An Unexpected Meal For Two almost Thai’s Us Up In Knots…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

It often happens that one of our kids has a play date somewhere for a few hours but it’s fairly rare that both of them are out of the house at the same time.

If we arrange a babysitter it is because Himself and I have a special event to attend and so it’s even rarer  that we find ourselves without kids and no actual appointment to go to and a few free hours to ourselves.

Recently I took some annual leave and spent most of it organising kid stuff,  and helping out several family, friends and neighbours who required  sudden and urgent  help due to life throwing them some nasty and unexpected “curve balls” ( I use this phrase without knowing it’s exact meaning but I like the way it sounds). One suffered a cancer scare and needed an immediate operation to remove a very large tumour (luckily benign, but unluckily so large as to be interfering with other bits of anatomy and causing pain), Mother In Law had problems with her pace maker, another friend has visa issues, and we had house troubles when the electricity and computers (at different times) failed for no apparent reason.

We had fingers in pies all over the place, after-hours repair specialists in,  and extra kids all over the place, as we cooked extra meals, provided  taxi service  and baby sitting services. I’d put my back out and after my physio hammered on all the spots where it hurt, loosened up enough to walk like an 80 year old instead of a 120 year old.  (We went to see one of my Sister in Law’s in a performance and I was embarrassed to see that my 90 year old mother in law was walking faster than I was).

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

One weekend,  after a busy day  my sister in law phoned. They had been out  and about, were reasonably close to our place and her kids wanted our kids to visit and play, could they swing by our place and collect them for an evening  please?  The kids were already pleading for us to say yes and within half an hour we were suddenly and unexpectedly child free.

There were leftovers that  needing finishing in the fridge  but we looked at each other  and grinned: dinner out!!!  just the two of us, alone! … and preferably somewhere that didn’t  serve pizza or kid friendly food.

We instantly decided to head to the beach for dinner at one of the restaurants on the Promenade. We had tapas in mind.. or anything else that contained a ton of herbs, spices or shot of the exotic.  It was the first evening with decent weather for ages, we were still a good two kilometres from the beach when we got stuck in a traffic jam and it became clear that every man, woman and their dog had the same idea we did.

Twenty minutes later we had advanced so little down the street that I still had the same pretty building in view of my camera lens, albeit a photo in the rear view mirror instead of  from the front windscreen.  This was ridiculous.  Agreement saw us turning off into the nearest side street at the first opportunity and  high tailing it away from the hordes heading to the  beach as fast as we could.

Next came the problem of finding a restaurant … for some reason it appeared that every place we saw was Italian… we went towards the centre of town but they are digging roadworks all over the place and between my back and my foot I wasn’t  feeling like negotiating the detours and hiking to my dinner destination.

It was still very early in the evening and several places looked promising but a quick look at menu boards outside  left us less than inspired. We figured out we didn’t fancy Chinese food, or Greek or the Egyptian shawarma places.  More roadworks lead us all over the place. I’ve lived in this city for twenty years now and on this evening we drove down more streets that I’ve never been in before than I have in the last ten years in total.

We end up driving down the Laan van Meerdervoort (the longest street in the Hague) and see a restaurant by the Conradkade. More menu card reading… it’s packed outside and all the nice seats in the sunshine  have been taken by people smoking like chimneys and the menu sports mushrooms in almost every meal, a no-go for me since I’m allergic to the blighters.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

We are about to give up and go home to our fridge full of leftovers when Himself spies a menu board just around the corner. “ Thai Restaurant De Sampan”… hmm, sounds like just the ticket.  We go inside, it’s small and quiet so we take a seat by the window and wait to order.

Drinks are ordered and we patiently wait to be offered a menu.  Instead we receive a small plate of krupuk  (prawn crackers) and a spicy dipping sauce. Ok… we are hungry so we begin to nibble. I’m just about to ask about the whereabouts of the menu card when suddenly two bowls of soup are placed on our table.

Surprised, Himself  blurts out that “Sorry, we haven’t ordered soup and we were just waiting for the menu card please“.

