Dutch translations of Harry Potter to the 7–year–old son of his partner. It seems to have worked for him (though I draw the line at reading Harry Potter – in any language). The added bonus of working with newspapers is that I find out a bit more about life in the Netherlands as I decode the language. So, for instance, I know that men account for 15% of the cosmetics market in the Netherlands, and that heterosexual men’s cosmetic buying patterns are quite different from those of homosexual men. Fascinating stuff huh?

On the down side, one of the more distressing side effects of starting out in a new language is that the sound of my voice changes completely when I speak Dutch. It goes all high pitched and girly, and sounds quite unlike me. The reverse is true of Oliver, his voice gets deeper and slower when he speaks Dutch (or English), but becomes light and excitable when he speaks in his first language, German. I have to hope that this wears off with time and that I’m not stuck with a voice pitch that matches my reading age.

This week’s recommended reading:
Jip en Janneke (think Peter and Jane, but much, much better)
Nijntje (that’s Miffy to you and me)
Kuifje (that’s Tintin)




5 February 2007
The recipe for happiness

One of the unexpected things about married life is just how much food a grown man can get through. Trips to Albert Heijn and our local deli are a near daily habit now as yesterday’s well–stocked fridge is bare and sad today. For the first time in my life I have a proper freezer, with drawers and everything, but my great fantasy of being able to freeze left–overs to turn into instant meals later is foxed by the fact that there never are any left–overs. Both plates are hoovered spotlessly clean by Oliver. I have the disconcerting feeling sometimes that an army of small hungry things comes in at night and raids the food cupboards.

I should have been alerted to all of this early on as our wedding vows included a reference to eating. We had pieced together beautiful vows, combining native Indian and celtic vows. The celtic lines pragmatically deal with all the stuff about survival – Oliver’s lines promised that he would give me the ‘first bite of my meat and the first sip from my cup’. I didn’t think this was especially funny, but it raised a belly–laugh from our friends who obviously knew more about his ability to empty a plate than I did.

Still, I hadn’t realised how existential this appetite was until a friend visited recently. As the afternoon drew on he suddenly asked: ‘What can I do to increase my lust for life?’ Humdinger of a question there, but before I had a moment to ponder it Oliver came back with the answer: ‘Cook and eat more delicious things.’ We both looked at him. He warmed to his subject, talking expansively and enthusiastically about spice mixes, the best type of pasta, cooking pans, garlic, just how much chilli is needed to get the required ‘pittige’ taste, and on, and on. Our friend grabs a Post–It and starts to scribble down Oliver’s recipe for happiness. So I pass this on here, just in case he really has landed on the magic formula.

You need:
large pinch of coriander seeds
same of anise
a single dried chilli
all of the above pounded in a mortar
(my version includes black mustard seeds too)

one red onion sliced in rings
plenty of garlic, sliced none too thinly (for preference around 5 cloves)
Mushrooms, also sliced in generous wedges
the most tasty olives you can get hold of
tin of peeled tomatoes (Euroshopper variety is ideal)
plenty of olive oil (ditto)
linguine (the number 3 chunky one is preferable to the number 4, and any linguine is preferable to spaghetti)
roughly ground black pepper and flaky sea salt

Method:
Splosh generous amount of olive oil into heavy frying pan and heat. At the same time start to prepare the hot water for the pasta – lots of it in a large pan, with some olive oil and some salt (low–iodine please). Set the heat high and bring to the boil.
Fry ingredients in order: onion rings (don’t let them go brown), mushrooms (similarly no browning), garlic (also soften but not browned), add the ground spices mix (which will perfume the kitchen), bung in the olives and then the peeled tomatoes, pop a lid on the pan, turn the heat down a bit, and let it work its magic.

Grab a generous handful of pasta, twist in the middle and pop into the now boiling water – it will splay out like a fan and sink evenly into the water, saving a lot of hassle. When it’s covered completely by the water, stir once and cook until al dente, then strain. Check the tomato sauce and season (best to do this at the end as the olives’ salt content can vary hugely). Serve in large bowls and think about doing a green salad on the side.

Now I think of it, my own recipe for happiness was traditionally a bacon and egg butty, preferably cooked to order from the Thistle Street sandwich shop in Edinburgh. The local version, the uitsmijter, comes a close second, but I miss the HP sauce, and the great Scottish floury ‘morning roll’.

Take your pick. Either way eet smakelijk!


