Willothewisp

Delft is a beautiful little city, a town really given how it feels when you are in it’s centre.  It  had been some years since we had visited the city but we have some wonderful memories of a lovely passionate week spent in it, so Tyjardia and I took our children there for a couple of days. Delft is actually well positioned geographically if you also want to explore Rotterdam and Den Haag as it lays half way between the two. In fact, given the small size of our country in this case half way means that the town is reached by the urban transport systems of both major cities with train and bus lines direct to Rotterdam and a very efficient tram service direct to the heart of Den Haag as well as train of course. The beauty of this is if our two teenage boys got bored we could pack them off on the tram to Den Haag and the beach at Scheveningen to pose on the beach and oggle the girls, boys will be boys ! For our daughter we made the promise of a trip to Madurodam, Hollands smallest city, literally. Madurodam is a model of our country in miniature, always a favorite with children.

[View with PicLens]

Delft is a fine example of the most typical of Dutch architecture and city design. It is criss-crossed with canals that keep the town dry and mimmick the much larger network in Amsterdam, so in a sense it is a more compact and less crazy version of Amsterdam, just much more user friendly. It is a delightful shopping centre if you want to escape the big chain stores with many small independent retailers and craft/art shops.  Delft is also a great place if you like antiques (or junk) because of the enormous market the town has. For those with an interest in European history then Delft is full of it. Delft was the headquarters for William of Orange during the 80 Years War with Spain, and is the resting place of the kings and queens of The Netherlands.

If you want one final and over riding reason to visit Delft then there is Johan Vermeer. Johan Vermeer was  born in Delft in 1632 and died there in 1675 and in between he painted, but, he painted the most beautiful and glorious paintings and seeing the town that formed that talent is a must.

[View with PicLens]

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If you want to learn and see more about Delft then please see our delft page here.

Author: Nonke.

The news from Nina and Judith in the UK is that everything has gone as well as can be expected, which is a great relief to us all. The meetings with the lawyers were horrid as expected and as expected the other side have declined at this point to settle, so now the civil case against the young woman who assaulted Nicky and Judith, ruining Judith’s eyesight in the process, will proceed.  It is hard to believe that it has been two years since the original incident and in that time her eyesight has gone from perfect to bad, to worse, to near blindness and then to poor but workable and now……………………………….. Well let us just be positive and send good thoughts.

Our biggest worry with this trip was how Judith would cope so far from her home ground given her acute problems with anxiety. The reports from Nina are that it has been hard work, requiring much deep relaxation, a lot of reassurance but that taking Jette along (their god daughter) has helped a great deal. Jette is great with the children and has a knack with Judith’s anxiety, all this in a petite package that is about to turn sixteen. Our very grateful thanks to Jette, and to her dad the ever patient Nick, for letting her go.

Nina has often commented that moving their family is like moving an army regiment, and being an army nurse I guess she would  know ! In this case it is an army of two adults, a teenager, three children, a baby and two guide dogs. Judith spent the last week before their departure  in a frenzy of organizing, ensuring that the right things were all washed, clean and in the correct bag.  The guide dogs had their vet checks and their doggy passports stamped. There was also the long list of instructions to the gardener brought in to look after the farm in miniature that is their garden. I was given a list of herbs, fruits and vegetables that I was to go and pick each evening with a promise on my part to feeding them to our family and not to waste them. We also got their cat Pip Amadeus. Pip is a little sweety, a twenty year old Birmin with a heart murmur, failing kidneys, arthritis, and irony of ironies, deaf and a little blind.

All this activity was of course Judith’s way of covering her terror at the prospect of the trip. On the plus side, in payment for looking after Pip she made us a liter of her strawberry  (aardbei) ice cream and another of Melon (Meleon). Strawberries from their garden, cream from her parent’s farm made from raw milk so believe me when I say “Payment made in full !”.

