Trip to Bloudan

This morning we made a trip to Bloudan to catch the last of the snow. We drove as far as we could up the mountain, passing a few comical exploits from the locals attempting to drive their cars up the icy track and slipping and sliding and generally falling over one another as they tried to push the cars up the mountain. With our four wheel drives it was relatively easy until we encountered a turn on the crest of an hill.

We managed to get reasonably far up the track where we introduced Beatrice to her first proper snow.

Trip to Bloudan

Back home

Sorry for the lack of updating our blog... So much has happened since we got here four months ago. Where have the months gone? I have been meaning to write about my (not so new anymore) job, our nanny (that sounds soooo expat-ty and decadent), our trip to Bosra where we had a look at the Roman theatre or how we just so very slowly starting to settle a bit. I might do that later.


We just got back from our trip home (erm, home is where the heart is, right?) We stayed with my parents for five lovely days, just long enough to touch base, see all my family, eat as much stamppot as we could possibly muster and work our way through a shopping list as long as my arm. Unfortunately too short to catch up with friends, update Facebook or eat enough paprika chips to see me through the next few months.

My family threw me a birthday party on the night we arrived and Beatrice helped me with unwrapping the presents. She also saw snow for the first time, rode in a buggy for the first time (an experience neither of us enjoyed very much. So out with the borrowed buggy and back into the sling) and we went baby swimming.


Which she really enjoyed. Of course also because she got a chance to show off her pink bikini.

And now we are back in Syria. With the crazy traffic, the bureaucracy, even the custom officer at the airport smoking and with all Blogspot pages blocked (so sorry Nina, Irène, Alle, Joeltje, Elke and Kami for not being able to check up on you! Would you mind sending an email of every post you write? :-)). But also with 17 degrees and sun today. Not long before we will be able to take Beatrice to the outdoor pool at the [insert Jonny's work name] club. We'll just have to do the walking around in circles and singing lullabies ourselves, for the lack of a baby swimming instructor. Or not. :-)


I meant to exclusively breast-feed Beatrice for six months, but at five months and a few weeks and after weeks of scrutinising our plates, she decided herself it was time to start on solids. We are doing something called baby led weaning, meaning we don't puree any food, but give stick sized foods instead for her to play with. So far she has tried potato, carrot, apple, banana, rice cakes, bread, pumpkin, red pepper, avocado, mango, cucumber, butter beans and courgette.


It is supposed to help hand eye coordination and make the baby enjoy food. She certainly seems to enjoy it. Although Jonny and I have both been weaned on mashed foods, we don't have any problems with our coordination. So I think it is more because I am too lazy to blend everything for her...

To our unborn daughter

Dear little baby girl,

There is just over four weeks left before we finally get to meet you and I am getting very excited about it. We have been waiting for you for so long now and now the moment that we get to know you is almost there. I can't wait to see what you look like, what you sound like, feel your skin against mine, marvel at your little toes and fingers, smell your sweet baby smell and see you in your daddy's arms. The contrast is going to be sweet: his big and strong arms holding such a tiny little person: you!

At the same time I am still not completely used to having a now big pregnant belly. The belly which for a long time I thought couldn't hold a new life. Now you are in it, at this moment already completely formed, just filling out and getting rounder and ready for the world. Sometimes your daddy catches me admiring my belly and he teases me endlessly about it. Other than what he might think, I am not admiring myself, but I am still amazed and very grateful at the thought that you are growing in there.

Every morning I wake up with this excited feeling. In my sleepiness, it takes a moment to realise what the excitement is about and then I realise what it is. We're are having a baby! And most mornings I feel you kicking away and I cherish those moments together, lying next to your daddy. The way I feel comes close to what I remember from my birthday mornings when I was a kid, waking up excited, wondering about the party and the guests and looking forward to opening the presents. You'll soon get to experience that feeling too!