Then all is revealed:  this place has no menu in the conventional sense. There is a set menu for a set price that changes every day of the week and every customer gets what’s on offer that day. The soup has mushrooms in it, we quickly explain my allergy problem and ask if  more than just the soup contains mushrooms. Luckily tonight’s menu doesn’t and they even have chicken soup without mushrooms that they bring instead.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

After the soup we are presented this the option of rice or noodles and choosing rice, receive four small bowls each that contain identical contents. Everything including the soup was spicy,  I can handle  a “reasonable” amount of heat and it was good for me most of the time. I got about three mouthfuls of chilli peppers during the meal that were distinctly  out of my comfort zone, but with an extra order of rice to help defuse the fire, I actually really enjoyed my meal.

Himself,  more seasoned when it comes to heat said only the odd mouthful was decently hot.  Dessert afterwards was very simple and refreshing: strawberries and whipped cream.

The service was very good (something not to be expected as standard in the Netherlands) and we enjoyed our relaxing meal for two very much.

I wouldn’t necessarily rate this as haute cuisine, it’s a small menu cooked decently, this is more of a place where you’d go when you want a break from cooking at home and want to  know you will enjoy  your meal, rather than a a place where you’d  plan a  really special event menu that will blow your socks off and probably has a price tag to blow your budget as well.

It’s a meal you can enjoy and leave happy rather than disappointed… true it’s Economy rather than First Class, but you definitely get your money’s worth and it’s Economy done very decently indeed.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

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A Nice Day Out, But in The End Not Best Suited to Both of Our Kids…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I’m rounding up the last photographic items of our visit to Plaswijkpark … we didn’t get around all of  the park by any means, partly because of the weather and because I still can’t walk longer distances easily without a really decent rest in between.

There’s a building  just  down the path from the monkey enclosure where you enter by a “crazy door” with offset out-sized hinges that’s a bit of a mind bender at first glance.

There is a long hallway down the inside of the building and off  it are several areas which are mostly for very young kids: giant  duplo style-blocks, a massive ball bath, and another area with click-it-together style bricks. Kiwi Daughter I have the place to ourselves and are rather pleased to take a rest from walking and the rain and decide on a whim to try and divide the balls in the ball bath back into their separate colours.

We throw balls all over the place like mad things until we are joined by Himself and Little Mr. who laugh at our endeavours and tell us to expect the semi neatness to last only until the next visiting kid jumps in and destroys our handiwork. We say we know this and don’t  mind, and sure enough, five minutes later a group of small children arrive and immediately throw themselves headlong into the balls, wildly mixing them again.

It’s still raining so we are then issued with a summons by Little Mr. who wants to enlist the whole family to use all of the out-sized duplo blocks to make one building.

My contribution is to sit on the long seat/wall that keep the blocks contained and to shove the blocks closer to Himself and the kids who are gathering and building with my walking stick. We manage to complete the task and some other children join in at the last minute to help.

Little Mr. strikes some over the top I’m-a-superstar style poses with the work of art we’ve just created (those photos are not included here for reasons of internet privacy) and I manage some photos before the other kids rush back to swarm all over it.

The drizzle had abated a little and everyone is hungry so we head off to the one restaurant near the entrance that’s open (the other restaurants aren’t open so early in the season) and  warm up with fries and coffee/ hot chocolate etc.   Whilst we did all have fun here, it’s very  clear that this playpark is far  more suited to Little Mr’s age range rather than Kiwi Daughters. She liked a few things like the trampolines, the bathtub air propelled balls and the monkey’s but was a bit bored with the rest.

I think this would be an excellent place to come back to in the summer,  but maybe when Kiwi Daughter is spending a day doing something else more suited to her own age and then Little Mr. could brings a few friends his own age and really enjoy a full day out. In summary:  if your kids are eight years of age and under, they will probably find this place totally to their liking… if they are eleven or twelve years of age and over they will probably have outgrown the vast majority of the attractions here and would be happier somewhere different.

It’s been a nice family time out… “different”  with the less than great weather, but well worth the experience.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

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Even Rain Clouds Have Silver Linings….

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

One good thing about going on an early morning visit to a family attraction Park on cold, grey and wet day in early April  is that sometimes the crowds appear to have woken up, looked out the window at the bad weather and decided they would rather stay in bed.

