Weekend

As the manager of team S. I faced my biggest challenge to date: a whole weekend without Mr S. mid sport season. As Friday evening approached I honestly started to doubt the whole undertaking. Would I honestly be able to pull it off?

In Switzerland, England or Italy I would have welcomed a husband free weekend of blissful uninterrupted book, or B-film filled evenings and idyllic day trip filled days. Back in the Netherlands however, our weekends are taken over by field hockey games and rowing practices.
Saturday morning  I wake up with a start. I have been ignoring an email from my children's scout leader - as a principal I never open any emails that pop up in my in-box adorned with infuriating red exclamation marks - which contains the packing list for the upcoming scout camp next weekend. I decide it is time to face the music.  My daughter doesn't mind so much any more to go away on an overnight camp, as long as she is able to prepare for every eventuality well in advance. She needs this list. Now!
The list actually isn't too bad. I only need to buy two sleeping mats, two high visibility vests and try to locate our camping gear and the children's sleeping bags that I made to disappear somewhere last summer after the move. The accompanying letter from the scout leader even manages to make me smile with its very stern warning against showing up for camp wearing 'UGGs, or any other fashion type boots' as 'a scout with cold, wet feet is a miserable scout'. Indeed.
As our village doesn't have a camping, or outdoorsy type shop, I decide that may be internet shopping is best. Or then again may be not. As it turns out the package and postage fee for two ('light weight!') sleeping mats is almost double the cost of the mats themselves. So we need to drive to Amsterdam to the sports emporium to go buy the darn mats ourselves. But when?
Later today I need to be at the rowing club for my practice session (from 1-2.30) and my son has a field hockey match scheduled for 2.30 for which he demands my in situ support. I need to help out with my daughter's rowing practice on Sunday from 1.00-2.30, which leaves us just enough time to quickly change before we need to take my son and his best mate to the cinema, because they happen to have two coupons that have almost run out.
My daughter by the way doesn't want us to miss the local market where we usually spend our Saturday mornings tasting olives, looking at interesting vegetables and buying cheap jewellery and I don't want us to eat fast food two nights in a row. Oh and did I mention my son's exam week starts on Monday?
It takes the three of us  about 45 minutes and six cups of tea each to come up with a military type operation (code name 'Anaconda') to fit it all in. It's almost ten 'o clock as the 11yo and I cycle to the market where we buy arms full of spring flowers for a ridiculously small amount of money and treat ourselves to hot chocolate and cappuccino in our favourite cafe.
Five minutes after we've come home I am back on my bike again. This time with the 12yo who will help me find high visibility vests. Three shops and many enquiries later it turns out we should have searched for them in a bike shop. Of course!
When we finally get home, I have exactly 8 minutes to change into my rowing clothes. My daughter, bless her, makes me two sandwiches  to devour whilst cycling to the rowing club. All by myself. Me time! Unfortunately it is spend rowing solo for the first time in months. Although I manage to stay afloat it takes me a couple of hours on dry land to get my shoulders down again and my breathing firmly under control.
From the rowing club I bike straight over to my son's field hockey club. It's lovely to watch him play. The weather is warm and sunny for a change so I can soak up some sun while I chat to the other parents. I am honestly having a really good time.
Too soon the match finishes. Time to go sleeping mat shopping. Other than the the fact that we get lost on our way to a shopping mall attached to a football stadium which you can probably see from Mars without a pair of binoculars, it is a very uneventful trip. The shop even has the sleeping mats in stock. While my son and I try to locate all the scout camp necessities, the 11yo will prepare dinner. Which she does. Yay!
By nine 'o clock that evening my children wake me from my sofa slumber and send me to bed. They will follow suit in a little while. Honestly. I am so tired, that - although by now I should know better -  I decide to trust them. They are definitely both in bed when I wake up the next morning, so at some point they must have actually gone to bed. That's good enough for me.
No leisurely cappuccino drinking and newspaper scrolling this Sunday morning however. Instead I get to ask my son silly questions like 'Is there a zoo near by?', 'Are you American?' or 'Is the swimming pool open?', which he translates more or less adequately into French. We have a bit of a giggle at his attempt to write 'qu'est-ce que c'est' (what is) and also at his uncanny ability to make all female words male and vice versa ('une chat', 'une chien', 'un addresse', 'un village').
After the French intermezzo,  he explains in great detail the feudal system, Charles the Great and Saint Boniface. I must admit that I secretly quite enjoy this reacquaintance with the secondary school history curriculum. As soon as we finish our history lesson though, I need to go rowing with my daughter and her team mates.
We set out in a wherry. Two girls row, one steers and I go along for the ride (and to make sure they don't get themselves (or another boat!) in trouble while they are out on the water). We amuse ourselves by coming up with silly names for the various water birds that we spot ('water chicken' and' 'black duckling number 25a' being my favourites by far).
After rowing practice we cycle home, get changed, ready to take the 12yo and his best mate to the cinema in Amsterdam. 'Fortunately' it's the warmest day in March since 1921, so the cinema is completely deserted. While the boys opt for the 'Lego Movie', my daughter insists we go see 'Frozen', (how appropriate) which turns out to be utterly enchanting.
Dinner consists of a tray of limp chips and rather sad chicken nuggets in a fast food restaurant. No matter what 'made from scratch' loveliness you usually prepare at home; fast food is what they secretly want. So much so that it is almost impossible to divide 20 nuggets between the three of them. It isn't until my son decides to forgo a seventh nugget if he can eat all my chips, that peace is being restored.
By nine 'o clock I have them in bed. More me time! A glass of wine and exactly twenty two minutes of staring at God knows what on the telly and I am ready to call it a night. Just as I am about to drift of, I give myself a huge pat on the back. I did pull it off after all. And even better, I really enjoyed this weekend. Time to seriously count my blessings:  three days at the office to recover and two days at home to prepare, before, just like Katie Perry 'We''ll do it all again!'.