Before your first birthday however, there will be lots and lots of other things to discover. The world to start with! Quite a shock I imagine after being warm and protected for so long. I sometimes wonder what it is like for you to be inside my womb and whether you feel my caressing hands, hear your daddy singing silly songs, are happy when I am giggling away or notice when I am upside down during one of my yoga sessions. I think that you probably do, especially since I get furious kicks of protest from you when I am not sitting upright and there is not enough space for you in my abdomen. Loud noise also seems to startle you.

Hopefully the early contractions I had a few weeks back, didn't upset you too much. When I felt the contractions, at first I did not realise what they were. I just thought it was one of the inconveniences of pregnancy. Until I walked into the midwife's consultation room in tears and her reaction showed me this amount of pain was not normal. The pain scared me, I feared there might be something wrong with you, that you might come into this world way too early.

Before sending us off for more tests, the warm-hearted midwife hugged me and reassured me. She said you had gone through so much trouble to be with us, now was not the time for you to leave us already, so I was not to worry. Your daddy, being the rational person he is, later said that we had gone through a lot of trouble to have you. But I quite liked the idea of your soul finding us, just like we found you. Like we are meant to be together.

Your journey started now almost nine months ago, but your daddy's and my story is a bit longer than that. But in November 2007, you came into our lives. On Saturday the 10th to be precise. I remember well the morning in Barcelona when we went to the clinic to pick you up. Or rather, it wasn't you just yet, it was just a cluster of cells, two clusters of cells in fact. A fusion of egg cells from an extremely generous woman and your daddy's sperm. A woman that we don't know anything else about other than her age and her blood group, but to whom we will remain grateful forever, since she gave us the possibility to get pregnant and have you.

I was to go in for the transfer with a full bladder and instead of drinking water, I had a mega-sized cup of Starbucks camomile tea. I figured that a nice and relaxing warm drink, would make a far more welcoming environment for an embryo than a big balloon of cold water. We saw the two embryos on the screen, one of which was to grow into you. I felt so special leaving the clinic, knowing that I was carrying such a precious load inside me. That night we celebrated with a glass of the best Spanish Cava.

After that, the waiting began. Waiting to see if I would be pregnant. Technically I was, having two pre-embryos inside me, but there was no guarantee that you would actually 'stick'. I remember being very aware of everything going on inside me. Cycling in the November cold, feeling every bump in the road, wondering if that might accidentally shake you out. It was also during one of my rides to work that I realised that something was happening in my body: I could hardly catch my breath and felt like a 95-year old woman.

I now know that on the sixth day after conception the cluster of cells that were to become you, already started to release chemicals that caused uterine cells to burst. The pre-embryo nourished itself on these exploded cells. And it created a site to attach itself to the uterus. As the cells of the pre-embryo grew and multiplied, most of them became the placenta. The other became a very small version of you.

Nine days after the transfer I did a first home pregnancy test. Or rather, a work pregnancy test in my case since I tested on the toilet at work. I called your dad to tell him about the faintest of the faintest second pink line. He told me to take it easy and wait a bit longer. So I waited and tested again the next day. And the next. And the next. Every day the line became a little stronger. The blood test fourteen days after the transfer confirmed what we had hoped for so long: I was pregnant. Wow! Finally!

The first weeks, months even, we still found it hard to believe. Afraid that something might go wrong. It took a while before we could genuinely be happy, think about what the future might hold, how we would be a family. Your daddy was so proud. You will soon learn that beneath the rationality, he is very sensitive and tender. He was beaming with pride when he first talked about this pregnancy and if he could, he would have wrapped me in cotton wool for the first months.

Even after getting pregnant, I have occasionally struggled a bit with the idea of you and me not being genetically linked. Sometimes it made me feel a little detached from this pregnancy. It made me sad that you would probably not look like me, cry with laughter like I do (tears running down my sister's and my cheeks when we have a laughing fit), but most of all, that you would not be a combination of your daddy and me.

I do realise though that having a child is about so much more than about genes and DNA. After all, I gave you life, you are growing in my belly, you will feed off my breasts. Every little cell of your body has begun in me. And, thankfully, there is no evidence that being stubborn or strong willed is genetically inherited. There is more of an environmental link than a genetic link. So you might turn out to be just as stubborn, strong willed, emotional and clumsy as me. Lucky you!