Their loss is our gain: we now have a boat ride with a friendly and chatty boat driver who’s delighted to have a few passengers, even if it is only the four of us.

What first looks like a large lake is in fact a series of connected waterways and islands, there are expensive permanent homes dotting the shoreline and some equally expensive holiday houses (although not all of them at in the best of states).

Land is scarce in the Netherlands and a little semi secluded bolt-hole with water access so close to the centre of a major city is a luxury item and a hot ticket if you can find it. Experience with property here tells me that even the more run down places will be worth decent six figure sums so the prices of the larger permanent homes will definitely come into the “if you have to ask, you can’t afford it”  category.

Many of the holiday homes are in little islands so boat docks are the transportation parking areas, no doubt very busy in summer.

Yes, ok it’s raining and the view would be better with sunshine and blue skies, but there’s also something very relaxing about the novelty of having a boat ride like this all to yourself,  we can ask all the questions we like of the friendly skipper, who’s a fund of local knowledge.

The kids of course want to know about the iron tower close to the dock,  some local residents who thought it would be better scrapped but it’s now protected because it’s an old fire department watch tower and getting on for 100 years old.  Sadly for the kids the metal work is no longer safe enough to allow the tourist hordes to climb it, basic repairs keep it in shape but  it would simply cost too much to bring it up to standard for opening to the public.

Once we get back to shore and disembark, I notice an older couple waiting to board… like us they will have the boat entirely to themselves…  even rain clouds have a silver lining.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

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Apparently There Was a Party Taking Place Yesterday… ???

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

As a staunch Republican citizen of the Netherlands on the Day that the country celebrated the retirement of a Queen and the installation of a King,  I drew the line at wearing bright orange but was delighted to join my husband and kids at one of the many traditional flea markets on the streets.

This year we arranged to meet up with five sets of friends at a location reasonably central  to most of us, and four of these families turned up  in the end.

All the kids played together with newly bought toys from the street market and the parents tried to sell off some old toys that our kids swore blind they would be the ones selling, but after the first hour and a half they got bored and slithered out from selling duty leaving all the parents to take over for the rest of the day.

I came home early because I’d been up late baking the night before, had serious pain in my foot because of a lot of standing and walking and needed a nap  because I then spent the evening doing what all good Dutch Republicans do… went off to a French Patisserie class and spoke French all night. Ok, so yes it was still a big  event in Dutch history, so I buckled and took from photos of the Dutch TV coverage before I went out and of the BBC news when I got back.  Therefore here’s a mostly  pictorial post about what the rest of the Netherlands was celebrating yesterday…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Above photo, Beatrix is still Queen… then she signs the abdication document … and isn’t any longer…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

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The Crown is present as a symbolic item only, Willem-Alexander, like the other Dutch Monarchs before him, doesn’t ever get to wear it. Not even on the day of his inauguration.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Kofi Annan and wife amongst official guests (but there were over 2000 of  them so I’ve only photographed a couple who were on the screen at the moment I had the camera in my hand) Since Willem-Alexander got to choose the guest list there were no Heads of State of State or Presidents attending (they are more of this mother’s guest list material) Instead, he choose all of the worlds Crown Princes and Princesses… waiting heirs to thrones as he was before today.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

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There for show only…

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The Dutch commentator wryly remarked that Prince Charles also attended the inauguration of  Beatrix 33 years ago, so has seen two in the Dutch circle of friends become monarchs but still isn’t one himself.  She then made a comment about how very much older Charles is than Willem Alexander and continued: The English Queen is “still going strong”.  (Ouch, even I thought that was maybe rather a low blow.)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Apparently the Thai princess, heir to the throne is rarely seen in public…

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And apparently the Japanese wife of the Emperor is seen so exceptionally rarely in Public in Japan that 80 photographers are here to photograph her here today (she’s very reclusive and also didn’t attend the Farewell Gala and dinner given by Beatrix and attended by zillions of heads of state on Monday evening)

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There’s a walk to be made between the building where the abdication took place and the church where the inauguration takes place… Willem-Alexander’s three young daughters lead the royal family (followed by “Oma” (grandmother) Beatrix)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Amalia, at nine years of age became the world’s youngest heir to a throne today…

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No longer “Queen” Beatrix, but now “Princess”Beatrix… (or elderly lady about to enjoy her retirement).

