Political Hotline

It seems I have a new career as a Dutch politician.

In the approach to the Dutch elections on 22nd November, my private home phone seems to be a hotline for various mad people who seem to think that I can answer their questions regarding the policies of my party, or just would like to engage in a bit of good old-fashioned verbal abuse.

This misunderstanding stems from the fact that I'm listed in the phone book as Mevrouw L. Griffith. Mevrouw Laetitia Griffith has (wisely) chosen not to be listed. I'm getting her calls. It's all very interesting and I'm getting lots of Dutch practice telling people to sod off.

It's very strange how persistent people can be. The conversation can stretch on for some time, and some people still won't believe I'm not her. You would think that the fact that I can barely speak the language might give them a tiny little clue that perhaps I'm not really the woman for the job.

Perhaps next time I'll try the "Yes, I'm her. What do you want to know?" approach. There goes the local loonies vote...

Scary Women

With the aid of a nasty cheap wig, white face paint and some clothes from the back of my wardrobe, I was transformed last night into a vision of gothic loveliness. Actually, I looked like a total freak, but that's okay because I was going to a Halloween party with an Addam's Family theme. Seemed like a good idea at the time, as did the seven glasses of 'blood' red wine that I quaffed, but today I'm feeling a bit queasy. Must have been the bat burger I ate after midnight.

Here I am pictured with fellow hags Elise (Morticia) and Laurie (Wednesday). More Pics HERE.

Crossing the line again

I did it! My first Half Marathon. All 21km (13 miles) of it! It took 2 hrs and 5 mins. It felt great, and I'm once again grateful for the company of my race-buddy Mairead who kept my mind off my aching legs. Race videos of our victorious finish can be found here.

The Return of the Apartment Fairy

All change.

I'm crashing at my sister's place in London this week and am enjoying some time-out from the blur of changes that have been rapidly taking place in my life in the past weeks.

As I am now zonder Nederlander , I'm having to adjust to a 'single girl in Amsterdam' status again. It's sad, exciting, scary, liberating and strange all at once.

As much as I love our apartment, it is definitely a place for a two-person budget, so my first move was to engage in a flurry of property viewings, which made for a couple of crazy (and at times downright depressing) weeks but by luck my 'apartment fairy' waved her magic wand once more, and I stumbled across a lovely little one bedroom place near the Westerpark, which instantly shouted 'buy me, buy me'. So I did. As simply as that, I find myself a home-owner. Well, I will be by Summer next year (the current owners are due to move on by the end of April). In the meantime I am continuing the hunt for a temporary place to stay.

So I'm turning the page and starting a fresh chapter of my Amsterdam Adventures and am looking forward to creating my own story. Watch this space!

SSSsssssssss...............

I've just got home to see a letter from 14-year old Christiaan on the doormat, who's a bit sad because his pet snake has escaped. This creature is a 'Canadese Kousenbandslang' (this seems to translate from Dutch as a 'Canadian Stocking-bandage Snake'), which looks like this:

In his letter, Christiaan informs us that it is a non-strangling and non-poisonous type of snake. I'm quite happy about this, because the damn thing crawled over my feet in the garden the other day. Christiaan asks that if we happen to spot him, we need to throw a big bucket over him and keep him cool (apparently this calms him down). He doesn't give any tips about how to calm myself down after a bloody-great snake slithers across my bare feet. My advice to Christiaan would be to keep the lid on his snake tank, or just give up and buy a gerbil.

It's the eye of the tiger, It's the thrill of the fight...

Despite the 'wobbly weeble week' I had last week... sleep deprivation, emotional turmoil, blah blah blah.... I succeeded in smashing my personal best time in this year's Dam tot Dam race. I crossed the line at 1 hour, 33 mins and 26 secs, dispelling my own self-created myth that I'm getting too old and creaky for all that nonsense. See if you can spot me at the 10km mark, running along with a silly grin on my face to the tune of 'Eye of the Tiger'.

In the photo I'm almost at the end, close to the finish line with fellow 'girl power' runner Mairead. More photos online here.

The next running challenge is the Amsterdam Half Marathon on the 15th October. I've never run 21km before, but I'm going to give it my best shot.

We Weebles Wobble But We Don't Fall Down

Remember these? I used to love these little guys, and had a set exactly like this when I was a kid.

I'm going through a wobbly weeble-phase at the moment, and am inspired by their resillience.

So it's me and the weebles, still standing!

French Retreat

Montignac le Coq Sept 06 047rotated
Originally uploaded by Lucy Griffith.

Last week I got to bask in some French sunshine during a family holiday. My sister arranged to hire a beautiful farmhouse ('Le Pible') in the tiny village of Montignac le Coq. The house and grounds were fantastic and the perfect place to enjoy a bit of sunshine and tranquility.

