Zombies herald the winds of change.

 

Walking the newly bald Alfie earlier today, a warm draft brushed my cheek.  It should have felt pleasant, it didn’t.  It felt as though I was walking past one of those choked up restaurant extractor fans, spewing recycled air and grease onto the streets. This warm air is a harbinger of change; it announces summer, not the bogus exotic summer of last week. But, the long awaited temporal summer that flits briefly from spring to autumn, never quite settling long enough to become familiar.

                There is a lot of change happening in our small expat community. Living arrangements are being redefined; people are resigning their position as expats and going home, while others make their position more permanent. It all feels a little unnerving.

  

              Mr Sunshine and I are experiencing a few changes too. I’ve started looking at new apartments, I’ve not actually been to see any - that would be tempting providence (we haven’t heard if we’ll be asked to stay yet). It’s not that we don’t love our apartment, we do. It’s the noise that’s getting us down. During the winter the noise isn’t a problem, but once the sun arrives and the Hijgend Hert throws open its yellow doors, the regular bands become less quaint.

                It all came to a head a fortnight ago, when my mum arrived from the UK to a heat wave and dozens of zombies roaming the street outside our apartment. The zombie themselves were quite entertaining, the pulsating zombie theme music that accompanied them until 2 am wasn’t.

                ‘I can’t do this anymore Trace, it’s gone beyond a joke.’ Said Mr Sunshine.

                For once I agreed with him.

                I’m not sure I agreed with the other change in Mr Sunshine though. A few weeks ago, you might remember we went to see Cesar Millan. Despite the distraction of Cesar's nipple tweaking on stage, we did learn a few important lessons. One of which is: your dog needs to engage with his nose more often at home so he feels like he’s earned his treats. Now, Alfie has a very active nose whenever we’re out, there isn’t a urine soaked lamp post or antique turd he hasn’t glued his little wet nose too within 5 kilometres of the apartment. However, in the apartment his nose had become totally redundant, so Mr Sunshine took it upon himself to transform into Alfie’s mentor.

Amazing patience

                Most dog owners would settle for training or teaching the dog, which would, of course be too easy.  The mentoring starts when Alfie is called into the kitchen to watch Mr Sunshine prepare a few treats. Then Alfie is asked to wait in the kitchen while the treats are hidden in the lounge, which I have to say, Alfie does with amazing patience.  

                ‘Go find them.’ Yells, Mr Sunshine.

                 Alfie bounds into the lounge dashing round the furniture looking for his treats.

                ‘Use your nose. ‘Mr Sunshine says.

Alfie continues to unsuccessfully look for his treats.

‘Like this, sniff-sniff-sniff.’ Mr Sunshine is teaching by example.

Alfie continues to look for his treats.

‘Sniff-sniff-sniff, come on you can do it.’ It’s the example thing again.

Then he does, Alfie’s little nose drops to the floor as he impersonates his mentor. Cheers of encouragement  escape both our mouths whenever Alfie draws close to his treat, as do sighs of disappointment as he walks right past. It’s a slow process, but with his mentors help Alfie is finally learning to use his nose at home.

Other changes this week:

1. Alfie needed to be scalped when we found him foaming at the mouth after trying to eat another tick, his long hair was lovely but a heaven for burrowing ticks.
2. I lost last week’s will power and gain a couple of lbs. - it’s not looking good for Turkey and bikinis.
3. The best news is that our shower is blocked. Doesn’t sound like good news you might think – remember my plumber?  

Letters from the Netherlands: When being a trailing spouse sucks

Letters from the Netherlands: When being a trailing spouse sucks: Not everything is coming up roses Each week my experience as a trailing spouse evolves.

When being a trailing spouse sucks

Not everything is coming up roses

Each week my experience as a trailing spouse evolves. Sometimes the experience is enjoyable - the semi naked plumber last week, sometimes the experiences are educational -  I now know that cockerels can indeed fly, even if only for a short distance, sometimes the experiences have been thought provoking – is the Dutch medical system really better than the one we have in the UK?

