Roaming the Gloaming

 Hello there, here I am again, good to see you back reading my blog! 

It’s funny how one thought leads to another, just as one event links itself to another. Cause and effect. Forget the butter at the supermarket then you can forget the baking plans you had at home. Some people are creative in that situation and manage to conjure up an alternative to the forgotten butter and overcome the hurdle. A new plan is made, adjustments all round and the cake tasted great. Who knew!

Bit of a simple example. There are many more, far more reaching and impacting but let’s keep it simple. At 6:40 am no one is expecting me to write a theses or are they? Just kidding. This cause and effect, or have an alternative plan, or thoughts chasing thoughts came to development due to a news item last week and it popped up again yesterday.

Monkeypox disease I believe it is called. It made me feel uncomfortable. A de ja vu feeling crept over me. Now in various parts of the world this viral disease is manifesting itself. Sort of out of nowhere, the land of origin is known, but lo and behold it is becoming wider spread than ever before. It has traveled! Just like you and I do when we decide to move from one place to another. Or when the wind blows and transferes pollen, seeds, odours. When storms bring Sahara sand from the Sahara to places far removed and reminds us there are dryer places in our world, closer than we realise. That sand storms happen.  

That de ja vu wasn’t surprising. Let’s face it, I will not be the only one who is caught out thinking, “No,  not another illness we can’t contain?” People travel. I’m doing that right now.  What am I leaving behind and/ or taking back? Am I even leaving anything behind other than my footsteps and impressions by those we’ve met? Am I taking more back than photos, impressions, memories and maybe a wine and cheese or two?

It was end of September to mid October 2019. For three weeks we were in France. We stayed in the Morvan for a week and two weeks in the Cévennes. ( I’ll put the link below) Wonderful holiday it was. We traveled there and traveled back. In June 2020 I had plans to travel to Cornwall and Devon with my friend, who lives in New Zealand by the way, so she had even more traveling to do than I, being just across the pond from the UK. Then round September I would go visit my children and grandchildren again. My last visit being early March to mid May 2019. Plans were forged. Travel, we humans travel. Some more than others I admit, but travel we do. Short and long distances. Not just for a holiday. Some travel for work. World wide.

What do we take and leave behind and what do we bring back? So there is my thought chasing a thought. To travel and learn, be enthralled at what one sees, experiences? Or do we stay in our own environment and not take anything with us or leave anything behind?

I’m an optimistic realist/ realistic optimist! We have choices to make based on not only our own needs but also for the ‘common good’. Now it is no use blaming Bill Gates and the micro chip ( sorry had to get in). We only have humanism to look at as far as responsibility is concerned. We make the choices. 

The world became populated because people traveled. In search of food, comfort, a space of their own. People mingled, groups were formed and split up…more movement. Diaspora, the dispersion or spread of any people from their original homeland. Our feet have been a mode of transport since time began. Are we able to not travel? What will that achieve? Like the butter, what could be our alternative? To still have the cake(travel) but no butter. I guess like we are experiencing now it is the use of vaccines. If you want to travel, then there will be the need to protect not only one’s self but vaccinate for the common good. Is that the answer or is it No More Travel?

Be good - be kind - keep smiling ( now there’s a thought!)

Talk about traveling: Check out this link to my channel OmaFarAway.

France 2019: 

Writing helps clear my head

Welcome back! 

In my 60th year, I started writing, digitally known as blogging. I put my thoughts of ‘paper’ and posted them online for anyone to read. It helped clear my head too I might add. Thoughts have a tendency to lead a life of their own. Having captured them and placed them ‘outside’ my head I sometimes felt a great relief, other times proud of what I’d written and I also experienced moments of delight when reading the comments or even for myself, knowing what I wrote pleased and/ or amused me.

I branched out. Started writing in English and Dutch, instigated a cooking blog and an oma blog. Yep, I managed it all - till it became too much of a ‘have to’ instead of a want to. I also started a channel on YouTube in 2018 called OmaFArAway ( link below). The reason being the impending visit of my grandson Max from Australia. He was coming  to spend two months with me, his oma. What better way to document and share his experiences than with a visual record. I ran out of time. My blogs lay deserted and ignored. 

Then COVID hit the world and had us on our knees. I made an attempt to pick up writing again. Unfortunately, it stayed with the attempt. So here goes. A new start. A combination of blogs and vlogs. Not a separate series though. All in English and a mixed bag of kitchen ideas and thinking thoughts. I won’t remove the other blogs, ( the link to the biggest blog - A day in the life is also listed below) but the new lease of life will only be on the one blog- OmaFarAway shares stories. For those who find English bit difficult, transfer the text into Google translate! Although not perfect it will certainly give the gist of the contents with photos to support the story. I will also post links to relevant videos..or even all the video for that matter.

So bear with me, humour me and just like the YouTube channel, leave a message, comment, note letting me know you’ve been visiting. Much appreciated.

Be good - be kind - keep smiling!

A Day in the life: http://mythoughtsinadayinthelifeof.blogspot.com/

OmaFarAway video channel: 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt48t5MJBQnXZFDLptJwCyg

OmaFarAway video channel : Holiday with grandson playlist:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJwwv-q4OH0ljYjj0NKMVyvtZ-97nrXRg

An ode to my mum.

 Mum’s and their stories: This is mine about my mum

It is the 1st of May. Labour Day in some parts of the world. It is also the anniversary of my mother’s birth. She was born 99 years ago today in the Netherlands. It is Labour Day there too, just like here in France, where I am at the time of writing this story.

