Three little words and farewell to the Netherlands

Hello and welcome to the latest blog from The Olivia Rose Diaries on July 25^th 2024.

When we were living in Wales I taught writing classes and one way in which I would warm up the creative muscles of my students was through a simple exercise called ‘Three Little Words.’ I would give them the first one and they had to begin a story with that word somewhere in the opening paragraph. After a minute I would give them a second word and they had to weave that into the plot and after another minute, or two if I was feeling generous, they would get the third word. I was often amazed at the stories people could create with three words as disparate as pink, car and parrot, or feather, ruin and doctor!

Our season is drawing to a close and I am inclined to practise a simpler version of this same exercise on myself to mark the end of our time in the Netherlands. Olivia Rose will spend the winter here in storage but next year we head back to France. What three words would I use to describe this country, one that has welcomed me and for which I have great affection?

My first attempt was ‘water, sky and wind’, a collection of elemental forces, but whilst the words are a useful prompt they don’t begin to portray the full picture. I can’t think of anywhere else that is so defined by water as the Netherlands. No matter which direction you look, your eyes are bound to find it in one form or another, from rivers big and small, to canals and huge inland lakes, as well as the North Sea. It sparkles like diamonds in the sunshine, runs with white horses before the wind or turns black and inky under thunder clouds. Being such a flat country the sky fills all the space above the horizon, reducing human beings into miniature people, so tiny and insignificant against such a vast arena, and the colours and the moods shift constantly throughout the day. And then there is the wind, fickle and so quick to change, gentle one moment and brutal the next, a force that has battered this country for centuries.

I could have chosen any number of other combinations: flowers, bikes and ice-cream, friendly, tidy, man-made, or affluent, modern and traditional, the last two words not quite the contradiction they seem as the Netherlands manages to be extremely modern in its outlook and yet still treasure and maintain the old ways.

I asked Michael for his three words and he offered boat, green and birdsong and these are also good choices as this is surely one of the greenest lands on the planet and the number of birds and their song has been one of the great joys of our time here.

I thought I would pay homage to this special country with a collage of some of the pictures and videos of our two seasons here. Part of me feels rather emotional to be leaving for we have found it to be a magical experience, but our hearts lie in France and the very different, much quieter waterways that we left two years ago are calling us back. We shall always treasure our time here though, and appreciate how lucky we are to have been able to see it at its very best, which is from, and on, the water.

We have one last week and then Olivia Rose is lifted out and we head back to France. It will be time to embrace our other life back at Le Shack and whilst I suspect I shall feel a momentary pang of sadness as we leave this country, mirrored by another momentary pang of a rather different emotion as we arrive home to do battle yet again with the rampant wilderness that awaits us, I am ready to leave. It feels like the right thing to be doing.

Be back again soon and I hope you enjoy the pictures that follow.

MJ