At first I wanted you to be a poster child for egg cell donation, but your conception story is more yours and not so much ours to tell. When you are ready, we will tell you the story, show you the pictures and tell you about the steps in the process. We will tell you how desired you were and how much we anticipated your arrival. So when one of my friends asked me who I thought you would look like, I told him probably more like Jonny, you being the result of egg cell donation. But foremost and above all, I told him, you are going to be you.

I do hope that you will resemble your daddy. Apart from being very handsome, you will soon come to learn that he is a very generous and giving man and that he already loves you very much. You will undoubtedly love him right back. I am very very blessed to have him with me on this journey and I don't know what I would have done without him. He dried my tears when I was crying, he held my hand when I was in pain, he listened when I needed to be heard. He was there for me. Like I know that he is going to be there for you.

And now we're almost ready to meet you. Your tiny room is almost ready, the furniture put together by your daddy, your clothes ironed by me. It's amazing how many worldly possessions you already have. You have been given many clothes, toys, books, lotions and, my favourite, a pair of little red leather shoes. Gifts from all your uncles and aunts, great uncle and aunt, both sets of grandparents, many kind friends, relatives and colleagues. It is so special to see how many people are really looking forward to having you around.

There are a few things that still need to be done before your arrival though. Your grandmother is going to sow a canopy for over your cot. I still have to pick an outfit for you to come home in. We still need to decide on your middle name. But foremost, your daddy is going away for business tomorrow and I have told him we would wait for him to come back. I am sure we will be okay, just you and me for a few days. And then, we will get to meet you and be the family we so longed for. Like one of my friends said, everything happens at the right time.

Love,
your mummy

Dreaming of a white Easter

Last Thursday night we came to England by boat. At the check-in in Rotterdam port, 'pregnant passengers were requested to identify themselves at the reception before checking-in'. Our initial reaction was that this probably only concerned very pregnant travelers. But certainly not me?

Oh yeah, I am pregnant (wow, me pregnant!). So the next half hour waiting in the car, we amused ourselves with the possible reasons behind the request. Would they put all the pregnant ladies together? Would we get a free cabin upgrade? Would we get a complimentary P&O Ferries onesie? Or did the staff just want to congratulate us?

It turned out to be nothing so exotic. We were kindly informed that there was no doctor on board and that the journey would be at our own risk. Oops. And with the weather being that rough? The risk was probably me barfing all the way. The crossing turned out to be uneventful, despite the hard winds. We slept most of the journey and arrived refreshed in Hull on the Friday morning.

The winds turned to grey skies and this morning the world was white. Instead of a white Christmas, we had a white Easter. Amazing.

Here's the view this morning from the bedroom window at Jonny's parents:

A girl after Jonny's own heart!

We have two little guests staying with us at the moment: my nieces Dana and Julia. Dana at one point observed that our house was a little bit boring since we don't have that many toys. Fair enough.

Julia decided to take the matter into her own hands and find something to keep her busy. She is quite an avid reader and started on Jonny's magazines. Car and Top Gear kept her entertained for quite a bit, with Car being a definite favourite!

My albatross is about the be removed!

Last night in bed we were talking about my graduation this afternoon. Jonny asked me whether I was nervous already. I wasn't. I am starting to get nervous now though.... And at the same time looking forward to when my MA will be finally out of the way. As Jonny referred to it: when the albatross around your neck is gone.

Literally, an albatross is a large sea bird. The phrase alludes to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” in which a sailor who shoots a friendly albatross is forced to wear its carcass around his neck as punishment.

I wasn't familiar with the expression, but I didn't regard my course as a punishment. Most of the time I quite enjoyed it. It will be nice to have real free time though, not having to worry about an unfinished paper, a last assignment, a never-ending thesis. It will give us time for our other project: the baby-making one. More on that later.

And then tonight we are off to see my parents in law. For now, have fun with the pictures of our week away here!

A little pot of heaven

What beautiful and sweet nieces we have. This is of course not only the slightly biased opinion of a proud aunt, it was confirmed by the couple that own the vegetable stall where magic beans are sold.

