Many years ago I lived in England for a few years, I am sure I have told you all about it on many occasions. Even though I love my life in The Netherlands, the love of my life my wife, and my four children and all the friends I have here, I do long to be there at times.
I think it has to do with all these great memories I have of those good time I had as a young man, being in England, having friends around me there (just as I have them around me here nowadays) and not in the least the British food. Yes, there are times I wish I could just pop over for a pint or a proper English meal.
The Sols Hole. That would be the accurate translation of the Dutch name Het Solsche Gat.
Yes I know, I am not a keen sharer of petitions because I have the feeling it never helps and I must admit, even this one will probably be of little interest to you but today I must act. I urge you to sign a petition. I just did, wholeheartedly. You see, I am what they call an anglophile, I love England.
Ok, this is by far my best childhood memory: the steam operated merry-go-round in The Efteling theme park in The Netherlands.
And I would walk 500 more. Ok, maybe I won’t do exactly that though but only because I am physically incapable of walking that far.
I remember I once -out of sheer stubbornness- sat on the roof. I was eight or nine years old and I climbed out of the attic window because I didn’t want to eat Chicory. I loathed Chicory.
Years ago in the early 1990’s I lived in a little two bedroom house along a dirt road in the country side of The Netherlands. I was struggling to find a job and regarded as poor but I could always pay the gas bill so I was ok I reckoned.
This is how I remember it, Brundall railway station. In 1989 I got off the train here, with a knot tied in my stomach. A month before I left the army, not knowing what to do with my life and my uncle, The Brains they called him in the family, advised me “to go far away for a while to grow up and find out who I am”.
