Wooden Clogs Dance in the Gardens
My husband, being Dutch and the only member of his family to make a life in another country, caused me to have many delightful visits to the Netherlands over the past forty-three years.
The first time I met Kees? mother was before I married. Kees had lived and worked for several years in New Zealand and was sailing to the Netherlands before he started work in another great land, Canada. I was on the same ship, aged twenty, travelling on my own to England. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Kees and I had had traveled together in the beautiful country side in Normandy and Burgundy in France. During that trip, we decided that we would like to spend the rest of our lives together, so Kees took me to meet his family. I had an awful head cold and, though the younger members of the family spoke good English, it was hard for me to convey much personality when constantly blowing my nose. It was even harder to communicate to his mother and father as they had no English.
The next time we gathered together with the Dutch family, was three years later when Kees and I were on our way to Tasmania after two years living in Canada Accompanying us was our six-month-old baby daughter. This time we spent several weeks with ?Oma? and ?Opa? [grandmother and grandfather]. One does not need much language skill to understand the universal language of cooing over a baby, especially such a pretty one! For the first time Oma and I chatted together, one in English/German and the other in Dutch. But there were the times when Michele was sound asleep in her carry-all that we both found so frustrating. We discovered another mutual interest to share that had a basic language - gardening! We looked through gardening books together and I pointed out the plants that I remembered from my childhood gardens. I had no garden of my own at that time because we had lived in an apartment in Canada. Oma kept on shaking her head, indicating that the plants would not grow in their cold climate. She pointed to the wonderful pots of indoor plants that embellished all the specially designed window sills - the Azaleas indica, the Camellias, the Hydrangeas [Hortensias in Dutch] and other exotics and shake her head. I would ask her, ?Are you sure you can?t grow Rhododendrons? Many come from cold areas.? She would say ?No?, smiling at her English word and then make a sad face.
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