The owners love kids. And kids love them. So last weekend when the two girls stayed with us, we went to the stall. I don't know who was more enchanted, the owners or my nieces. Dana and Julia were admired and then given some strawberries. Dana was particularly impressed by their names: Auntie Apple and Granddad Pear. She wanted to know whether they were really called that. They had their names embroidered on towels, so it had to be true!

The strawberries were a success and the pots of yoghurt later also went down a treat. Especially Julia liked it, ademant to enjoy every single drop of the dessert. And what better tool than your hand to get the last bit out of the pot?

Griddup!

I don't really do carnaval. I am not keen on the big crowds, I don't like the dancing and I'll prefer a glass of nice wine to copious amounts of beer anytime, thanks. As a result I miss out on the fancy costumes that go with it.

My sister recently moved to 'south of the rivers', or the catholic part of the Netherlands. It is also known as the more exuberant part of the Netherlands. They talk softer, the food is nicer and they like a good party. There is no real escaping from carnaval there. Especially when you are three years old and all your class mates celebrate it.

My niece Julia will attend the festivities in her new frog costume. She does not look too happy in the picture, but that might have to do with the timing of the Kodak moment: she was sat on the potty (original picture cropped!). However, she does look really cute as a frog! One would almost be tempted, but I think we will just stick to celebrating Pancake Day this year...

Happy New Year!

First of all, appologies for not adding any posts for the past few weeks... it's not because we don't care or that the novelty has worn off, simply a technical problem with Blogger, but I won't go into the technical details.

Fortunately, my smart, techie wife sorted it out today... after scanning through the internet she found a reference to try something that she hadn't done before and made one last attempt to sort the problem out... and it worked!

So, time to catch up on what's been going on over the past few weeks! First of all, we got our new kitchen counter top installed just in time for Christmas!


It's looking nice and new and shiny in the picture above, but already after a few weeks of use it is inevitably covered in scratches and marks... but this just adds to the character and soon it will look like it's supposed to look like that!

Also just before Christmas, we had some blinds installed in the upstairs bedroom, upstairs hall and bathroom.


The upstairs bedroom has now become the guest room, so the installation of the blinds was just in time for my parents coming over from the UK and visiting us for Christmas. They arrived the Saturday before Christmas, which was just in time to help us prepare for a large Christmas Eve dinner, with Flo's parents, her two brothers and their families... fourteen people in total! So the kitchen was put through its paces and to feed so many people we bought a huge 8kg turkey! Turns out that this was more than big enough, since we're still eating turkey curry now! We did a quick calculation last night and figured that we're going to get about thirty meals out of that bird!


We think the party turned out well... we enjoyed it at least and hosting dinners like this is exactly what we had in mind keeping the space at the front of the house big and open... one of my friends that saw the house for the first time a few weeks back commented that we have the perfect party house! We just need to make an effort to host some events over the next couple of years... the next one should be the house warming!

For Boxing Day, we took my parents to the Lucent Danstheater in Den Haag to watch the Kirov Ballet of Saint Peterburg perform The Nutcracker! We weren't so keen on the first half of the performance, but the second half is breathtaking and was well worth the visit. It felt like a very special way of spending Boxing Day evening and we felt very privileged to see the performance. We'd certainly recommend going and seeing it, if only for a spot of people watching, since there was certainly a large cross section of the people that attended!

Christmas turned out to be pretty busy this year, so by New Year we treated ourselves to a quiet night in, catching up on the second series of Prison Break whilst drinking champagne and eating fresh sushi from Simonis in Scheveningen (where my parents enjoyed probably the best fish and chips in the Netherlands on the day that they departed back to the UK). At midnight we ventured out into the street and watched the local inhabitants put on a loud and quite spectacular fireworks display on out little plein down the street.

So all in all we had a very pleasant and memorable festive period, so much so that heading back into work took quite some effort! But things are about back into full swing and both Flo and myself seem to be as busy as ever! But there's plenty to look forward to in 2007...

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

Wishing you good food, joyful company and few but thoughtful presents. Have a good one!

