So…

…here I am and here you are. And they say coincidence doesn’t exist .

I promised some of you a story about a concert we went to, which was about the only blogworthy thing that happened in the past few months. Apart from me breaking my wrist that is of course. Perhaps I’ll tell you all the fun things surrounding that event later.

First the story about the concert. Not an exciting story mind you. I just want to share that wonderful evening with you.

One Friday evening a friend telephoned: ‘we’re going to a concert on the lake tomorrow. We’re sailing the boat to the lake tomorrow morning, will moor it in the harbour near the yacht club and then at around 6 in the evening we’re sailing towards the podium they’ve built on the other side of the lake. Like to join us?’

‘Yeaheah, of course we’re joining you. Thanks for inviting us. Who else is coming?’ She mentioned a couple of people we (hubs and I) knew too. It promised to be an evening to remember.

So well before 6 o’clock that Saturday evening we were at the harbour, found the boat and were greeted by our friends. Everybody had brought a couple of bottles of wine, except for one guy who had brought 4 cases of 6 bottles; 2 cases of red and 2 cases of white wine. He must have been thirsty. It promised to be an evening we wouldn’t remember.

So we set off to the other side of the lake, where a floating podium had been built on the lake and where the Haydn Youth Orchestra would give a concert with guest appearances of students of the local conservatory and singer Izaline Calister (she sings a jazzy kind of South American style of music).

Can’t tell you how lovely that evening was. We drank wine (not the entire shipload mind you), ate quiches, French cheeses and bread, Turkish bread and hummus, salads…

I hadn’t brought my camera because of my physical incapability to shoot photos anyway, but fortunately hubs has an i-Phone (research has been done to find out what people use their phones for and amazingly actually phoning someone was only 5th on the list) and he took some photos I can show you. 

The podium was built on a part of the lake that is surrounded on three sides by apartment buildings and some of the balconies had small groups of conservatory students on them who gave their own mini-concerts, woven into the main musical event.

 

All kinds of small boats (big ones don’t have access to this lake) were still arriving…

The concert was wonderful, the youth orchestra played some really beautiful classical pieces, Izaline sang and had everyone dancing (who knew Dutch hips could swing like that), a really fat bloke who had one drink too many fell from the boat next to us (not in one of the photos sadly) into the fortunately shallow water and kept swinging, hands in the air, up to his armpits in the lake, as if nothing had happened.

It was such a pleasant evening and when the concert ended late that night it was still exceptionally warm and we sailed back to the harbour, looking back to where the concert was…

Good News deserves a Fat Bastard

Today was Result Day of hubs’ colon cancer examinations. And the news is good. They found nothing else, except for the rather large tumour we already knew is there in his colon. The tumour is on the border of his colon and his rectum. But fortunately they have decided it can be treated as colon cancer. If they would have decided that the tumour was situated too low, hubs would have had to undergo chemo- and radiotherapy first. So, since they have decided it is in his colon, an operation only will do. And, unless they discover something scary about the tumour when it is removed, that will be it.

It must have been all the positive energy and thoughts and your prayers, don’t you think?

When hubs’ doctor delivered the good news and we talked about what the next steps in his treatment will be, I said: “Good! And now we’re going to buy some ‘Moorkoppen’ to celebrate.” (‘Moorkoppen’ are hubs’ favourite pastry (and ‘rijstevlaai met slagroom’ too actually)). So on our way home we stopped at a bakery and bought some ‘Moorkoppen’.

One could consider the name Moorkop to be politically incorrect if one is very sensitive about these things. It means something like Moorish Head, probably referring to the delicious chocolate topping on the choux pastry? But I’m sure the Moorkop doesn’t mean to insult anyone. Their sole purpose in life is to be delicious. Choux pastry, lots and lots of whipped cream and chocolate and for the healthy touch a piece of sliced pineapple.

In fact, I googled ‘moorkop’  after I wrote the above and found this: The origin of the name moorkop lies in Den Bosch. There was a house named ‘de Moriaan’, and the residents were well-known for their cooking. They specialised in delicious patisseries. At some point in time a pastry made by the cooks became a popular delicacy and someone shouted: 'it looks like a morenkop' (a ‘morenkop’ is a stone head of a moor, or black man, that hung above many pharmacies). Our moorkop came from the name 'morenkop'.

And if one eats too many of these, one becomes a…

… fat bastard. That’s right.

I saw this Rose (haven’t found out how to get the ‘accent aigu’ above the a or e; the combination ‘e or ‘a doesn’t work on this laptop, so if someone knows the trick, please let me know) in a supermarket and I couldn’t resist it. Look how cute the hippo is. And I mean; Fat bastard. Does that not bring a smile to your face? It does to mine. And it doesn’t taste bad either.

We might open a bottle tonight with a couple of friends who want to celebrate the good news with us.

Now we have to wait for hubs’ operation, which will take place later this month. They gave him a book full of information about the examinations he’s had and about the operation and apparently they will let him go home after the operation ‘if the patient can pass wind’. WELL… what can I say. To me that seems to be a wise decision from the hospital’s point of view. I hope he doesn’t pass too much wind when he gets home though. I could do without another flatulent guy in this home. Biggles passes enough wind for the entire population of our village me thinks.

Petje (the cat) is extremely brave to pick this spot to have a nap. I’m happy to say that she did survive the gas attacks and that she didn’t get squashed either. They were both really comfortable actually. It’s amazing. I know.