Our last Sunday

It's Sunday afternoon and we've not packed a single box yet this weekend.

Right now Adam and Edward are having an afternoon nap and I'm sitting at the kitchen table with a great mountain of packing boxes on my right and a huge pile of stuff in front of me and wondering what to do next.
Yesterday we sold the washing machine, and the same people want to buy our IKEA kitchen utensils and toaster etc and are going to pick them up on Thursday afternoon. The iron and kettle people could not pick up last Friday and so Adam is dropping the stuff off to them on Tuesday morning.

Some good news is that Singapore Air has issued our flight tickets - thankfully they accepted a short note from the midwife saying that I am pregnant & that baby is due 18 January as a "fit to fly" certificate. The note doesn't say that I am in good health, or that the pregnancy is trouble free or even mention flying!
I'm not happy with it (the fit to fly certificate) as I am worried that we will show up to check in the staff with take a look at my Enormous pregnancy tummy and demand a 'proper' certificate.
So I've downloaded a tick-the-box fit to fly certificate from the Emirates website & am going to take it along to my final Dutch health check (this Thursday) and ask the midwife to fill it in. This should get around the language barrier as all she has to do is tick all the boxes, fill in my due date and name and sign it.
Hopefully I will have the older midwife, rather than the younger one this Thursday - the older one speaks better English, seems to be a pleasant person and the younger one wrote the very short note that I sent to Singapore Air. I would prefer not to have to try and explain in basic English why I need another certificate.

Adam was very, very stressed by the end of last working week and he unfortunately has a really busy week coming up. He has to drive to the Hague every day next week! It's actually not a long distance (by Australian standards) but there are bumper to bumper traffic jams literally all the way. Last Friday Adam took Edward and me into the Hague with him for the afternoon because I was going a bit crazy being in the house all the time. How my perspective has changed - I now find wandering around a shopping street & buying some lip gloss and travel toiletries to be a really good day out! Hmmmm.
And it took over 3.5 hours for us to drive home (should have been a 45 minute drive). I hope Adam doesn't get 5 repeat days of that because it adds a lot of hours to his normal working week.

To schedule him into 5 further days in the Hague as well as an evening meeting in some other Dutch place in his last week is not considerate at all of his company and is (in my opinion) a bit disappointing. Especially as Friday of this week the cleaner is arriving at 8am with a van to remove all our goods that are not being shipped to Australia, and after we have the end of lease inspection from the real estate people, we have no address in the Netherlands.

This is all complicated by the fact that we have an 18 month old child & I'm rather pregnant. Normally I would take the moving in my stride. But I am worried about how Edward is going to cope on Friday - he won't be able to play in the house & the weather is just awful at the moment but I suppose I could put him in his snow suit and sit in the back garden with him while the house is cleaned. He will have to have his nap in the stroller, which isn't ideal but it's only one day.
I'm hoping that Adam will have a light working day on Friday as I am without a mobile phone and by the end of the day he will be without a vehicle. I suppose the worst case scenario is that I take a bus from Eemnes to Hilversum with all our luggage & Edward as well, hope that some Dutch person will help me with the luggage (ha, ha as if that would happen!), and make my own way to the hotel.... and wait for Adam to arrive. Oh well, we will see.

The Countdown is On

Adam has handed in his resignation, our house is full of boxes in preparation for sea freighting and there are only NINE more days until we leave the NL for a holiday in Switzerland with Liz and Meinrad. And after that, we fly to Schiphol, sleep overnight in a very cheap hotel, and fly home.

I'm so excited about it, it's scary!

I've become obsessed with doing things in advance and have already packed our handluggage. I'm currently weighing up whether or not to pack our big luggage for Switzerland, ie now or do it on the weekend. The only thing holding me back is that I am not sure how we will manage on clothes for the next 9 days as the rest is either going to be sea-freighted or go into our Australia-luggage.

We've sold most of our Dutch language books and we've also sold the iron and kettle. So after tonight there are no more cups of tea in our house (not that we drink much tea anyway) and I will have to go to the neighbour's to do the ironing. I've also got someone interested in our washing machine and at a pinch we could sell it on the weekend..... and use the neighbour's washing machine a few times.

Things we Like About the Netherlands

This blog entry is going to record the things that we like about the Netherlands. Adam and I have been asked what we like about the Netherlands quite a few times over the past few months. After much thought I have come up with the following (in no order of preference):

* My perception of the Dutch male attitude towards young children.
In Australia only women of the grandparent generation tend to notice other people's babies. In the NL I have found that lots of people, male and female would smile at Edward / wave at him / play peek-a-boo. (At first I thought this country was full of weird men who had strange fondness for babies, but after a few months realised that, in general, Dutch men are not ashamed or embarrased to notice babies). I think this is a good thing because it makes me feel that babies are openly valued by everyone, not just (older) women.

* Adam likes the cheap beer.

* I like the little red bottles that spices come in.

* I LOVE not having Adam's weeknights and weekends taken over by whatever "Special" / "Once a Year" / "Unique" etc etc sporting event that is on the television. It is going to be hard for me to accept going back into sport-obsessed Australia.

* It is wonderful to be completely unaware of American 'news'. I'm sure I will find the Australian focus on the USA difficult to accept.

* Stroopwaffels. The only drawback is that I cannot stop eating them. I wish they came in packets of one or two, rather than a dozen.

* Dutch use of indoor lighting.

* Affordable cut flowers.

Animal Feeding in Laren

Part One



Part Two

Amsterdam Boat Cruise

Happy 18 month birthday Darling Edward

Today Edward is 18 months old. He is a lovely little boy and Adam and I are very proud of him.

His current special things are:
- favourite word: Bubbles
- favourite toys:
Lego (for a quiet game),
the lower kitchen cupboard which has pots & pans, plastic spoons etc and
the never-used-on-a-fly Fly Swat.
- favourite food: it's a contest between steak, oranges and chocolate.