The week my experiences sucked!

Firstly, after a week of being treated to meals out and indulgences by my very generous mother, Mr Sunshine and I decided that enough is enough. Talking about losing weight hadn’t actually had any noticeable effect; neither had cutting toe nails before easing my way onto the scales. However,  I did find if I placed most of my weight onto my left foot while leaning ever so slightly over the bathtub I could shave off a couple of lbs. Actual shaving on the other hand had no tangible effect.

The time had arrived; we have less than eight weeks before our jollies to Turkey and a rather substantial amount of weight to lose if we weren’t going to wander to the beach as a rather flabby, flaccid middle aged couple who obviously don't own a full length mirror.

Okay, so my scales will NEVER
give this reading, but its a good photo.

Drastic action was call for: Mr Sunshine has sworn of booze and I’m surviving on fruit and pureed cauliflower - I’ve been happier.  But it’s paying off; I set myself a weight loss goal of 18lbs (8.2 kilos) and by Friday had lost 5lbs.  I suppressed the vision of myself becoming the new weight loss queen; Oprah Winfey already claimed that title several times. Besides, I know myself too well, maintaining a diet beyond a few days is for people with will power, not me. I’ve tried muttering Kate Moss’ famous phrase ‘Nothing tastes so good and being skinny feels.’ Health reasons apart, that phrase is full of holes.  Has she eaten homemade carrot cake, Champagne ice cream within a white chocolate case, or chocolate fondant filled with toffee? I rather doubt it, if she had, she’d keep those ridiculous statements to herself.

Dieting sucks.

Secondly, this week Mr Sunshine had a chance to relive his youth.  A quick train ride to Amsterdam after work had him meeting up with his friends from his days at Manchester University. He was home early though (not trusting the trains in the Nederlands) to tell me all about his great evening of reminiscing and curry.
He didn’t ask me about my evening!

Earlier that day, Alfie and I met up with friends in the forest, Sally and Maggie (Canine Miss Breda). Maggie usually looks and behaves like a princess, however once in the forest she develops a passion for swimming in the blackest, sludgiest water. Alfie on the other hand, stands on the edge of the sludge watching in confusion as Maggie contentedly doggie paddles back and forth, only her nose and eyes jutting out of the sludge. I couldn’t help but feel thankful that Alfie doesn’t like the water; at least I wouldn’t have to bath him that night.

Fate doesn’t like me to feel thankful though.  Later, I started to notice an unpleasant, shit scented odour following me around the apartment, it was everywhere, or more actually everywhere that Alfie was.  Our perfect little dog smelt shockingly of shit, I could smell it on him, but not actually see it – that was until I lifted his ears! There they were, two nice sticky lumps, one each side, somehow Alfie had managed to lift his floppy ears and press the side of his neck down into the fresh excrement of another dog, much the same way as I dab perfume behind my ears. Hiding under the table wasn’t gonna help him this time, I armed myself with super strong shampoo and dragged him under the shower.

Not a dead sweetcorn at all

And that’s when it happened. Clinging above Alfie’s left eyebrow was the ghost of a sweetcorn, a grey lump that wobbled when flicked. Five minutes on the internet searching for ‘grey sweetcorn kernel stuck on my dog’ revealed distressing information; it wasn’t a sticky vegetable but a tick!

Finding ticks suck.

**************************************************************************

Ticks and dieting might suck, but they paled into insignificance by my final experience. Opening Facebook one morning I was delighted to see a message from John my youngest son. This is what the message said:

Hi mum,

Just updating you, I was in A & E last night, I have pneumonia. I have antibiotics, so should be fixed soon.

John

There is nothing that sucks more than being a trailing spouse and hearing one of your children is ill and several hundred miles away. It doesn’t matter, that your child is a grown man, and that your child is more than capable of looking after himself. All that matters is that you ache, really physically heart wrenchingly ache to be there.