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photo page 17 |
We spend the last two weeks of December in Holland, to celebrate
the birthday of Henk's mother, for Christmas, New Year and of course to visit
Henk's father in the nursery home "De Sterrenlanden". Pa's condition has
improved a lot since a severe thrombosis and the flu hit him.
Our rental car has a very appropriate color for this time of year, and we
call it "Kerstbal" (Christmas decoration). Splendid little car with lots
of buttons, indicators and even cruise control. Henk drives it over 1400
kilometer in just two weeks, visiting customers and our partner in Zwolle.
Vicky and Mario invite us to celebrate New Years Eve at their home, and we
have a great time. On New Year's day we eat traditional "oil-balls" with
mom and dad in the nursery home, and then we pack our suitcases and fly back
to Eilat on January 2nd.
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Regular trips to Holland keep our stock of bear necessities in good shape:
'drop', coffee, peanuts and salmiak-sweets aplenty! We went to Holland with
two empty suitcases, and brought them back filled to the rim.
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Winter in Eilat is usually very comfy, with day temperatures around 20C,
but when the sun goes down, the temperature drops as well. It is a desert
climate after all, and nights are cold. Therefore, we bought an old-fashioned
looking radiator heater on a very modern looking base. The heat is concentrated,
quick and wonderful.
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Henk is on a cooking spree. The first project is an apple
cake just the way his mother makes them. Despite suspicious ingredients with
cooking instructions in Hebrew only, and guessed quantities, the result is
just fine. At a little pasta dinner with Monique and Dani we decorate the
cake with vanilla ice-cream and whipped cream, oh my....
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Terrible news from Holland: Henk's fathers health has suddenly
deteriorated. Brother Hans calls us Friday early afternoon to tell that Pa
has pneumonia, and will receive morphine to ease breathing. The prognosis
is even so bad that we cannot expect to reach Holland in time to see him
alive. We leave Monique halfway lunch at Shibolim, and race to the booking
agency. Just five minutes before closing time, Sonja dashes in and arranges
two tickets to Amsterdam. There are no flights on the Sabbath, and the earliest
opportunity is a flight on Saturday night to Tel Aviv, and early Sunday morning
to Schiphol. All night long we hang around at Ben Gurion airport, until finally
the plane leaves at 7:00. We disembark in Amsterdam completely knackered.
By train and taxi to the nursery. Pa is still alive, and sound asleep as
he has been since Friday. We spend an hour at his bedside, until sleep gets
the better of us and we leave for home. That night, at two o'clock, the phone
rings. Sonja kind-of wakes up, thinks it is the alarm clock, and turns it
off. But then we realize that is was the telephone and that can only mean
one thing: Pa has passed away.
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The preparations for the service keep us occupied in the next
few day. Together with the family we compose the texts for the mourning cards
and for the newspaper announcement, and we update Ma's website. The booklet
with Pa's biography needs a final chapter. We decide to finish the booklet,
a job which was both sad and joyful, and print 100 copies to present it to
everyone attending the ceremony.
The booklet has also been added to ma's website (in Dutch only):
www.xs4all.nl/~omapragt
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Ma has a moment of quiet reflection before condolences start. On the coffin
is branch of the orchid that has been in their home for many years.
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Ma had one very specific wish for the service, that everyone
attending would not bring large wreaths or floral emblems, but just a single
flower with a personal last farewell to pa. After long consideration, Henk
found the reed-mace most appropriate. Although actually not a flower,
it is a reminder of both pa's favorite fishing beat and of their party shop
with its resemblance of a trick cigar.
As the plant was not available in any shop at this time of the year, we went
to the Biesbosch to find some. Henk is cutting a fine one here, while slowly
sinking into the mud to way over his ankles. But we did have our cigars.
One of these actually exploded the other day, due to the high temperature
at home, and Sonja had the other three wrapped up in cellophane and retouched
them with some brown paint.
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Four weeks we stayed in Holland. All this time, our mini-van Shai was collecting
dust in the parking underneath the building. But it was well used by a couple
of cats: you can see the cats paws in the dust on the windshield.
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After arranging the paperwork, our first call was the car wash in
Eilat. The car goes through without driver, but with the engine running.
When it leaves the track it heads straight to a brick wall, but just in time
some of the employees come running, jumps in, brakes and then parks the car
outside....
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...then someone else shows up with a cloth and starts wiping the car from
top to bottom. Probably 12 employees work there, it takes about a quarter
of an hour, but for only 25 shekel (4 euro) you get a lot of entertainment
and a shining car.
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The day we flew back to Holland for pa's demise, we had planned to go to
Ikea in Netanya, to buy a closed cupboard in the kitchen, some Billy bookshelves
in the study and a few more items. Now that we are back in Eilat, we pick
things up where we left them, so on Friday we go back to Shibolim and have
lunch with Monique, and on Saturday we drive through the desert, via Mitzpe
Ramon, Beersheva and Tel Aviv to Netanya. It is the only Ikea in Israel,
and it takes well over 5 hours to get there! In Netanya we found lots of
bushes of Rosemary in full flower, in February!!.
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Netanya is a sea-side resort at the Mediterranean coast, and although it
is usually cooler than Eilat, this day is exceptionally warm. Lots of people
on the beach, we walk the entire promenade, and enjoy dinner outside at a
restaurant called London.
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The hotel Margoa in Netanya, although rather basic, is very close to
the sea front and has a very warm and friendly atmosphere. It is also pleasantly
quiet, that is until these burley blokes began to dismantle their scaffolding.
This is the view from our room at the fourth floor. And look, there is Fidel
Castro earning some extra pennies!
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We're back at Ikea, just like almost a year ago, but this time with
our own mini-van. The traditional hot-dogs have been eaten, Israeli style,
with sausages made of turkey in stead of pork, but dependably luke-warm.
Almost everything on our wish list was in stock, so loading can begin.
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No matter how big the car, we will always find stuff bigger than will fit
the trunk. The cupboard we selected was 2,36m, and the cargo space measures
only 1,80, so part of the cupboard was sticking out. We tied a rope to the
door, used the parking camera as an electronic mirror, and after 5 hours
driving through the Arava (the desert valley that runs from the Dead Sea
to the Red Sea, part of the "Great Rift"), all the stuff was still there.
Yuval came to the rescue to unload the packages, as the elevator was
also a bit undersized for this cupboard.
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The 'monster' under construction. The former cupboard, an open storage rack,
has already been emptied and moved to the study. The new cupboard is
60 cm deep and 150cm wide. That should be enough for quite some cups and
saucers!
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The result: 3 doors, 4 drawers, 10 shelves, lots of space and no more dusty
crockery. The construction took just one evening, thanks to Henk's huge experience
with Ikea stuff.
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A new feature on the balcony: a plant with smashingly beautiful flowers
made of lots of tiny red stamen that pop out of little green sockets. The
combined color is soft red, and Son fell in love at first sight. The plant
was bought in Eilat, but originates from Australia.
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The window sill of the bedroom is visited by pairs of loudly cooing pigeons
that serve as a reliable alarm clock, every morning at 6. The DIY sells these
prickly mats to repel the animals, and Henk glued a full meter of them on
the sill. The very next morning, the pigeons were back, trying all morning
to get rid of the pins and meanwhile shitting all over them. So, it was back
to the DIY for two more strips. A fakir would love this windows sill, but
it seems to work: we haven't heard a single pigeon in days.
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