I can see I am drifting from the point here, so back to the report____________

Nina, bless her, let Judith’s frenetic activity and irritability of the week wash over her as the clock counted down. The girl has an endless patience with Judith that appears to be such a consummate skill that it can only come from a deep connection at a spiritual level, she is rock solid.  Before they left I gave Nina a prescription for Judith for valium should the worst happen and her anxieties overcome her tough self discipline. To date it has not been needed, I suspect this is down to Nina’s knowledge of her love and soul mate.

The girls engaged the services of a professional nanny during the day times as they would have to be in meetings much of each day. Happily London has kept it’s tradition of quality nanny agencies and the lady they provided was used to children with special needs. According to Jette she has taken even the prickly and smart assed Hilke and her body guard Jos in her stride. Between Jette and the nanny the girls have not had to worry about the children during the days which has been a great help.

On Monday Judith must be examined by doctors of the other side to ensure that her neurologist, neurophysiologist , neurosurgeon, ophthalmologist and family doctor (me) have not lied in our reports about the damage done in the assault  and the subsequent intracranial bleeds. It will be a tough day for both of them, for differing reasons, but we have faith in them. Above all else that English girl must learn humility. She must learn that you cannot take something so precious as good eyesight from someone as you stagger through life utterly selfishly, my family will not tolerate it. We are going to ensure she is impoverished perhaps through the loss of what matters most to her (money) she will learn.

On that vengeful note  I will say goodnight. Nina and Judith, our thoughts are with you and the children, as always.

Love, Nonke and Tyjardia, xxx.

Dogma over common sense

I went into town during the week to deal with paperwork regarding our oldest two children and their respective disabilities. I will not tell you which particular arm of government department  I was dealing with because I have lodged a formal complaint, so until that is dealt with I think giving specifics would not be fair.

With Hilke and Nicholas off to school, Mariaske in playgroup in Looierstraat I put Joost into his pram, harnessed up Sissi and trekked into town. Upon finding the building I wanted I went up to the front desk in the lobby. The young man there was very helpful, recognising immediately from Sissi’s uniformed presence that I was deaf and partly sighted. Instead of just directing me to correct part of the building he made a phone call, got a large print floor plan out and marked on it where I would need to go and also very thoughtfully marked out the baby facilities and the lady’s wc and also where we could go for refreshments and gave me the map. By this time a colleague had arrived and she took over his position so that he could escort us to where we had to go. He always took care to speak to my face, he controlled his hands using them to make only meaningful gestures, he was at no time condescending or belittling, in short he was a perfect model of help and assistance to a person with impaired senses.

After a going through many corridors and up an couple of floors we arrived at the right department. My escort explained my needs to the girl at the recption desk before departing with my grateful and sincere thanks. The young lady directed me to take a seat in the waiting area, along with about a dozen people. She informed me where the baby facilities were and the wc and asked me if my guide dog need anything. She was not as careful as the young man had been in talking to my face but her heart was in the right place and she was considerate.

So far so good. After almost an hour the number on the large TV screen in the waiting area finally matched my little ticket and directed me to room four so rounding up Sissi and securing Joost off I went.

Now I should explain that despite being lesbian, despite having a few disabilities, even despite being a woman, that I am not into all this politically correct silliness. I am deaf so call me deaf, not “hearing impaired” for goodness sake ! As long as people are not out rightly insulting I really do not mind how I am described. There is nothing more likely to get me annoyed than having to watch someone tying themselves into knots trying to work out how they should be speaking to this deaf, partly sighted lesbian mother of children with disabilities of their own. Just have a little thought, like the young man above because that is wonderful, don’t play the game of PC linguistics invented by middle class sociology degree graduates with no real role in life.

So I sit us down in the interview room and just as I am settling down a woman comes in. I say a woman but in fact it could have been anything underneath all that idiotic black clothing. From head to floor it was covered in shapeless black islamic dress, all that was visible was a little slit with two eyes showing. My heart sank.

