Once upon a time there were Three Dutch Girls….

 

In 1966 Elizabeth went to work at Cacao de Zaan in Zaandijk which is close to us here.  The factory makes cocoa powder from raw materials and is still in operation today. They export their products all over the world. We can smell the processing in Wormer when the wind brings it our way. Elizabeth worked in the telex department.  Nobody has those any more! It was the days of typing pools and punch card operators (for the big mainframe computers). There were coffee ladies dispensing drinks in the offices. No Starbucks! All the managers were men.

It was at this job that Elizabeth met Annie and Betty. Ever since that time they have all remained good friends and are in touch with each other regularly. Not many people stay friends for 56 years! They now play online scrabble together every day.

These two ladies came to visit us on Thursday.

We had taartjes! (Fresh cream cakes).

They also kindly brought wine and some drop (liquorice). 

We had a lovely couple of hours chatting about old times and family matters over coffee, cake and wine. All the ladies speak excellent English so I was able to communicate well despite my poor Dutch. It was good to see the old friends together. They are all obviously still very fond of one another.

After our guests left it was time for Elizabeth and I to take a walk for our daily shopping exercise. It’s a pity my exercise app doesn’t give me points for every shop I visit. But shopping is always an adventure with my Elizabeth. It usually involves getting lost. But not on this occasion.

We had roast potatoes and Brussels sprouts for dinner and then our usual enjoyable quiet night together.

More news soon.