21 January 2007
Why Las Rosas del Tango?

Why Las Rosas del Tango? Good question. I’m not absolutely sure myself to be honest. When Oliver and I decided that we would like to teach together we started to search for a name for our new activities. True to form we went about the task in completely different ways. I sat down with the i–tunes library and a Spanish dictionary and started to pick out song titles that sounded good to me. The best ones have already gone – Desde el Alma belongs to a friend’s tango magazine and Vibraciones del Alma doesn’t sound quite right. Gloria – the name of another friend’s dog. Di Di appeals because it reminds me of dada, but that’s too conceptual. Perhaps Cristal? Wasn’t that Oliver’s mother’s name? I look it up in the dictionary: glass. Perhaps not; too breakable.

Oliver, in the meantime, was waiting to be struck by inspiration, and before I’ve had time to check what Zaraza means he bounds up the stairs and tells me that he’s got it: Las Rosas del Tango.

I was a bit lukewarm to start off with. The tango roses. Doesn’t that sound a bit like the Darling Buds of May? Maybe not. We google it to see whether anyone else has thought of it. It would seem not. Rosas del Amor comes up often, as does Gardel’s Rosas de Otoño. Googling ‘tango rose’ comes up with interesting information about a Canadian brand of swimwear, and of course a rose variety – wide–opening, semi–double, with orange–red flowers apparently –– also, bizarrely, known as Macfirwal.

The new name starts to grow on me. Roses feature surprisingly often in our lives. For example, my favourite perfume (Red Roses by Jo Malone), or the amazing white roses we had for our wedding, with a perfume from heaven, something like ripe raspberries. Or the roses that appeared for my 37th birthday.

At 10am there was a knock on the office door. A delivery from the flower shop for me, and cradled in the delivery man’s arms is a long cardboard box with about a dozen long–stemmed roses, all different colours, nestled in layers of white tissue and strewn about with loose rose petals. Wow. The entire office crowds around my desk to admire them. They look like something straight out of a fairy tale. “Look, you could just dive into that red velvety one there” says one of the girls, with some feeling. The girls shake their heads and mutter about the shortcomings of hopelessly unromantic British men, and birthdays unmarked with fairytale roses. The men look guilty. At the end of the day as I pack the roses carefully to carry home the guy that works behind me admits that his girlfriend is feeling a bit poorly at the moment, so he’s off to Sainsbury to buy her a bunch of flowers...

My ebay alias also featured a combination of roses and tango. I thought that Siobhan Dougherty was a fairly unusual name until I tried to set up an ebay account. I found that I was at the end of a pretty long line of Siobhan Doughertys. I didn’t want to be something unmemorable like sdougherty789523 so I went for the ebay name generator instead. After feeding in random bits of personal information the generator did its thing and out popped my alias: yellowtangorose. Catchy, no? Reminded me of the Yellow Rose of Texas, and it trips off the tounge nicely. My ebay career was shortlived, but I always intended to take the name with me, perhaps to blog under.

In spite of my misgivings, our friends immediately like Las Rosas del Tango. Great name! ‘Are you sure?’ I ask. Yeah, of course. And we even have a poem inspired by our roses, so the idea takes root and grows already. It arrived as a New Years card, written on the back of a postcard with a beautiful black and white picture of two roses nestled together in a pair of cupped hands. I like the poem very much indeed, so here it is (courtesy of Ilona Prinsen):

Two roses
in two hands
loving and caring
two roses
that present
loving and caring
two roses
beloved in dance
loving and caring
two roses
my friends
loving and caring
two roses
a story
never ends
loving and caring


December 2006

Sinterklaas
December really is one of the nicest times of the year in my new home – in spite of the weather. The Dutch, quite rightly, keep Santa Claus out of Christmas, so St Nicolaas’s festival is celebrated at the start of the month (the eve of the Saint’s festival, on the 5th). Slightly less proper, to British eyes anyway, is the tradition of “swarte Piet” who helps Sinterklaas, and generally acts the clown. This gives grown men (and women too, I noticed) the excuse to black up, put on red lipstick, and dress up in brightly coloured velveteen and satin clothing. Clearly the race relations debate about the Black and White Minstrel Show didn’t make it this far.

Anyway, Sinterklaas roams the land with a band of swarte Piets for about a month beforehand, making appearances in town centres and villages. Out cycling one Sunday I noticed that a large group of kids had gathered on a bridge over one of the canals. They sang songs together for some time until in the distance a man on a white horse appeared, with flowing white beard, and wearing something like a Bishop’s mitre. The singing was renewed with gusto, as Sint waved to the kids. Sadly his regal progress was somewhat held up by a double parked car blocking the narrow canalside road. Clash of modern life with tradition. The band of swarte Piets scurried around, ringing doorbells to find the culprit, but with no luck. Sint continued to look regal, waving at the now rather more forlorn kids. Eventually an enterprising swarte Piet found the car door was open, and rolled the car further down the road to a point where Sint could pass by more easily. As I left presents were being handed out to the excited kids.