My first Christmas hamper

When I was little, my dad used to get a Christmas hamper from work. On the day he brought it home, I eagerly waited for him, excited with anticipation.

He was always sweet enough to let me, the youngest child, help him unwrap the package and scrutinize the contents. The box of After Eight! The jar of paté! The Christmas napkins! Regardless of the contents always being sort of predictable, I thought it was so much fun!

Now I am all grown-up (well, sort of) and today I got my first very own Christmas hamper. Not bad after only a week at my new job! It was good fun opening it, but the contents remain unopened for the time being. Our stomachs are still a bit feeble after the mussel adventure...

Don't force things- especially closed mussels

My paternal grandmother was born in the Dutch province of Zeeland, the coastal province famous for it's oysters and mussels. She loved all fish and seafood. Her love for oysters skipped a generation, but both my dad and me like mussels.

Add the fact that Jonny mentioned only last weekend that I never make mussels. Pronto, enough reasons to make Zeeuwse mussels for the alternative Sinterklaas dinner with my parents. We did last Tuesday. We are all still struggling with the aftermath.

We all know not to open closed mussels when cooked. And ALL mussel recipes stress the fact that mussels that don't close when washed should not be cooked. Let alone be eaten. That is true, very true indeed. In fact, it is one of life's important lessons.

However, the guy from the reputable fish shop in Scheveningen insisted otherwise. Upon my phone call saying there were lots of mussels that wouldn't close when washed, he said that is a widespread misconception. It is just important to not force any cooked mussels open. Or so he said. Our stomachs proved otherwise.

Funnily enough, the mussels a la bouillabaisse tasted quite nice. The effect of the little bacteria with the tongue-twisting name that came with it, was a lot less nice. The four of us got sick. Symptoms varied a bit, as did the speed at which they developed (we compared notes). I will not bore you with the exact physical details, but it was not pretty. And a bit messy.

I always thought that symptoms of food poisoning would occur within 24 hours after eating contaminated food and would only last a day or two. That must also be a widespread misconception. We still feel weak five days later. Weak and a little bit embarrassed.

Oma Schuurman on TV

As a follow up to our previous post on Oma Schuurman's posthumous award, I managed to capture a short article that was broadcast on Dutch TV on the evening of the Yad Vashem ceremony (31st October, 2006).


It includes interviews with Tante Trix and with Alex Nathans (or little Dikkie Duinroos as he was known back then), as well as the grand daughters collecting the award on behalf of the family.

There's also footage of the pre-ceremony meal, with a large congregation of the Schuurman family from Canada and the Netherlands, as well as Alex's family that came over from Israel. If you look closely you can just about spot me and Flo in the background!

It was interesting to see a bit of Jewish culture first hand and an honour to be part of such an historical and rare event. Seeing so many of Flo's family and relatives together was a also real treat!

In memory of my dear courageous Oma

Yesterday my oma (grandmother) was honoured posthumously. During an official ceremony she was awarded the title Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. This honorary title is awarded to non-Jews who risked their lives during the holocaust to save Jews. My oma risked her live to save the live of Alex Nathans or little Dikkie Duinroos as he was called back then. On the picture she is holding baby Alex.

Newborn baby Alex came to the farm in 1943 and stayed with my widowed grandmother and her twelve children until the end of the war. He called oma 'mother' and he had loads of big 'sisters' and 'brothers' who doted on the little boy. He simply became part of the family. The dangers involved in hiding him were never mentioned.

My oma risked her own life, freedom and safety and that of her family in order to save another life. Yet she did not want to be thanked, she did not consider herself to be courageous, let alone a heroine. She just considered it her obligation as a Christian to help a fellow human being in need.

The little boy grew up, got married and moved to Israel. He now has four children and six grandchildren of his own. He was grateful to my grandmother and first nominating an then awarding oma, was his way of saying thank you. A thank you for being there in times of need. Although everybody agreed that oma would thought the ceremony was unnecessary, seeing the big extended family together would have undoubtedly filled her heart with joy.