The sun is just warm enough to feel like a smooth caress on my skin. The breeze brushes over my arms and face, ensuring I don’t over heat. I do have to squint a little as I’m not wearing my sunhat. I left it at home. Silly me. I love that hat. I remember buying it as if it were yesterday. In Workum it was, in the Netherlands. To be really precise, it was in the province Fryslân and along the main street. The shop sold all sorts of holiday necessities. Fishing gear, gumboots, sun hats of all description and lots of bits and bobs tourists go for in wee places like this.

I was with Annette at the time. Annette and I were just playing tourist, well she was for real, being a kiwi holidaying abroad, and me, well I belong to the Frysian landscape. It’s in my blood. We were both just having a few days sightseeing in this part of the Netherlands before sailing across the water and heading into Wales. Two ‘besties’ needing a sunhat each during the summer of 2018. But I digress.

The 1st of May 1923. My mother was to be the last baby my grandmother would bear. The doctor was quite adamant about that. My mum was baby number 9 of which 7 saw adulthood. Four boys and three girls. From tales which I can recall was that mum had a worry free childhood. She became an aunt at 11 years of age. Her eldest sister married and started her family. They lived at walking distance and as the family additions arrived, mum was often engaged in helping out with nappies, washing and other tasks to help complete those mundane chores for the busy young mother.

War broke out. My mum was a teenager. Brothers went to war breaking my grandmother’s heart. Yes, they returned home, but not unscathed. The experiences they had coloured their lives. 

Mum’s scholing and subsequent career choice, she trained as a kindergarten teacher, was marred in many ways as a result of that war. 

Mum was very close to her 2 year older sister, Evelien ( Eef or Eefie to those who knew and loved her) and as young women they were often in each other’s company. 

Marriages happened.

My parents met in 1946, and married 6 weeks later. A whirl wind courtship, again as a result of war. Tongues did wag mum told me. Even then, and maybe especially then, people were suspicious and judgemental.

My dad was due to be sent out to Indonesia and he would be away 3+ years at best. As a married soldier, he earned more, and mum could stay living at home with her parents. A shortage of housing was also prevalent. Many married couples and the birth of children were events that took place in parental homes of either partner. In this case, my eldest brother, sister and I were born in my mum’s family home. 

Finally in 1953, my parents were allocated a home of their own. We moved to a ( then) wee place called Dieren in Gelderland. Dad was back at the railway and to help make ends meet, mum sewed plastic items. At home, for a company which utilised home workers. That was ideal for a family like ours with four children and a husband who worked shifts.

I recall it a fine time. Though there were the odd hiccups. After mum had my brother she needed some time out. Also there appeared to be an arthritic situation whereby mum received painful injections from the district nurse. I so remember having to ‘go play outside’ while mum was treated. Apparently the injections were extremely painful. Later she told me, she was scared of frightening us in case she yelled out in pain. Poor mum.

 I have always had the idea mum missed being closer to her family as a car in that time wasn’t even a thinkable possibility. So the bonus of dad working for the railway was a gift. We had free travel. And visit family we did. Aunts and uncles, grandparents. It was during those visits we children got to meet our cousins. 

A new prospect for a future arose. We were to immigrate to a country so far away it was hard to imagine how one would even get there. Reality also being, once there, there would be no going back. It was 1961. We all needed to learn to speak English, children and adults alike. We had to pack up, de-clutter and farewell all we knew and loved. My parents set us off on a great life changing journey. For my mum, the distance now being created between her and those she loved, must have been heartbreaking. How she kept up her spirits up is a mystery. It must have hurt lots. 

The new life was soon not that new. We fitted in. Mum went to work in a factory sewing bras, yes indeed. Dad spent 5 minutes with the NZ railway but that wasn’t a success so he changed jobs a few times before he found his feet. Then, lo and behold, another baby arrived. Mum was 43 at this stage. More drastic changes were afoot in 1966.

We arrived back in the Netherlands for an indefinite time. My baby brother needed health care. Mum left her eldest son behind on the wharf in Auckland. The parting wasn’t to be forever but we didn’t know that then. After a space of 5 years and many ups and downs, we returned to New Zealand in 1971. 

Dad died on 4th November 1999 and mum spent quite some time missing her husband of 53.5 years. She died in 2011, just after midnight on the 1st of January. Their ashes are both interred at the cemetery just outside Hamilton, New Zealand. 

As I am writing this, hearing birds chirping in the background, the breeze is less, the heat of the sun more felt, I am in awe of all my mum endured. I am sure she was happy - while the aches and sadness must have played a big part in her life too! I do know the immigration was dad’s dream and she helped him realise it. That it didn’t all go to plan I know dad’s philosophy was, “ that’s life”. And another one of his wisdoms was, Life, is another name for The school of hard knocks”! Yet he was a very optimistic person. What mum thought, she didn’t often say, but sometimes she’d nod and say, “just like dad says, that’s life”! 

Mum wasn’t spared joys or sorrows, health or sickness. Nor did she breeze through life’s challenges or avoid the struggles. Mum just faced, accepted and took on board all which came her way - in her own way. 

And me, I am back in the Netherlands. Somehow being in the country of  my parents and my birth is where I need to be. Yet I call New Zealand my home. 

Be good - be kind - keep smiling!

Link to: buying the hat

Gladys and Aneira on tour