On the night of the 5th Oliver had just got home when there was a loud banging on the door. I assumed it was the local kids playing ring bell scoosh and ignored it, but he went to the door to find out what was going on. Sure enough there was no one there, but instead a large sack was sitting on the doorstep. What’s that? We didn’t have time to do more than bring it inside when the doorbell went, this time to reveal two friends, giggling and breathless like schoolgirls. So, we had our own Sinterklaas treats. Inside the sack a large speculaas feisje (bidie–in in Scots) – there is a very Dutch tradition of giving a single woman a kind of gingerbread man to keep her warm! Extra to requirements with Oliver there, but speculaas is great stuff. Also large, break–your–teeth–solid, dark chocolate letters – D for Dougherty and K for Kruse – and a funny poem allegedly penned by Sint himself (I have my doubts). So, our integration into Dutch life continues. I kind of like the Sinterklaas tradition. It makes me nostalgic for the Christmases of my childhood: hanging a stocking at the end of the bed, and the magic of finding it full of little packages the next morning; the family tradition of Santa laying a trail of (his favourite!) chocolates to the Christmas tree.

Mosquitoes
One of the many things that guide books to the Netherlands keep quiet about is the fact that all this shallow, fresh water lying around makes ideal breeding conditions for mosquitoes. They also have nothing to say about the mild climate, and wet winters being favourable to mosquitoes surviving year–round, as I’m finding to my horror. We took the plunge, and decided that we could sleep without a mosquito net in mid–November, but were woken up by the characteristic hum last night (it’s now the middle of December). Of course, in winter, there’s less skin exposed and available for the little things to get a hold of, so they get nasty. I woke up to feel a sore lump on my lower lip. Ouch. Sure enough it’s swollen up lopsidedly, like a lip enhancement gone wrong. Not so much Angelina Jolie as the Elephant Man.

The locals cheerfully tell me that the best innoculation against mosquitoes is to let them bite you often to build up your resistance to the poison – cold comfort to someone who is ridiculously allergic to any kind of insect bite. I had been comforting myself with the thought that at least they don’t carry malaria until someone told me that within living memory there had been malaria in the Netherlands, eventually controlled by draining some of the worst infected areas. Thanks.

Still, our battles with mosquitoes pale in comparison to the local Kamer van Koophandel’s plague. At the end of an appointment we noticed a sinister–looking electric swat. “Is that some kind of device to check for knives and guns?” we asked. No, it was left over after the office was infested with a swarm of mosquitoes over the summer – something under the building seemed to attract them in particular (doesn’t bear thinking about) so for three days the staff had gone about swatting and zapping the bugs. The electric version of the swat apparently makes a sizzling noise when you get your target – and if you get several at once there’s a smell of burning flesh our business start–up advisor tells us with a certain amount of satisfaction. Things do seem to happen in biblical proportions here. The rain, when it rains, tends towards a deluge, and now I find the insects come in plague–sized swarms. How come my Rough Guide to the Netherlands didn’t mention that?

Car trouble
Today is a sad day. We finally have to say goodbye to Oliver’s little car. The last MOT was a bit iffy, and since then small but expensive things have gone wrong with it on a near weekly basis. We worked out that the repair bills were coming to more than the value of the car – quite a lot more we discovered today when the local garage owner told us that the value of the car is exactly nil. Still, however high the mileage, and however beaten up the bodywork, it holds a lot of sentimental value for us.

This is the car that brought Oliver to Scotland for the first time, across the North Sea by ferry, and then up the A1. I can still remember the trail of excited text messages between us as he got closer and closer, until finally he stood at the front door to my close. In a flush of extravagance we used it every morning for a fortnight to get me to work, Oliver negotiating impossibly busy roundabouts and strange traffic signals while driving on the left side of the road for the first time.

The journey back to Ijmuiden was meant to be terribly romantic, but ended up being possibly the most surreal trip I’ve ever made. That day was the end of the worldwide annual congress of 2CV drivers (yes there really is such a thing) and as we got nearer to Newcastle we ended up in a convoy of every possible type of 2CV that you can imagine – vintage, super de-luxe, hippy, whatever – from every corner of Europe. The drivers made for an interesting mix with the other convoy, of Hells Angels, that we had followed down through the Scottish Borders. We left them mingling, more or less happily, in the ship’s bar, with a troupe of Dutch dancers re–enacting Michael Jackson’s Thriller video routine for entertainment.