How to watch the winter Olympics

I absolutely adore the winter Olympics as they invariably mean I get to watch hours and hours of guilt free daytime television. And all of that in the dreariest time of year. A week of diligent practice sees my watching skills honed and my pick of companions perfected.

  




Downhill, Giant slalom, Slalom, Super G, super Combined
Love, love, love to watch this in the company of my husband and father in law. Especially my father in law can tell you without hesitating once who won in 1958, '62 ,'68, '72 etc. The man is a living sport encyclopaedia and Mr S is not far behind. Flanked on either side by one of them ensures that I know what is happening metre to metre, or bend to bend. Marvellous!


Speed skating
No matter the weather, you need to find an old, wood clad Dutch pub with at least one big flat screen TV. Since the sun is finally out for the first time in days (weeks!) you better find a really dark pub, the kind that isn't famous for its view. Regardless of the time of day you order a beer and 'bitterballen' to wash it down. Feel the tension building as the first orange and black skate suits enter the ice rink. This is what we Dutch are famous for. So famous in fact that by now we have discouraged the rest of the world population to ever want to pick up speed skating. Tough.

Skeleton
You must be completely out of your mind to want to go face forward, nose tip ten centimetres from the ice, down an icy track at break neck speed. But since the English have Lizzy Yarnold who said she was going to win gold (and did) it has been great fun to watch. But I still can't imagine what training for such an event must be like...

Ice dancing
Who knew that you could do a quickstep, foxtrot or charleston on skates? The athletes competing in this event for sure, but I had no idea. How perfectly enchanting to watch. Especially when you really need to get back to work, but you allow yourself to let 'just a few minutes' in front of the telly, turn into a long afternoon filled with musical hits, sparkly outfits and synchronised skating. Absolute bliss.

Curling
First of all get your ironing pile out. Install your ironing board in front of the TV. Curling is so mind-numbingly dull that watching it provides a great opportunity to do equally boring jobs. Curling is best watched in solitude. At least in my case, because I really, really do not want anyone to explain the rules to me, as it would loose its meagre appeal altogether if I knew what they were doing with the silly brooms. It's definitely the guesswork that keeps me entertained. Oh and the Russian calendar girls of course.

Biathlon
The best sport to watch whilst you're munching your way trough a TV dinner. Nothing makes me more hungry than watching the exertion of the athletes involved. Biathlon is  a brutal sport where you have to hoist yourself around an endless track on two knitting needles, whilst every other 5 kilometres or so you have to try and hit a couple of milk caps with an air riffle. Dessert anyone?

Snowboard Cross
The drama and spectacle of this event is almost unsurpassed. When six snowboarders are let loose at an immensely difficult track full of jumps, twists and turns, everyone watching - including me! - is holding their breath. And boy do they fall and take each other out. 'It's as frantic as during a half price meat sale at Lidl', according to one of the commentators. I couldn't have put it any better.

Ice Hockey
I must admit that I really struggle to sit through an ice hockey game. If I have to watch it from my own sofa at least. Because when my wonderful Canadian friends H. and R. kindly invited me to a hockey game when we visited them in Toronto last Christmas, I thought the sport was absolutely wonderful. So with the right atmosphere and the knowledgeable commentary of my friends, I can be a great spectator sport. During the winter Olympics however hockey games are a great time to read the newspaper cover to cover.

