Double-Header

The Barbarians are at the Gate

A couple of posts ago I fancifully described a confrontation with Boy #2 in the style of a war report. Well, that will teach me. It seems the Boys have worked out there is safety in numbers and have combined forces. Guess who's winning? You be the judge...


Boy #2 is obsessed with what goes on in the kitchen. Every time I start sorting out breakfast, lunch or dinner for the pair of them, he wants to pull a chair up to counter, stand precariously on it, and watch what I'm doing, reaching for safe play objects like the knife block or a recently boiled kettle the moment my head is turned. So when he decides to indulge in a little role play away from the danger zone - namely, in his plastic play kitchen - I go with it.

This afternoon, he was bringing me pretend stuff to eat. As he got close, I would grab his grubby little paw and pretend to gobble it up - resulting in much hilarity. In fact, it was so much fun that Boy #1, normally far too grown up for that sort of thing, decided to get in on the act. He made a couple of feints, bringing me pretend chocolate ice-cream (my favourite), and pretend spaghetti carbonara (what else?), before he judged I was softened up enough.

The third trip he made from the play-kitchen, I noticed a look of 4-year old devilment in his eyes. Just as I grabbed his hand and bought it to my mouth, some guardian angel gave me a nudge, and I asked "What delicacy is it this time?"

Unable to contain himself at his own cleverness, he shouted "A bogey!"

It was.

A real one.

Which I just - just - managed to not put in my mouth.

I swear they planned the whole thing between them....

..................................................


Dutch Treat

A couple of weeks back Iota at 'Not Wrong, Just Different', spotted a comment I made somewhere that mentioned I am married to a Dutchman. Tell us more, she said. I promised to, but then forgot in a rush of posts about awards, memes, the Boys and birthdays. But, a promise it was, so here goes; some Top Tips about spending time with the Dutch...

(Apologies to Sweet Irene if she should read this; as usual, I'm exaggerating for effect...)

1. Do expect men to open doors, pull back chairs, pay for dinner. I didn't, having only dated Brits previously, so all this chivalry was a little unsettling for little old feminist me. Don't worry though - I soon got used to it. (And then of course we married, and it stopped. Plus ca change...)


2. Do not expect 'a couple' of beers to mean just two. A Dutch 'couple' means anything between 2 and 6. If you go out for 'a couple of beers' with a Dutch mate, you may come home sober as a judge, or you may be 3 sheets to the wind. It's more likely to be the latter.


3. Do expect them to smoke - cigarettes. This has improved hugely in the last 10 years or so, but still expect most restaurants to be rather smokier than you might be used to, and not to be able to see across the bar. The Dutch are the worst chain smokers I have ever met... (This though will have to change this summer as I understand they are introducing the same anti-smoking laws we now have in the UK).

4. Do not expect them to smoke - drugs. They tend to leave this kind of behaviour to the tourists, so they can look down on them and feel as naturally superior as they believe themselves to be.

Which leads me neatly on to...

5. Do expect the Dutch to be arrogant. In the nicest possible way, of course. Despite their country's relatively small size, the Dutch have been at the centre of world trading operations for the last 6 or 7 centuries. They have fingers in every pie. They know people everywhere (well, in a nation of only 16 million people who it seems are all extremely good at networking, a person can expect to know a fair proportion of their compatriots). There is a strong belief in the Netherlands that whilst the Americans - poor fools - think they run the world, the Dutch know they do.

As a result, they are extremely well-informed about current affairs the world over, and see themselves as big players on the world stage. It often comes as a nasty shock when they realise a large proportion of the world's population not only don't know who their prime minister is, but can't actually name their queen (they have a queen?), or even place their country on the map.

6. Their men's fashion taste can be... interesting. Exhibit One: Red Trousers. Oh yes. Red trousers. In public. OK, so quite a few of them used to be in the army (they didn't stop conscription until 1994, and one in 4 had to join up for a year - Husband included), but really. Red trousers?

7. Do expect them to complain. Loudly. About just about anything. The prices of food, the distance between tube stops, the constant rain they assume falls in Britain, the fact that there has been no rain since they arrived in Britain (in fact the weather is usually worse in Holland than here, but they will never accept this). Complaining is a national past-time - and means very little. It's just something they do - don't take it personally.

8. Do not expect them to assume they will be understood by the locals when speaking Dutch to each other. This explains why Dutch tourists the world over will make loud deprecating comments about the country they are visiting at the top of their voices across a crowded bus / railway carriage / bar, and be astonished if you understand them. Husband once had an amusing experience on a tube in London when a couple of Dutch girls were discussing him, loudly. He wished them good day - in Dutch - as he got off the train. You can imagine their faces....

9. Do expect to be asked personal and intensly private questions within, oh, about an hour of having met someone for the first time. I'm English, so this came as a bit of a shock. The first time I met my (now ex) Sister-in-law, she asked if I like children. A harmless enough question, you might think. Unless you're English, of course. If you're English, you know that the subtext is; "I know you only met my brother-in-law a few weeks ago, and that you're clearly not in any position to have a serious relationship given the distances involved (at the time Husband was working in Russia), but let's cut to the chase here: do you want to marry him and have his babies or what?"

Wow. Never knew that five little words 'So, do you like children?' could mean so much, did you? Flummoxed, and English, I gave the only answer I could. "Well, yes I do. But I couldn't eat a whole one."

And now, having no doubt got myself into loads of trouble, I will just make this disclaimer:

All of the above observations are based on a very limited sample, and of course my beloved Husband in no way displays any of these traits (with the exception of posessing both chivalry and a pair of red trousers); he is an angel in human form and I love him dearly.

Phew.

Did I get away with it?