How do you like talking to the back of my head ? Well that is what talking to a veiled face is like for me

I can of course see the funny side, lips, face and entire body hidden behind a black mask interviewing a lip reader, pretty comical really, but when you are dealing with your children’s welfare I prefer to leave the comdey out. I asked her to remove her head covering, explaining that I was deaf and needed to see her face and read her lips. I do not know if she said anything, I imagine she did, but the negative shake of her head provided her answer. Holding onto my irritation I repeated myself, and again there was a nod of her head and this time she waved a little book at me. I looked at the book and sure enough it was a copy of the quran, she was waving it like it was some sort of get out of jail free card from Monopoly. Rather than get annoyed any further I just asked her to get her supervisor in here.

After a few minutes another woman comes in, clearly not a muslim this time. I told her that I was deaf and had to lip read and had therefore asked the lady to remove her head covering and that she had refused thus rendering her useless to me and unable to do her job effectively. The supervisor looked uncomfortable and told me that she could not ask her colleague to remove any of her attire because it was part of her religious belief. I asked her to show me the part in the quran that specified where it said that she had to be covered head to toe, thus cutting her off from the outside world and normal interaction with human beings. I pointed out that her colleague kept a copy of the quran under the folds of her clothing as she had been waving it in my face a few minutes earlier, now she looked very, very uncomfortable, and so she should. She told me that she had to respect the beliefs  of her colleague, clearly thinking that would in some way shield her from any further comment from me. She was wrong, very wrong, it was an approach that was not going to fly with me.

I got out the map the nice young man had given me earlier along with a broacher about service offered by this government department. While waiting for an hour to be seen I had looked through it, including the part that proudly stated that their charter required them to  ”strive to meet the needs of their clients regardless of age, ability, gender or race”.  Giving a deaf lip reader an interviewer who insisted on hiding like some coward behind layers of cloth was not going to help them meet the noble goals of their charter. Her solution was to ask me to go back to the waiting area for a different member of staff to be available. I refused, pointing out I had already been waiting over an hour and that I was not prepared to be penalised just because of the selfish actions of one of her staff. I wanted to have my interview and I could be having it if she were doing her job properly and demanding that her idiot colleague remove her head gear and DO HER BLOODY JOB. Instead I was now faced with two government employees who were refusing to do their jobs, one because she had chosen to imprison herself behind a mask and hide behind a religion that really has no place in European society and the other who was too much of a coward to stand up to an irrational religion.

The supervisor than said that she could call security to escort me from the building. I agreed that she certainly could do that, except for two points; 1. I had not done anything wrong, but she and her colleague had.

2. Throwing a deaf, partly sighted mother with baby and guide dog out by force for merely asking that she be able to lip read her interviewer was not going to look good on the local TV news that evening, and it would make my lawyer very happy as she liked nothing more than suing for a civil rights breach.

It was the tipping point, that moment when she could do something sensible or do something incredibly stupid. She chose sensible, in other words she interviewed me herself and sent her colleague away. Finally I could get down to business and go through the paperwork. I could read her face and lips as she took care to speak at a normal pace to my face and so in just twenty minutes we had completed all that was required. I thanked her for the assistance that she had given, and added that I would be making a formal complaint about the incident as soon as the rage I was currently experiencing subsided.

In the end my letter consisted of two parts, one praising the consideration of the two receptionists and one damning the stupidity of the muslim woman and levelling a charge of cowardice at her supervisor. I also left a card and a gift of handmade chocolates to the front desk because good actions need to be encouraged. I am now awaiting the response to my complaint, I will let you know how it goes.

Footnote: Oddly enough this little incident did not worsen my general level of anxiety. It had been a big mental effort to overcome my worries over being out and on unfamiliar ground but the dispute of the idiocy of the muslim woman did not worsen matters as I feared it might. In fact I think my anger may have been something of a counterweight to the anxiety, and so I wonder if perhaps I have found a tool I can use to regain some of my lost ground.