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Will a King Beat a Queen in This Royal Flush?

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I’m interrupting my series of posts on Plaswijkpark because as I type  this one the evening of April 29th 2013, The Netherlands in on the verge of a huge historical event.

Queen Beatrix is tonight entertaining world heads of State and  has broadcast a  Thank You message to the Dutch people on Dutch television because as her time as the reigning monarch of this country ends tomorrow, on the National holiday of
“Koninginnedag” (Queen’s Day).

The date on which this holiday is held comes from another Dutch Queen: Beatrix’s mother,  Juliana.

Once Beatrix took over the throne consideration was given to moving  Koninginnedag to the date of her own birthday, but since Beatrix was born on 31st January  it’s was deemed impractical  to try and organise the traditional street markets, parties and festivities in the heart of winter.

Tomorrow, (or today as you will be reading this) sometime in the mid-morning Beatrix will sign the papers of abdication and Prince Willem-Alexander will take part in his investiture as the first Dutch King to reign over the Netherlands since 1890.

Regular readers of this blog will known that I’m no Royalist, I dislike the idea of hereditary (and mostly ceremonial) power over someone elected for ability and the fact that this royal family has often come under scrutiny (quite rightly so) for whilst being one of the smallest royal houses of Europe,  exact the greatest percentage of funds from the taxpayers and the national purse.

Today as a Dutch citizen I found out another piece of information that  gets my Republican claws twitching…  ”Koninginnedag”  (Queen’s Day)  on 30th April  will naturally become “Koningsdag”  (King’s Day)  following the investiture of  Willem-Alexander… ok that’s logical enough, but what rankles with me is that he will shift the date of this Public holiday to that of his own birthday:  27th April.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I could completely understand if his birthday fell in June, July or August for instance because the weather is often iffy and temperamentally changeable at this time of the year, but to change the date of a National holiday that has been celebrated on the same day since 1948 by three days?   For me it smacks of a selfish ego trip. His mother kept the holiday as that of the date of her mother, so why can’t he?

It can’t be for reasons of  ”possible better weather” because last weeks weather for instance was even more lousy than this weeks. Yea! ergo therefore we now can look forward to a greater chance of a nation of little kids sitting trying to sell their toys on the street market in the rain. Yes, I’m thrilled (spot the sarcasm).

Willem-Alexander and Maxima’s oldest daughter, Princess Catharina-Amalia was born on 7th December so in all likelihood she will not have the choice of switching the national celebration of Dutch identity and festivities to her own birthday… so her Father’s Birthday and “King’s Day” will probably remain even though she would rightfully be Queen… a Queen without a “Queen’s Day” thus.
Is it just me or does that suck?

I was going to do some baking last weekend but on Friday my back pain was back with a vengeance and it was all I could do to move at all. Therefore today after work I got out the baking trays and went on a baking frenzy… I’ll be trying to sell as many Kiwi style biscuits (cookies) as possible to everyone at the street fair,with all funds raised going to the Kiribati School for the Disabled that our family support and fund-raise for.

Needless to say the entire country of the Netherlands seems to be slowly turning orange (our National colour) for this event… there are orange cakes and iced cookies in the shops and orange clothes, accessories and commemorative tat everywhere. Some of it is tasteful, most of it is not (kind of like my view of the Royal family LOL) .. but I guess it’s fun and it’s entertainment of a sort.

Will I be watching the investiture of our new King? … no, not live but maybe I’ll catch a snippet on the evening news “for the sake of history”… I like local history after all and I suppose it’s not every day a country gets a change of monarch.

I’ve decided to enjoy the spectacle too because no matter which way you cut this cake and like it or not, we are still footing the bill for it.  Only Time will tell if the popularity of this King is the winning hand that will beat that of the precious Queen after tomorrows Royal Flush.

Pigs Might Not Fly, But They Do Raise The Roof!

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Today’s post is about a family outing that we made to Plaswijkpark in Rotterdam a few weeks ago.

After checking out some of the outdoor activities, Kiwi Daughter and I find ourselves  making for the nearest indoor attraction because once again the drizzle is back.