Alex, his wife and his children all attended the ceremony. Many of my Dutch family members were there and ten of my relatives even traveled from Canada to participate. When the three granddaughters named after oma received the medal with her name on it and the certificate of honour, I felt proud. Proud of my dear courageous oma, who made the future possible.

A fine day to spend in the pool

August has been lousy in the weather department, so you would think that surely put us first on the list for a really beautiful Indian summer. Or at least a few days of Indian summer...

Today was one of those days and where better to catch the last rays of hot summer sun than in a puddle pool? Or, in my case, watching my nieces splatter around in it. I spent the time talking to my sister enjoying a glass of beautiful French rosé. Nice!

Major constituent of all living matter

For my niece Dana taps are the packaging of water. Like milk comes in a carton and lemonade in a bottle. So when she recently asked me for a glass of water I decided to follow the same line of reasoning and I told her the water had finished. I mean, apple juice can finish and we might occasionally run out of milk and oops, did we forget to get some new tea bags? Irrefutable logic for a five year old in my opinion, so I wanted to see her reaction. Well, there was no way that she would entertain the thought and not even for a split second did she consider taking me seriously. Instead I was just greeted with bouts of laughter by her and her friends, oh dear, how silly my aunt is, just open the tap. Which I of course did.... A birthday party is really not the place to discuss water shortage.



We have finally decided on the taps for our new house. Both the bathroom and toilets will feature the Tara range, since we are after some unity in certain items throughout the house. This is why we have declined the reconditioned taps for the kitchen, although the idea was very tempting. It was between these and the famous Arne Jacobsen taps from Vola, but in the end the difference in price dictated our choice. Still very much against the will of the building contractor since he reckoned any DIY taps would do the job equally well. Which is probably true, but packaging matters! So we are hoping that our water will taste better for it and that showers will be even more pleasant. When he realised there was nothing he could say that would change our minds, he insisted to at least change the taps if we come to sell the house so we can take these with us. Duly noted.

Solemn promise to wake up on time

It is becoming harder and harder to deny that in 22 days time I will be officially unemployed. People are asking me how my job interview went (well, it went okay, but they just didn't think I'd fit in) and what I am going to do next (nothing). As for the new job, there is none yet. AND IT BLOWS MY MIND. You know the saying about not throwing away your old shoes before you have new ones? Well, I just have! And at times it freaks me out, but most of the time I am totally looking forward to the prospect of becoming a SAHW (Stay At Home Wife) for a while.

Of course THE next project is to turn me into a SAHM as soon as we can, or maybe a plain old working mum while we are at it, since I have not proven to be a very good stay-at-home-anything in the past. When we moved to Dubai and I was looking for a job, my nights and days seemed to effortlessly blend into one, with Jonny waking me up at noon so we could have lunch together. Or breakfast, as it would be in my case. Making dinner lunch and life confusing. Luckily that was only for about 3 weeks, since it only took me that long to find a good job.

So I promised us that it will be different this time. Apart from the baby project there should be plenty to keep me busy from July onwards. We still have have loads to do for the new house, I have a thesis to write and I will now take my time to find a more suitable job. No point in making the same mistake twice, is there? So this time I will not make time for mid-morning naps after Jonny has left the house.

As a bit of a sideline, apparently the people at Source Antiques are cracking on and making tremendous progress with our kitchen. Or so they say! They have received a colour sample from Farrow and Ball so that they can match the Cooking Apple Green®. You just have to love the name of that paint! They also have Cook’s blue®, which also sounds very suitable for a kitchen, but is a bit too bright for the subdued persons that we are. The guy Tom (with whom Jonny is now developing a serious email history to make sure everything is going according to plan) from Source mentioned that he saw the very same colour in a top 10 of colours for this season’s home-style in a magazine. We have not figured whether it was a top three rank yet. But Cooking Apple Green it will be!

Happy Easter!

 
Hope you're all having a great Easter?

We had the pleasure of entertaining Flo's parents (Charles and Truus) after they accepted our offer to come 'round for brunch and it was a great excuse to prepare lots of nice food and open up a bottle of champagne.

Proost!