Author: Judith

Picture from Tyjardia's B'berry

Last night was movie night,  we do not have a TV in our household so on movie night we hook up one of the laptops to a projector and a set of speakers. The main living room is equipped with a screen that folds up into the ceiling, but on summer nights when good weather can be assured we sometimes move the entire evening outside. The kids have the choice of the main film, the one shown right after evening dinner, it is largely their movie night after all. Last night’s choice was Mousehunt with that very funny English comedian Lee Evans, a man whose face seems to be made of plastescene which can produce this stunning array of expressions. If he were ever laid deaf and mute he would have no trouble communicating with the rest of the world, his face is a shout in the quietest of rooms.

It was a glorious day here yesterday with next to no breeze, so with the weather holding I prevailled on Ty and Nonke’s boys to help me set up out in the garden so we could have the movie after dark. At least the lawn area was clean and clear ready for the movie, unfortunately with me ill for the last week with a stomach bug no one had trimmed back the outdoor dinning area Wisteria Vines. I had trimmed them a few weeks back before they flowered but now they were a riot of uncontrolled growth that I had to crouch under. Using my shears I was part way through cutting back to the trellis when big Nik dropped by, poor fellow, it was such bad timing on his part. I set him to work immediately. Nearly two hours later I realised the time and sent a long cold fizzy fruit cordial down to him and some food to sustain him. He did a wonderful job even though he is not a natural gardener himself. He even managed to muster most of my mismatched garden chairs to the table and cleaned the table down, great going Nik. Between food prep and garden chores I had to root through the store room for an hour looking for the big container of Christmas lights. This was much to the joy of my guide dog Sissi and my cat Pip’s delight, they love rooting around in there for some reason which is a pity because they rather get in the way when trying to neatly work my way through dozens of storage containers. I finally found the lights in the last box I looked, isn’t that always the way, it seems the Universe does enjoy it’s little jokes ! The boys strung the lights in the shrubs behind where the screen was going to be. It would make a lovely back drop with some five hundred grain-of-wheat size bulbs strung out across the vines and shrubs of the Roman wall, even though I was not be able to see it properly myself.

This time the choice of film for the grown ups fell to me, <Sigh>, I hate having to choose. I was going to go for De Vierde Man (The Fourth Man) but in the end decided something lighter would be better. I settled for La Dolce Vita, the 1960 Fellini film. It stars Marcello Mastroianni, probably not really known much outside of Europe and the delicious and sexy Anita Ekberg (ok, so my lesbian leanings creeping in there !), and Yvonne Furneaux. I picked it because I felt it would most suit the feel of my summer garden and the lovely family and friends that would be in it. Several of our number speak Italian and those who do not would still enjoy its wounderful lyrical ride while reading the Dutch subtitles. The subtitles would also equalise the gap between the deaf and hearing members.