The building  we head towards  incorporates a feature that I’ve become familiar with in the Netherlands but have never seen elsewhere outside the country.

This feature is a Dutch “hooiberg” (haystack). As you know, space is limited here so instead of large sheds to put hay in, the Dutch have perfected a compact method where the hay barn can actually be expanded and retracted in size vertically.

Here’s how it works: the hay barn is square and there are four very large poles at each corner. The roof has holes in each corner too and a special way of locking the roof into position. Depending on how much hay is in storage, the roof is raised or lowered and locked into position as required, so the hay remains compact and dry. This particular hooiberg  (pronounced “hoy berg”)  has a piggery incorporated into the lower part of it  so I wanted to search for a picture of one that was solely a haystack.  The best photo I could find showing the design principle was here in an advertisement for a book on how to build an East Netherlands style haystack:  http://www.blurb.com/b/154378-een-oost-nederlandse-hooiberg-bouwen 

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I love the ingenious design and to want to photograph them if we are out and about but sadly most barns are behind farm houses so I’ve gotten so far are mostly blurred glimpses. Annoyingly the one and only occasion I have ever seen one fairly close up, I didn’t have a camera on me (a mistake I don’t intend to make again)  so should I find another one  in the future where a more detailed look is possible, I will make a blog post for you.

Inside we find that this is where  several families of pigs live. a very large sow is  laying sleepily  in the corner whilst her three inquisitive offspring play “investigate the visitors”.

The word for “piglets” in Dutch is “biggetjes”  and these biggetjes  take a shine to Kiwi Daughter who is very happy to stroke their heads. Then one also take a fancy to her jacket and tries to take a bite.

It might have also been trying to suck on it, or just be inviting her to play but it definitely wanted to hang on to her. It’s still quite a small animal and not very strong so Kiwi Daughter  laughed said she was fine with it, after a minute of  asking it what it wanted with her jacket, she gently prised it off.

I think that sign said these were a curly haired breed of  pigs, and certainly they were very distinctive looking.  Further along there were more enclosures with other animals but we pass by these for the moment because there is one enclosure that Kiwi Daughter  really wants us to go to next…

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Often I Edit People Out of My Photos, This Time I Try Not to… And Fail…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Our adventures in Rotterdam’s Plaswijkpark continue. Now the rain has eased off and the kids, having explored as much as they could inside are bursting to discover the outside.

There are climbing frames, slides and the like aplenty, and on a warm summers day I can well imagine that this area will be teeming with children, but today the ground is squelching boggy from the rain and the slides are a bit wet and cold.

We walk around to check out the equipment anyway and the kids make bee-lines for things that meet with their approval and zoom past things that don’t.

Usually a merry-go-round is popular but today there was no enticing them to be the sole riders so far. The young man looking after the ride was curious as to why I was taking photographs, so I explained about the blog and he immediately asked to be included in the photo. I asked if he wanted to be on my internet blog and he was most enthusiastic and very friendly, even asking the name of the blog and how to find it, so I snapped a closer shot of him standing in front of the merry-go-round. Usually I take several shots and pick the best when I sort the photos but for some unknown reason this time I only took one and when I put it onto the computer it was horribly out of focus.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I was horrified at this small disaster because this friendly staff member had also approached me again later in the day to ask if I could please remind him of my blog’s name.

I really don’t want him to think I’d forgotten my promise to include his photo on my blog,  so I  enlarged a section of a less close up photo of the merry-go-round  so that you can see his face.  Apologies Sir. I’m making myself a promise that next time we visit here, I will not only take a better photograph of him but also get his first name (if he wishes) to go with it.

He was very helpful and friendly, and like all the staff we encountered here today: a credit to the place.  So often in The Netherlands “service with a smile” is a totally foreign concept in shops and businesses, and you are met with everything between indifference and rudeness, but here we were very pleasantly surprised and delighted to find every staff member  friendly, smiling and helpful and even on this cold grey day, this went a long way to making our visit a fun family day out.

Kiwi Daughter and I got separated from the “boys” when they raced off to go on the go-carts. Later we met back up with them and I asked Himself how Little Mr’s driving skills were progressing. “Completely hopeless” he said, to which Little Mr. make grand noises of indignation and protested loudly.

