We had timed our return from France in such a way that we would be in Almkerk for the ‘Regional Days’ or in Dutch ‘De Streekdagen’. This is a yearly two day event in which my family always has been very involved. My father was the director for a long time and the rest of us have always volunteered. Julia had heard a lot about it from me and was keen to visit and so was I as it had been six years since last time I went. It starts on the Friday night with Truck Pulling and in the tent there is a party with a DJ and live music. Truck Pulling means that both modified and non modified (road) trucks pull a trailer over a 100 meter track. On the back of the trailer is a weight that moves forward and increases the pressure on the sled on the front of the trailer which pushes in the dirt. Longest distance or fastest full pull wins. It’s quite the spectacle with lots of smoke, flames out of exhausts and trucks going airborne. Have a look at the videos to get an idea.

On Saturday it is more about a family day out, there is something for everyone. Horse riding competitions, old trades, market, food, dog agility, competitions for best goat/sheep/calf etc and of course the main event Tractor Pulling. Tractor Pulling goes via the same principle as the Truck Pulling, but then with tractors. Local farmers join in and then there are also specialised categories for people who really make a sport out of it and modify their tractors heavily. All in all it is a really cool event and it was quite the different experience for Julia!

September was also the month of my father’s retirement. He has worked at Rabobank for 45 years and thinks it is a good time to retire. He was told to be ready at 8am on his last day, but didn’t know what was going to happen, we did though! At 8am his direct colleagues came over for a cup of coffee and at 8.30am a horse drawn carriage showed up to bring dad to work for his last day. Meanwhile all other staff at the bank were waiting outside the office to welcome his arrival. The rest of his day was filled with cake/lunch/speeches etc. At 5pm we all had to be at the bank for the official reception where colleagues and old colleagues all gathered for drinks, nibbles and speeches. Then we drove to Heusden for dinner and some more speeches and at the very end of the night dad said goodbye to his two assistants, which was probably the most emotional part of the day for him as they get along so well. But what a great way to retire, the bank and his colleagues had put a lot of effort in there to make it a day to remember.

While at the reception of my father’s retirement we spoke with Marlies an ex-colleague of my father who made a career change to primary school teacher. After hearing we are living in New Zealand she asked us if we would like to come to teach her class a geography lesson about New Zealand and Australia. Thinking this would be a fun thing to do and after being reassured it was only a relatively small class with good kids, we agreed. So after putting some time in preparing a 45 minute presentation, off we went on a Tuesday afternoon. And what a nice experience it was! The kids were very well behaved and one by one introduced themselves to us. After that there was a bible reading, prayer and song all in English, perhaps for Julia!? Then it was our turn to tell about NZ and Oz, we had taken some things like Julia’s passport, NZ money, Maori carving, boomerang and cowboy hat to pass around. I also blew a couple tones on the didgeridoo and we practised an earthquake drill, where everyone had to go under their desks. The kids had also prepared questions for us, we had a good laugh afterwards though as most of them seemed to be about our personal lives; how old are you, how did you meet, are you getting married, what sport do you do etc. We were there for a couple hours in the end, which was a great experience, thanks Group 8 and Juffrouw Marlies for having us over!

In the winter of 1944-1945, the so called ‘hunger winter’, the very south of The Netherlands was already freed from the Germans, but the rest of the country not (and they were starving). The whole winter the front line was the river Maas. My grandfather and his mother lived on the river Maas on the German occupied side and had to be evacuated. When they returned in the spring of 1945 not much was left, everything was shot to pieces. The rebuild started quickly with so called ‘Emergency Houses’ of which my grandfather and his mother got one of the first ones. Later my grandfather built a normal house next to it, but always maintained the emergency house extremely well and used it as his garage and work place. I’ve spent many hours in there, building little sailboats, playing with the cats or baking oliebollen. A couple years ago some local people realised the value of this old house and created a plan to transport it by mammoth trailer to a more suitable site on the other side of the town Meeuwen, next to the old restored white windmill. This was done and a couple years were spent on restoring it to 1945 standards, both building and furnishings. My grandfather advised them in this. Then in September it was time for the grand opening and the whole family was invited. There was a nice party tent with drinks and food and speeches from the comity and the mayor. Then my grandfather got the key and was allowed to open the building and have a first look around. It is really stunning, both inside and out, there are even photos of my grandfather with his mother in it. Now it is open on Saturday afternoons for the public to visit. Quite a few special events were coinciding with our visit to The Netherlands and this was definitely one of them.

In between of social activities we also had some time for a couple sightseeing trips. Julia really wanted to go see the Boijmans Van Beuningen museum, the main art museum in Rotterdam, about 45 minutes from Almkerk. The museum started already in 1847 with the private collection from Boijmans, then in 1958 the collection of Van Beuningen was added resulting in a great mix of art from medieval to contemporary and big names like Bosch, Breughel, Rembrandt, Monet, Van Gogh and Dali. It was a great day out! Another day trip we did was to visit Loevestein by bicycle on a nice day. It’s about 15 km away from Almkerk. Loevestein was built between 1357 and 1397 by the knight Dirc Loef van Horne at the strategic point where the rivers Maas and Waal meet. This castle has been beautifully restored, including all the buildings in the surroundings, like soldier barracks outside the castle, the ammunition tower and the walls.

The last weekend before our trip to Denmark was to start we drove to Antwerp on a Friday afternoon to meet Jonas and Nikki. We met Jonas and Nikki in 2008 in Wellington (Jonas via Couchsurfing). And Jonas introduced me to Alcatel-Lucent where I then got a job and was able to stay in New Zealand and later become permanent resident. Jonas and Nikki have since moved to Belgium, where Jonas is from (Nikki is Kiwi) and live in Antwerp. Getting to Antwerp normally involves traffic jams so we left early, which was a good thing as we got terribly stuck. We still had time for a little look around the pleasant city of Antwerp though before we arrived at Jonas and Nikki’s apartment. We had a great night catching up while eating some great dishes Nikki had prepared; fishsoup followed by rice with three accompanying dishes being tasty meatballs, marinated eggplant, and fried tofu with tomatoes. To top it all off we had homemade cheesecake. It was all top quality!

The next day my grandfather celebrated his 84^th birthday, something I was really happy to be in The Netherlands for. My grandfather takes the whole family for a buffet dinner every year and I have missed it so many years. Every year I call him for his birthday and he says that it is such a shame Julia and I can’t be there for the dinner and now we finally could! We went to a Chinese/Japanese restaurant in Oosterhout where we all made several trips to the buffet, excellent food again. Grandfather even got some presents from the restaurant staff; a special smoking birthday ice-cream, which I am sure he would have rather done without and a little teapot.

Other than that we caught up with lots of people in September and also attended the wedding of Arnold (cousin) and Sanne, which was also a nice night out. September was a really nice month filled with social events.  Nice that we could be in The Netherlands for it!