Picture from Nik's iPhone

Food was a tricky balance. It was primarily the children’s evening so the food needed to have a distinctly Mousehunt orientation. I made up a Swiss cheese soup as an easy quick win with sunflower seed crackers. Keeping to theme I prepared grilled cheese toasties with some Dutch cheeses. A Roomano cheese, grilled with some pine nuts because as the cheese has a butterscotch flavour so they go well together. Yet another version I used Parrano, it is a Dutch take on an Italian cheese and cooks well as long as you are gentle with it. In fact I guess our version of grilled cheese is more like a bruschetto than an American idea of grilled cheese, as it employs good hams, sun dried tomatoes, garlic and half the bread of American grilled cheese. There is just too much bread in the American version of bread top and bottom. I made up salads using the first of the seasons leaves and herbs from the vertical garden in the solar with a Honing & Mosterd (Honey & Mustard) dressing. For deserts I baked a Mouse cake, Mouse Moose (mouse moulds), then mouse cookies for during the film. I was at the market stalls in town at six that morning, just as they were setting up stalls, and got some great early English strawberries. There are two types of strawberry that are supreme in taste, Alpine Hautbois vine strawberries and English Chandler strawberries, and to get the English strawberries from the Kent area so soon was a real coup’. I stood there in the cool of the early morning sun and dropped the most wonderfully vivid red berry into my mouth, pressed my tongue against it to squeeze it until it blew apart inside my mouth in a fireworks of sweetness, utterly, totally, perfectly balanced. My focus on my pleasure was broken by Sissi putting a paw up to ask for a taste of what was so obviously pleasing me, a moment later her disappointment with her taste of a strawberry was clear, definitely not doggy food ! It was only then I realised my strawberry tasting had gained a number of male on-lookers, all starring intently at me. I glanced down in a hurried check that my girls were behaving and had not leaked milk or risen in the cool air but all appeared well. Clearly someone thought I had put on a good show though because my order for six boxes had been supplemented with three more. It was only as I walked back thinking about the looks that I realised I was bouncing more than I should. With a bit of a start I realised I had forgotten to put my bra on when I dressed, and my white blouse was just a touch too thin for wearing bra-less against a low morning sun – Oooopps ! Still, it had been a fruitful mistake. Back home I turned one third of the stawberries into sorbet, a third into ice cream, a third as they are. I did not think that much would actually be eaten but I have learn from much entertaining to always have a little something in reserve.

Picture from Nik's iPhone

I was still preparing food when the first guests arrived early evening and so I set them to work setting the places, checking on the boys, entertaining the children. If I am providing the food and facilities I have no problem in making my guests work for their supper ! With the arrival of Jette (God daughter) and her little charge I had someone I could set to chasing Nina and finding out where she had got to. As I expected the report soon came back that Nina had spent the last few hours between the open thighs of another woman, but she was now, finally, on her way home. Some people might expect me to be angry at learning that my wife had spent the afternoon between the thighs of another while I slaved away in kitchen and garden, but I am pretty relaxed about such things. It is not the permissive Dutch attitudes that produce this sanguin approach’ but rather the nature of Nina’s job of midwife. I have often thought of having a bumper sticker made up for her and her colleagues – “Midwives Do It Between The Thighs Of Other Women”. I sent Hilke upstairs to pick out some fresh clothes for Nina, get her shower ready and stay up there to chivvy her along as soon as she got in, while at the same time more guests let themselves in.
I was throwing the chesnut sized new potatoes into the steamer, peeling garlic for the boiling water, chopping mint and getting the last of the breads ready. Somewhere in the back of my pantry was the butter from my parents farm that I wanted for the potatoes when cooked but goodness knows where, yet to be found. The slightly tangy smell now filling the kitchen was the roast peppers about to pass that point of perfection and trip down the road to oblivion unless I got to the oven double quick. It was in the midst of all this when Tayeska (deaf friend, mother of a deaf baby girl – remind me to tell you more one day) comes in ask where she can find four more chairs and place setttings. So imagine me, knife in one hand slot ladle in the other try to sign “What do you mean FOUR more ? The table sits sixteen, I am expecting twelve, what is the problem ?”

To which Tayeska replies, in sign; “Table sits sixteen, BUT you now have twenty guests, not including children !”. My reply was un-lady like and not suitable for children, but as it turned out it was the least of my problems as I dropped my knife narrowly escaping skewering my bare foot, and hit myself in my face with the ladle as I signed my expletive. Cursing further I had to rescue my grilling cheesed up breads.

Picture from Nik's iPhone

Cursing the day I had agreed to “having a few people over on movie night” I was vowing to myself to never do this again and about to have a bit of a hissy fit when Nina, along with her little chivvy shadow, wandered into the kitchen. She looked wonderful and fresh in her long white summer dress with a white and gold shawl drapped over her shoulders. She gave me a hug and I drank in the freshness of her recent shower, while still being able to pick the hint of a scent of a newly delivered baby (it tends to have a distinct smell). I told her we now had twenty guests, not sure how, and food for twelve.

