My Blog
My musings about the world, self publishing, living abroad, and my author career.
More Dutch things
And how could I forget: Chocolate sprinkles on toast is a perfectly accepted breakfast food Children on their birthday give presents to everyone else in their class Vegetables in the supermarket change price markedly depending on the season The default cooking...
Dutch things
Some expected and unexpected things about living in the Netherlands:The wall kitchen cupboards are too high for me to reach without a stepCars give way to bikes (& pedestrians) at roundaboutsWhen you go into a waiting room (eg at the doctor) you say hello to...
Dutch time
The Dutch tell the time in a very different way to the English, so it's taken me a while to get used to it. Firstly they work it out relative to both the hour and the half hour. And secondly the half hour is described by the next hour, rather than the one that's...
Six months in
So we've been in the Netherlands for six months. That feels both like a really long time and no time at all! Looking back we seem to have achieved quite a bit, including: Preschool - my son seems to have settled in well, and my daughter is registered for when she...
Shopping
When we first moved we found the closest supermarket (or three!) to our house so we could buy food. And we learnt where things were in it and the Dutch for the foods we eat often. Then as other things run out I've had the challenge of finding them (eg soy sauce is...
Learning
It's amazing to watch my son learning Dutch, as he's just integrating it into his speech. Every so often he asks what the Dutch is for something we're talking about, which can be quite tricky as I don't always know! But he's also using Dutch words normally in...
Review of 2014 & 2015 plans
Well this has been a big year for us: a new baby and not just moving house, but moving country. Considering how frustrated we were with trying to move in the UK in 2013 I can't really believe how easy it was to move here. Everything really seemed to fall into place!...
Dutch-English Christmas
This year Christmas has been different for quite a few reasons: we're now a family of four; we're living in the Netherlands; but primarily because this is the first year that we've been at home, rather than visiting either my parents or my in-laws. So we've also had...
Advent
One thing that I made a few years ago was these small advent stockings, and building on ideas that I'd spotted last year (mainly the kindness elves at imagination tree) I set up a series of activities to do every day leading up to Christmas. I also made a few new tiny...
Nursery rhymes
It's quite fun to learn nursery rhymes in a different language - it makes you appreciate the differences 🙂 as well as the difficulties of translating what are essentially poems/songs! Some differences I've noticed: - Little sheep, little sheep, do you have any white...
Differing libraries
I'd assumed that public libraries were something that would be the same here as in England, but that's not the case. It's not so much the practical details, as the underlying philosophy. Firstly there is a membership charge for those over 18 (~£50 a year). Then the...
Pronunciation
It's funny starting to learn a language as an adult; however much you can deride most language learning at schools in the UK, it's difficult to replicate. And it takes a long time to get vocabulary and grammar to a level that's good enough to be able to have a...