It’s also the car that somehow got us down to the Auvergne in the midst of the worst heatwave of the summer. Impossible journey with no air con and a rather badly designed sun roof which failed to let any air circulate, but was cunningly placed to allow sunstroke to develop in no time at all. Oh yes, and black seats which became unbearably hot as the journey went on. In a rare moment of synergy, the car and I gave out at the same time, 14 hours in, and just in time to see France lose the World Cup as we coasted into the nearest hotel. By morning we had both cooled off enough to finish the journey, and the local Renault garage worked some miracle to patch up the fan long enough to get ourselves back to Gouda at the end of the week.

After more than 300,000km it’s time for retirement, or rather recycling. She’s only good for spare parts now, and so we said goodbye to her and left her on the Vest, beside the harbour with the garage owner. The end of an era. RIP.

Gouda bij Kaarslicht
Today is a big day in the Gouda calendar. As the Gemeente website points out, Gouda does more than just cheese. At one point there was a whole warren of different cottage industries and crafts thriving in the town. Most haven’t survived, but the tradition of candlemaking still goes strong. The candlemaking factory sits on the far side of the harbour, and when the wind blows in the right direction the smell of parafin wax is as characteristic of the town as the smell of breweries is in Edinburgh. Anyway, every December the town celebrates its other heritage with a festival of candlelight – this year is the 51st such event.

For the past week the town has been quietly building up to this night. Christmas trees line Langegroenedaal and the narrow passage around the Sint Janskirk. A shopkeeper tells me that they’re twice the size that was intended, and he’s right: the street has started to take on the feeling of a pine forest. Festive lights have been strung up in the centre – even down the little steegje that runs alongside our house. A huge norwegian pine tree was put up in the market place at the weekend with some thoroughly unfestive barriers to protect it from the local youth. Even the streetlamps have been given a make–over with some rather kitsch lampshades printed with shots of the famous stained glass windows of St Jinskirk.

All day I’ve been watching people walking past our windows, heading towards the market place. At 4 o’clock I join them. It’s bitterly cold and there’s not so much to see yet. People press into the cafes, and those that can’t find a place sit on the terraces, huddled against the wind, drinking gluwijn and hot chocolate to keep warm. A nativity scene has been set up with some actors dressed up in biblical-style clothing. Mary looks frankly miserable, her teeth chattering, as the white nightie thing she’s wearing was not made for a cold December afternoon. I nip home to put on another layer of thermals.

By six o’clock things are starting to happen. Around the market, and the streets that run directly off it, people have opened their curtains and blinds and their windows are filled with banks of candles. The windows of St Jinskirk are backlit so the stained glass designs glow brightly against the dark exterior of the church. Stalls selling gluwijn, sausages, hamburgers and roasted chestnuts are doing a good trade. In the market place a crowd is beginning to gather around the giant christmas tree. As I walk around the square piped music is playing over the PA system, the kind of Christmas medley that you can hear in any shopping mall in the UK from the middle of November onwards. Except, I realise that all the old favourites have been translated into Dutch: Jingle Bells, Winter Wonderland (bit of a rough translation this one – comes out as “snowy Nederland”), and even Wham’s Last Christmas. Slade haven’t crossed the cultural divide yet, but the man who sings Last Christmas could have been Noddy Holder’s brother.

Seven o’clock and the event starts. Bang on cue the heavens open and down comes the rain. I edge towards the people next to me who remembered to bring an umbrella. There’s singing, and the klokkenspiel machine has been brought out to play well-known songs – interestingly it’s “Gloria in Excelsia” which really seems to get the crowd going – and the Schoonhoven brass band do a lovely set. Quarter past seven and little points of light start to appear in the windows of the burghuis. Eventually every window is lit with a pointed bank of candles. In one dramatic moment the streetlights go out, and the floodlight that usually washes the facade of the burghuis is extinguished leaving just the candles to work their magic. The crowd sigh appreciatively. Half past seven and the final rendition of Gloria in Excelsia is played, and the burgemeester speaks. Someone says something unintelligible, possibly in Norwegian, and at last the lights on the Christmas tree are switched on. The burgemeester continues to speak, but the crowd have got what they came to see and within seconds everyone has turned round and has started to file out of the square.

I work my way round to Thomas and Maria’s to hear “my piano” being played properly for a candlelilt Christmas carol concert – proper Dutch carols this time, no translations, along with some in English, German and even one in Finnish. “Helemaal, ontzettend mooi” is the agreed reaction from the audience. I realise that I’m letting the side down, so I scurry home to put some candles in our windows.