It's not often you get to take a dip in your own private pool, then climb out and pick fresh figs from the tree for a post-swim snack, while dripping off in the sunshine.

Little Oscar was there to entertain us all with his new crawling skills and to ride 'elephant style' on his Auntie Lucy's back.

I also got to do some great morning runs through the sunflower fields. The hill-training will be very good preparation for the Dam tot Damloop, which I'm running on Sunday!

Photos are posted here.

Calm Waters

Sailing Event Aug 06 071
Originally uploaded by Lucy Griffith.

Okay, so after all that moaning I thought I'd post in a more serene frame of mind.

The photo was taken during my first sailing experience, at Aalsmeer Sailing School, where I went on Thursday with a group of people from work for a couple of hours on the water.

The sun shone for us and the water was like glass so it was an extremely chilled-out evening. We didn't have too much wind in the sails, so it wasn't exactly a white-knuckle experience, but it was great being out on our little boat ('The Red Devil'). Our little group (an all-girl crew ) included an instructor, Saskia, who explained the basics. Not sure I quite grasped all the concepts, but I gather it's something to do with sail flappiness... or something like that....

Moan, Moan, Moan....

Rain, Rain, Rain, Rain, Rain, then a bit more rain.
Every time I get on my bike I get soaked. Due to my recent nasty trouser accident I was forced to buy some new 'ultra sexy' rain trousers to go with my 'oh so flattering' rain jacket, so now I look like a nerdy drenched rat every time I leave the house.

Because of this spectacularly soggy weather, and because it's monday, and because my metro just stopped inexplicably in the middle of the tracks for half an hour, I feel that I have the right to have a moan. So if you don't fancy hearing me whinge I suggest you stop reading now!

Life in Holland is usually extremely pleasant, but sometimes those 'little things' start to grind. This is usually related to the famous 'relaxed' Dutch approach to customer service. Like waiting TWO HOURS to have a pizza delivered. Yes, really. Then there's the customary half hour wait in the supermarket queue (because they only have two tills open at peak times)only to have one of those 'TILL CLOSED' boards shoved in your face, forcing me and half the population of Amsterdam into ONE VERY LONG queue. And the fact that you can't really buy anything remotely useful in a supermarket. On top of that I'm forced to buy a children's metro ticket for my bike, even though it gains no pleasure in being taken out for the day. While I'm on a roll... They close all the shops on a Monday morning. The DIY places are closed on the day when everyone does DIY - Sunday. However, builders are allowed to operate their drills on a daily basis outside my bedroom window at 6.20am. You can't buy a carton of milk in my neighbourhood on a Sunday. Estate agents only let you view apartments during hours when all the people who can afford to buy one aren't available (ie. Monday to Friday between 9am and 5pm).... etc. etc. etc..

Okay, I feel much better to have got that off my chest. I'm off for a bike ride along the canals to remember why it's so lovely living here!

Boat Trip

It's been ages since I blogged. Since I last wrote we've had a month-long heatwave where Amsterdam basked in the sun and since then a return to the more commonplace grey drizzly weather. Back in the scorching July days we took a trip out on our friends' (Ton and Alice) boat around the lovely Amsterdam canals, taking in the City from a different angle. We sailed out to the North where there was a safe spot to tie up the boat and jump off the side for a cooling dip. When I say 'safe' I mean that the likelihood of meeting a rusting bike (or perhaps the odd corpse?) was more minimal than in the City centre.

It's Not Easy Being Bob

Yesterday evening (after we went dancing at a beach party in Bloemendaal) I was the the designated 'Bob' .

This title comes from the Dutch advertising campaign to prevent drink-driving. The idea is that 'Bob blijft fris' (Bob stays fresh) and drives all his drunk companions home after a night out. I guess the female equivalent is Bobette or Bobientje or something.

This sounds like a simple task, until you take into account that I have never driven in Holland. Despite having been a regular driver and car-owner in the UK, the following points have influenced my decision to stay motor-free in NL for the past three years...

1. They drive on the wrong side of the road
2. The gear stick is on the wrong side of the car
3. The handbreak is on the wrong side of the car
4. The driver's seat is on the wrong side of the car
5. I have very little idea what the Dutch road signs actually mean
6. The road markings are really weird
7. There's nowhere to park in Amsterdam
8. I have a bike

Despite this I was persuaded to drive all the way home. I'm happy to report that we all arrived home safely and it went okay (ahem, apart from the couple of times when Peter had to grab the wheel to stop me mounting the kerb). Of course this was due to the fact that the Dutch drive on the wrong side of the road and that Peter's car is too big... nothing to do with me being a bad Bob.

Perhaps I ought to take some lessons?

Dahl for Dummies

I'm going through a bit of a couch-potato phase at the moment, which is okay until I realise that I've been sat infront of a Korean film with Dutch subtitles for the past two hours and have no comprehension of what the hell is going on.