“No problem, I will go and sort them out, the invited can sit at the table the self invited will have to fend for themselves. You work a miracle in spinning out what we have. It will be fine, go, go, go”

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And saying so it really was, as my Mother says, “Faith manages“.

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Picture: Tyjardia's B'berry

The light was just beginning to fade as food went out and by the time everyone was squeezed in around the table the light had gone and fairy lights and candles and table lights switched on. I could not see details by that light but I was told many times it was a good table. In the end there was enough food, the ice cream was called upon to give the ultimate sacrifice in the end. Our own little mice enjoyed their mouse hunting movie, but twenty minutes into La Dolci Vita they were asleep against various owning adults. By two am everyone had exhausted the supplied vittles, as well as conversation and had gone home to their beds and we finally locked the doors and went to bed as well. Putting the children and baby into our bed Nina and I tucked up on the bedroom couch. As I settled down I realised that through the open French doors I could see a cloud of blurry lights down in the garden, it took me a moment to realise what it was, but I asked Nina why she had left them on;

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“Well” she said, “I thought five hundred lights was appropriate, one light for each un-inivited guest that has turned up over the last eleven years by my reckoning, each leaving us only when fully fed, appropriate don’t you think. So you can see the lights then darling?”

Me; “Nahhhh, just a blurr to me now”

“Just like all those un-invited guests, how apt” she said as her white dress slipped from her shoulders to form a rippled white pool at her feet. It seems she had also gone light on underwear that day, the naughty girl, she had been naked under there all evening !

Me; ” So, tell me about this woman who kept you so late this evening.”

“Mother to her first, a boy, both well, getting to know each other now, changing each other’s lives for ever.” She said with something of a reminiscent sigh. I knew she would be recalling her own first moments with our little ones even as she said it, recalling those unique first warm minutes together with her own newborns, now sleeping in our bed. Drawing her mind back to the present she said;

” Now, how about you just show me your thighs my good Wife………………………………………………….”

The perfect ending to a movie night, and maybe the start to another, not so public story, one day.

Author: Judith.

Foot Note by Nina:-

With everyone seated, and the table fit to bursting with all manner of, well manner I guess, one of the un-invited (a Canadian lady) asked loudly if she could say grace to thank god for the food. Nik kindly replied with a hearty suggestion that HIS thanks would be going to Judith for the food and that god would do well to know that his place was to not go anywhere near Judith’s kitchen if he knew what was good for him ! The laughter was the signal to tuck in.

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Gelukkige Tiende Verjaardag

I fall in love with her every day as we wake and the first thing I see is her sleeping face, every time she smiles as she wakes. Her smile is the sun rising into my life. For eight years I have seen her smiles deepen the laugh lines like parentheses on her lovely cheeks, setting her mouth off from the sentence of her face as though it were a secret known only to me.”

These words were written by Judith a couple of years ago as part of a lovely story of love, passion, and wonderful celebratory sex. Ever since I read these words the passage stuck in my mind having sparked one of those “Yes!” moments.

Cees, Peter, Mia, Nonke and I would like to wish Judith and Nina a very happy anniversary, May 12th will mark their 11th year together.

If you are new to this site, or a casual visitor you might not be aware of the extraordinary and painful events that brought them together, but from that dreadfull time we have watched this beautiful partnership grow as they have both grown. Despite some continuing challanges they have forged ahead to build a nurturing home for four children.
When Nina started dating Judith I seriously wondered if poor Nina had any idea of what she was getting herself into but then as I came to know her I realised that she knew exactly what she had gotten into, indeed she was just where she wanted to be. She has a warrior spirit and one who had found a cause she that felt was worth fighting for, it was perfect timing and Judith’s very good fortune. In return Judith brought the partnership the stability offered by a rock solid family ethic and the discipline of a sharply focused mind.
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Happy Anniversary my darlings.
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Lots of Love from all of us, XXXX
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