Slope Style Snowboarding or Skiing 
 I love the grinding and jumping and the recklessness of the competitors, bust most of all I love the comments of my 12yo when he is joining me in front of the telly. Only one or two days into the competition and he was fluent in the lingo. Nowadays he spots a 'melon grab', 'truck driver', or 'Indy' a mile off. He is also very accurate when it comes to telling the difference between a flip, spin or cork and completely understands the abracadabra of the 180, 360, or 540 degree rotations the athletes display. Now all I have to to is thoroughly discourage him from trying any of those tricks himself when we next go skiing...

Which in fact we are, tomorrow! This Saturday it'll be the first time on ski's since we left Switzerland. Finally we'll be in the mountains again. The mountains where my 11yo daughter 'belongs' (her words) and my 12yo will have Mr S and me sit in endless snow parks, camera at the ready to capture his jumps (but hopefully not his 'spins', 'flips' or 'corks'. I for one am look forward to wall to wall sunshine (hopefully), long leisurely lunches (definitely) and trying to keep up with the rest of the clan. So hasta la vista everyone! I am off.

Hunters vs gatherers

Although in some ways our modern day society is millions of light years removed from the prehistoric hunter/gatherer way of doing things, in other ways it hasn't changed one bit.  Mr.S and the 12yo boy love to hunt (kill!); while the 11yo girl and me put up remarkably well with the gathering of food in the local supermarket, chatting all the time.

Nothing brings this home to me more than the mysterious computer game 'Clash of Clans' that both my men are completely addicted to. The objective of this game can easily be captured in the slogan  'to kill or be killed', which the male half of the family finds hugely appealing, whereas my daughter and I can't even be bothered to feign that we're interested. While we talk about lovely stuff to grow, cook, bake and eat, the boys have developed their own, personal lingo.
 'I am under attack', is something Mr S announces on a regular basis these days. 'Better rearm', answers the 12yo succinctly without for the time being taking his eyes of his own on screen battle. 'I don't know why I am taking these witches into battle with me, because each time that I do they are getting killed straight away'. This time, the 12yo decides to walk over to his father to look at the battle in progress. 'Use them as a support troop dad', he starts. 'Put them at the back, that way they can be very useful'.
And so it goes on and on and on. They talk gold mines, battle castles, goblins, elixir, sieges, cups and levels. High fives are exchanged when one of them has reached another level or wins more cups/gold/elixir.
Mr S., when he thinks no one is watching, even goes as far as watching football and playing 'Clash of Clans' at the same time. As long as the goals don't interfere with his digging for gold, or fortifying his virtual village, he is in heaven.
I of course am just as bad, when it comes to guilty online pleasures. But as a typical gatherer, who in prehistoric times needed to talk all the time, to scare of any lurking, scary animals, I use my online time to communicate. Preferebly while I am chopping vegetables, filling lunch boxes, pulling mouldy PE kits out of bags,  or doing something else that is useful at the same time.  I 'talk' with fellow blogsters, send messages to my friends, take a peek at facebook so that I can 'like' what everyone in my circle (clan?) is doing,  post some photo's myself, listen to a TED talk and scroll through instagram.
But lately I am wondering whether it wouldn't be much more relaxing to do some killing myself. It might be utterly liberating to rule the virtual world from within the walls of 'Mrs S' ville'. Instead of liking posts, chatting to friends, or digesting hundreds of blog posts, I might find that after some virtual war fare I feel so relaxed, I could tackle my admin, pair up thirty pairs of socks in various shades of black, or sort out the five or so miscellaneous drawers in our house, without actually killing one of my house mates in the process.
I let that thought sit with me for a couple of days in which I pay particular attention to the boys in my household. Killing other clans doesn't seem to particularly make them want to do anything useful afterwards. And for my son at least 'talking' to his mates is one of the main attractions of joining a clan. Because: 'When I am awake really early and check my clan, quite often N. is also playing 'Clash of Clans' and then we sometimes chat for an hour.' Mr S. on the other hand, prefers not to join a clan, as he loves to be in total control of his own virtual set up.
Mmm. As a typical female I never feel more in control, (or loved) than just after I have ran something by my friends and they wholeheartedly agreed with whatever I expressed. Communicating online for me really is very relaxing (and so much cheaper than my other vice: internet shopping). All in all I think it's best if I leave the virtual killing, as well as the admin, paring of socks and messy drawers, to the men in my life. Time to check whether my online friends agree...