Time to go read a book.

I am enjoying my second literary childhood. I am re-discovering my love of Roald Dahl, but this time I read the stories to Peter in Dutch. My Dutch tutor suggested that I read aloud to a native speaker so that I can be corrected on my (numerous) pronounciation errors. This is all very well, but I seem to have the knack of sending Peter to sleep before I've got through a couple of pages.

Still, I've learned that the Big Friendly Giant (BFG) transforms into the Grote Vriendelijke Reus (GVR) for little Dutch children and that Charlie (of Chocolate Factory fame) becomes Sjakie. Even though it's a bit of a struggle wrestling with the vocabulary the books are still really great and I'm happy to have an excuse for a good bedtime story, even though I was supposed to have grown out of it years ago. I'm just proud to have increased my reading age in recent months - my Jip en Janneke phase seems like a distant dream to me now.

Poor Trousers

My trousers got run over by a train today.

I was busy running along the platform, hoping to catch the metro that was about to pull away when I was suddenly aware of people shouting 'Mevrouw! Mevrouw!!' at me.

I turned to see that my backpack had opened and my various belongings (dirty gym kit, old newspapers, woolley hat, etc etc.) were strewn the entire length of the platform. Embarrassed, I turned back and started collecting everything together, when I noticed one man pointing down at the train rails. We both stood and looked at my poor trousers, lying down there like the victim of a horrible accident. 'Het trein komt Mevrouw' he said (the train is coming Miss). I think he was worried that I would suddenly hurl myself infront of it on some kind of trouser mercy-mission.

Later Peter came in and was complaining that the Metros were delayed due to problems on the line during his trip home from work. I've heard that leaves on the line can wreak havoc, but surely this doesn't extend to clothing? Or does it?

Falling Down Mountains

After a seemingly endless drive yesterday we're back home from the mountains for the last time this season. We had a great week staying in a little village called Oz en Oisans, nestled just under Alpe D'Huez, in a really lovely apartment(Chalet de Neiges). So much snow had fallen in the days before we arrived that we had plenty of great powder to play in and we couldn't believe our luck with the weather - 6 days of continuous sunshine! The area boasts 245km of pistes, so there was plenty of great runs to discover, then back to the apartment each evening for a hot bath and a bit of home cooking.

Unfortunately our luck didn't extend to staying injury-free and one of our party (Sarah) ended up with a broken leg and damaged knee ligaments after a fall towards the end of the week. Peter also sprained his wrist attempting a jump on his board on the same day. Suitably cautioned, I was definitely taking things easy by Friday, and managed to make it home with nothing more serious than the usual collection of bruises.

The (pre-injury!) photos are online HERE.

Update from Amsterdam

So what's been happening recently?

After three years of working together, my colleague Lisa left last week to start a new career in recruitment in the financial sector in London. It was all pretty sudden, one minute she was a gym manager in Amsterdam and the next minute she's going to be a head-hunter in the City with a swanky new pad in town. She's done really well and I'm proud of her! Working in a two-man team means that you really get used to having someone around. I'll especially miss the little things about working with Lisa - the funny notes she leaves taped to my pc when I arrive in the morning, the way she always notices when you've had your hair cut or are wearing something new, the fact that she always forgives me for PMT-induced grumpiness and for her ability to make a chicken out of a tea towel!

Well, as you can see from previous entries there's been a recent spate of snowboard addiction. I bought a new Volkl Destiny board and some Flow bindings recently, so I have a considerably lighter wallet as a result. Luckily in Lisa's absense I'm getting promoted to manager, which means a pay rise, so I get some extra cash to feed my obsession! We're off to Alpe D'Huez in three weeks time (or, more specifically to a little village called Oz en Oisans) for our next fix of snow, so are keeping an eye on the weather forecast and praying for powder again.

Snow Junkies

I think me and Peter are developing a serious addiction to snowboarding. We got back from Kirchberg (Austria) last monday and started surfing the web for some bargain wintersports breaks before we'd even unpacked our bags. This isn't the cheapest hobby in the world to become addicted to, or the most practical one (alas, Holland doesn't provide many mountains).

Kirchberg was lots of fun! Photographs online here.
In the meantime, here's a pic of me and colleague Ian, pretending that we were 18 again and off to ride the rails in the snowpark. In reality I was off to slowly cruise some blues in a sedate fashion and avoid bruises, like the sensible 34 year old that I am.

Meeting Oscar

I'm in the UK meeting my little nephew Oscar for the first time.
He is so adorable!!

Bob

Bob has to be seen to be believed. Could it be that behind this young 'talent' there's a fantastically pushy showbiz mum, determined to cultivate the next Andre Hazes?

Full bellies

Christmas Dinner 2005