Then Himself explained: Little Mr was constantly causing near miss accidents and traffic jams by totally ignoring every red traffic light on the (very realistic)  road circuit without remorse. When challenged as to why he was clearly running red lights and causing grief to other go-cart users, he replied “I don’t have to stop at these red lights because it’s not a real  road anyway“.

We tied to explain that it’s been make to look as realistic as possible so that you can drive like you would if you were on a real road, and yes, stopping at red traffic lights was part of the  real road rules so he should do it here too.  He wasn’t having bar of  it.  Fake roads had fake traffic lights that shouldn’t  be obeyed as far as he was concerned. Himself therefore removed him before he caused himself or anyone else an injury, which didn’t go down too well at first from Little Mr by all accounts.

There’s  a large swimming pool area being cleaned up for the summer, unfilled now, it’s looks rather sad under leaden skied and intermittent drizzle but I bet on a decently hot day in summer it’s a busy spot indeed. Similarly the peddle-boat swans were also off limits, Spring is late arriving this year and it’s still seriously too cold for boating on the chilly water.

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There’s so much to see and had the weather been nicer a ton more photos to take as there’s a fabulous ornamental garden here too, but it’s drizzing again so Kiwi Daughter and I head once again for shelter from the rain…

Jumping Into a Bath Fitted With Cannons!

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

As per yesterday’s post we are in Rotterdam, at Plaswijkpark.

By sheer chance (because after we had paid and left the front entrance building the heavens opened and we were getting severely rained on)  we looked for the first indoor place we could find.

The first place was a restaurant but none of us wanted food yet, and the second inside building was one under construction: but the construction was mostly on the outside of the building and the inside was open.

This is the indoor play area and to be honest,  if you are a local thinking of coming here with your kids,  head to Plaswijkpark as soon as it opens and then to this building  immediately because I’m certain that once it gets busy the place will rather literally be crawling with kids.

For instance there are two large trampolines, ingeniously made to look like four-poster beds (the  bed side “canopy” being safety nets) but there’s a maximum  of two kids per trampoline so I can imagine big queues here on busy days, or littler kids being overwhelmed by boisterous bigger kids. By coming early and coming straight here our kids got to play on everything before the masses arrived and once it got busier they were happy to escape outside.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

There is a network of raised tunnels with nets, slides etc with many surprise exits, for instance the bottom drawers of the oversized blue wardrobe.

There are massive “pillows” which I think were probably filled with polystyrene balls and covered with  firm vinyl fabric, they weren’t really “soft”  but they would certainly break a fall.

The soft play area for babies and toddlers had blocks shaped like Liquorice Allsorts… even the stairs up also had an additional slide  on the “down” side and a climbing wall up with shoes for footholds!

A close second favourite to the trampoline with our kids was the “bathroom” complete with two oversized “bathtubs” (of a sort) at end of the room that each contain  four “cannons” that fire the balls using compressed air.

These blue coloured balls are far softer and lighter than the usual ones you find in kids play areas and I can vouch for the fact the even a close range hit doesn’t hurt at all.  Kids in the “baths”at each end can fire the balls at each other.

In the middle of the room are red and blue drums  attached to chutes:   balls can be loaded into these from the floor and at a certain moment a light goes on and compressed air pushes them up and back to the “bath” nearest to them: they arrive by falling out of the giant shower-heads above each of the baths and fall onto the cannon firing kids. Every new kid who doesn’t know this yet gets a surprise the first time the balls fly down on them… naturally our kids too …ingenious!

The building work was going on at a frantic pace outside, there are a lot of national public holidays in the Netherlands in May and some schools have mid term holidays so they were working  hard  to be ready for a grand opening that will take place in early May 2013.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

…A  new indoor picnic area being finished…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I Know It’s Raining and Cold, But Family Day Out Means Reluctant Kids Don’t Get to Choose…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

We are having a family day out. As usual this means kicking our protesting children out of bed early so that we can beat the crowds. Granted, the day was rather cold, grey, rainy and miserable, so the kids hinted strongly at them rather wanting to play on the Wii all day and veg out with DVD’s.

But Himself and I know from experience that after the first hour they will start fighting about who’s charging ahead on Mario Brothers  (Kiwi Daughter) and who’s game character has been left to die because they can’t keep up (Little Mr.)

