94. I fell in love with Holland

Both Pieter and I have reached that stage in our lives when our minds turn more often to musing about our earlier years. In fact, and more specifically, I have been musing lately about how the course of one’s life can be significantly altered by the most insignificant of events.

After returning from America (see Mystic blogs, specifically number 73, Williams Memorial Institute) in my mid-teens, to settle in Sydney, I completed my schooling and did a degree in Social Work, anticipating a more settled period in my life. I did settle very happily into my job, however, I was soon to learn that life can throw up different, and unexpected, twists. Following on from my high school experiences at WMI, and the opportunities that I had had there to be cast in the Dramatic Society productions, I still harboured a long held dream of one day going to England, to study “drama” at the Royal Shakespearean Theatre in Stratford (although I knew deep down that this was probably simply a pipedream). Instead, I happily settled for joining a long-established Amateur Dramatic Society, of which I was a member for a number of years. Little did I know that this involvement was to change the course of my life, and to lead me to happily abandoning those pipe dreams.

After the final performance of some of our productions there would occasionally be a post-production party, and one of these happened to be hosted by one of our members, who also happened to be married to one of Pieter’s work colleagues. This couple also happened to have just moved into a new house and had decided to celebrate this by inviting a mixture of her “theatrical” friends and his work colleagues. On that particular evening these two groups tended to keep to opposite sides of the room and Pieter (who happened to be one of the work colleagues) and I did not meet that night. However, our eyes did meet, and, as the saying goes, “the rest is history”. My thoughts of an acting career were abandoned and a new future opened up for me, with the opportunity to become part of a wider, very close-knit family, who welcomed me into their lives.

Although Pieter always kept in very close contact with his family in Holland, in particular with his children, Mark and Michelle (about whom he has written in earlier blog posts), his work commitments in the first couple of years of our marriage were such that it was not until Gregory was nearly 2 years old that we had the opportunity to travel with him and to combine his work commitments with a very significant and memorable trip to Holland, where both Greg and I were introduced to his older children, and to his wider family, for the very first time.

The first week of our trip was spent in England where we stayed in Stratford, not too far from Birmingham, where Pieter’s company’s head office was located. Both of us still have very clear memories of waking early on the first morning in our hotel and hearing the church bells peeling. Pieter remembers that it was a beautiful summer Sunday morning and that his first action on waking was to take Greg for a walk in his stroller, in the park near the river Avon. Everything had looked green and peaceful, with very few tourists out and about yet, and he has always described that first morning as a “magical moment in time”, that he has never forgotten. For me, that week was a very relaxed week, pushing Greg around in his stroller, exploring all the side streets, and soaking up the atmosphere. 

There was only one very slight disappointment. Several months before our departure, we had booked tickets to a play at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, and I, in particular, had been looking forward to seeing it. We had only felt comfortable doing this because we had been assured, at the time of making our hotel booking, that the hotel would provide baby-sitting services. However, we were already a little uneasy about this plan before we left home, and then, this “service’ turned out to be a security system where our room (and Greg) were monitored by the hotel desk staff, while we were at the theatre (which was close by). Neither Pieter, nor I were happy with this arrangement and when the night came we could not enjoy the performance, so, at the first opportunity, we returned to our hotel, where we thankfully found Greg sound asleep. Suddenly, the theatre performance seemed much less significant to us both than it had when we were at home in Sydney.  Also, given that Pieter had so far spent the week working, we had allowed ourselves one last relaxing “holiday” day in England, before flying on to Holland, and we chose to spend it by hiring a car and visiting the Cotswolds, which were close-by. That turned out to be a very successful day, leaving us with some treasured photos of Greg.

To this day I can still remember my feelings of both anticipation and trepidation, when our plane touched down in Holland the following morning. Although I had already exchanged several letters with Pieter’s mother, I had not yet met any of his family. However, I need not have worried. There was a welcoming party at the airport, which included Mark and Michelle, and then, in Dutch tradition, they and other family members all gathered at Pieter’s parents’ home, to celebrate with cake. While it was a little overwhelming to meet so many family members at once (given that Pieter was the eldest of 8 children, although all were not there on that occasion), I soon relaxed and felt very grateful for their welcome, and for the presence of Pieter’s eldest sister, Ria, and her husband Bert, who had migrated to Canada at about the same time as Pieter had come out to Australia and who had travelled to Holland to be a part of this family gathering.

All together, we spent 3 ½ weeks with Pieter’s family, with his parents’ home being our base for most of that time. I became very fond of ”Ma” and “Pa”, who looked after us so well and enabled us to do so much.  At the top of our list of priorities was time spent with Mark and Michelle. Together, the five of us made day trips all over Holland, sight-seeing and visiting the wonderful parks and attractions for children. Mark and Michelle enjoyed pushing Greg around in his stroller and the photos from those excursions show a very happy trio, with Greg thriving on all that was happening.

I soon learned just how close Pieter’s very large family was. The highlight of that visit was a 2-day family reunion at the farm of Pieter’s younger brother, Max, and his wife, Nel. We all stayed in their beautiful, big farmhouse, including Pieter’s parents, who joined in all that was happening. Sleeping facilities were arranged in the big barn-like centre of the house (although we were given a room to ourselves), and with the older children sleeping in a caravan close-by.

For me, this was such a wonderful, relaxed way to become acquainted with this large, welcoming family, with everyone contributing and with many photos taken. Max and Nel could not have been more generous hosts.

Fortunately for us, Greg had thrived on all that was happening. And he was not the only one who had loved it. I fell in love with Holland, the history, the countryside, the architecture, the old buildings, the canals, the markets, the seaside villages – I had loved it all.

Sue

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