Med Trip - June 24 & 25

Today was the family gathering in Deventer with the Meijer clan. I had put out a message to all Dutch family members suggesting we meet while we were in Holland, and my cousin in Groningen offered to arrange a lunch location in Deventer, about 20 minutes away from us, for June 24 at 11AM. He said he would drive my uncle and aunt from Groningen too. None of my other cousins came, some with legitimate reasons and some with very flimsy reasons. We arrived at the booked location at 11 AM. Twenty minutes later the restaurant got a call from my cousin, who was at our rental place in Wesepe. Oops, miscommunication. He eventually arrived with his 4 year old son, my uncle and aunt, and his sister's, (she declined because she was in Italy), daughter and her boyfriend. We had a very good time meeting each other and having lunch together. We had our first krokets of the trip. I only knew my cousin from facebook and met my uncle and aunt once, on our last trip. It was good. I heard another uncle and aunt might have come but she was put out that she had not gotten a personal invitation, enen though they were not on facebook and her children were notified through facebook. Oh well. In the evening we were visited by a niece of my brother-in-law in Abbotsford, the one who discovered our rental and put my sister onto it. For some reason, she wanted to meet us even though she did not know us. We had a nice visit.

July 25 was my mom's 97th birthday but I was sure she was not only unaware of it, but had not missed us these past four weeks. Jo had phone her cousin at the last minute and arranged to meet for a bosche boll, a local specialty which is really a giant cream puff filled to capacity with a special whipped cream and totally covered with the most delicious dark chocolate ever, in Den Bosch, a quaint Catholic city some 75 minutes away. The weather was a little overcast but pleasant. We found the local park and ride and took the bus to the town centre by the Sint Jan cathedral. We ran into them right away and we had a nice time, enjoying the local pastry as well a few cups of great coffee. The plan was for Sister G and BIL to take the city boat tour, which went through all the underground canals which ran under the old houses and we might explore on our own. The cousin and friend already had plans. A man at the next table said it was going to rain in an hour or so, and sure enough, an hour later, the rain came. We retreated to the cathedral to look around. The cousin went out and bought plastic ponchos for all of us. We walked around for a little while, but it was clear that there was no let up in sight. The boat tours had been cancelled because if the weather. The big square was covered in tents from the Saturday market but it also lost its charm in the rain. We packed it in and drove home. We picked up some more krokets, croquettes n French and English, for dinner. It dried up a little in the evening but the forecast was not hopeful for our last day tomorrow.

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