Predictably this ends in tears… and if intervention is not swift,  some sort of physical altercation  involving a sharp kick or poke that requires stern words and separation of the two.

The Wii is turned off and there’s no chance of a DVD because they can never agree which one to watch and one will throw a strop if the other gets their choice.  Kiwidutch’s answer to this is ” you have two minutes to agree or no DVD’s at all for either of you” .Experience shows that one hundred percent of  the time in the Kiwidutch household this means no DVD’s because they never agree. The next phase is that without physical exercise Little Mr. starts to go stir crazy and whine and whinge a lot. This starts to severely get on everybody’s nerves.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Little wonder that Himself and I prefer to drag our offspring outside to an activity whether they think they will like it or not (Parental response to this moaning is standard “you are coming anyway, open your mind to enjoy it and then decide afterwards if you liked it or not“.

Publicly I should call this “tough love”  and tell you in a high minded way that it’s all in the interests of  ”widening my children’s cultural horizons and giving them new experiences” but if  I’m brutally honest it’s all about keeping parental sanity intact and avoiding wanting to give them away after breaking up sibling fight number 179 in the space of three hours.

(When they are out with other people they are TOTAL angels… well mannered and helpful to the point that people tell us about them in wonder.  So we hear that it is possible, but sadly their halo’s fall to the floor with a thud as they cross the threshold at home and their little devilish selves resume transmission as usual. So this is why we find ourselves at the Plaswijkpark in Rotterdam as the doors open on a cold miserable April weekend. Amazingly although this place has been around for 90 years, Himself had never heard of it, we discovered it  existed only because of a recommendation by expat family friends.

There is what looks like a lake outside but it turns out to be part of an extensive waterway here… the swan paddle boats are all out of service for the moment as it’s way too cold to be out on the water. The park is undergoing frantic renovations in time for an expected surge of visitors during the May school holidays and the bad weather means half of the attractions are still closed, but we are determined to make a good day out of it anyway.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

A Cat Flap …For Keeping Up Appearances?

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Our family not be able to keep pets due to allergies but my best friend keeps a miniature zoo’s worth so our children love going to her place to play with all the animals.

She’s definitely the most dedicated pet owner I know: most of her cats and dogs came to her with problems, for instance her dogs are all rescue animals, not the easiest to re-home due to the terrible experiences and treatment they have received from previous owners.

She takes care of all of their medical needs and understands the responsibility of giving them love, attention and a lot of tender loving care so that they can feel safe once more and live out their lives in a far happier state than the state they were in when she first met them.

She has converted one of her spare rooms into the guinea-pig wing, and after trying out a two storied tall rabbit hutch for them, she found that they all preferred to huddle together on the lower level and could only be enticed to the upper level by the presence of  food. After they had eaten they would scurry as quickly as possible back down to the lower level, which with the four of them, was rather overcrowded.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

My friend is a serious pet owner,  medical needs like neutering are taken care of and when it’s clear that the accommodation for the guinea-pigs wasn’t suited to them, she looked for a better solution. This resulted in a single very large cage, it’s about the size of an single bed but provides ample room for the four guinea pig house-mates. Since there are three females and one rather fat male,  and they are named “Hyacinth, Daisy, Rose and Onslow (he’s the fat dude in the corner) ” after  characters  from the British TV series “Keeping up Appearances”.

Then she turned her attention to the little balcony outside this room: lining the sides and bottom with very fine mesh chicken wire, added artificial grass to the floor, this would give the guinea-pigs their very own safe outdoor play area in fine weather. She was in the middle of telling me that she thought the next step should be to get a hole cut in the window glass so that she could insert a plastic pipe the could be the connecting tunnel between outside and in.

I looked at her and asked, How would you close that off in winter? or if you were away on holiday and someone else was to look after the pets? My idea would be to install instead a normal cat-flap of the sort that can be locked and in turn,  just put a plastic pipe through the cat flap to act as the tunnel whenever she wants the guinea-pigs to have access to the enclosure on the balcony.  She loved this idea…

I in turn love that’s she’s very creative when it comes to her pets well-being and wants the very best care for them. The world needs more people like her.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)