When Annie Verboom-Prikken from Nijesleek received a phone call on March 30 and someone said on the other end of the line that she was calling on behalf of the royal house, she first thought she was being tricked. in the village hall of Wilhelminaoord and at Museum De Proefkolonie in Frederiksoord, I thought: damn, this is all right,” laughs Verboom-Prikken. It turned out to be an invitation to lunch with King Willem-Alexander because of his ten-year reign.
“Whether I wanted to accept that invitation”, Verboom-Prikken continues. Well, she did. Not much later an official invitation landed on the mat. “A beautiful letter, just that. With a royal crown on it”, she beams. “But I was still a bit taken aback by it, you know. There are a lot of things that go through your mind when you are invited to something so special.” And not only them. She was one of a hundred invited by His Majesty yesterday. Queen Máxima and Princess Beatrix were also there.
“I kept it to myself for a long time that I was allowed to have lunch with them,” says Verboom-Prikken. Why actually? “Nerves? No, I wasn’t nervous. Maybe just because it was so special,” she thinks. Still, the day started a bit on a minor note. Ramona Rösener Manz-van de Walle, the caretaker of the village hall in Wilhelminaoord who had given Verboom-Prikken for lunch, was supposed to bring her along with her husband Jos, but her dentist was unrelenting: yesterday a tooth had to be pulled. “So Jos drove me to The Hague, very sweet.”
She was well on time at the royal stables of Huis ten Bosch Palace, where every guest was awaited for a cup of coffee. Then they went by bus to the palace itself. “Yes, that felt quite royal,” she laughs. “Whether I also had a hat on? No, fortunately no one had that. But of course I was dressed in my Easter best. I had a green jacket on. Then you can at least be clearly recognized.”
Once in Huis ten Bosch, the guests received an explanation from the ladies-in-waiting about what to expect and were allowed to enter a large staircase. “And that was a very nice moment, because when we walked up the stairs, King Willem-Alexander, Queen Máxima and Princess Beatrix were waiting for us in a row at the top. Everyone then handed over their invitation letter to the royal family afterwards. to shake hands. When I suddenly heard a loud voice say ‘Annie Verboom from Nijesleek’, it was my turn.”
Verboom-Prikken normally always has a word ready, but when she shook hands with the king, she was more or less speechless. “Then I just congratulated Willem-Alexander on his tenth anniversary. And he thought it was nice that I was there, he said.” And that came across as sincere, she thought. “They all look at you sincerely, yes, Beatrix too, a real mother figure. She has just as crooked fingers as I do,” laughs the 74-year-old volunteer.
But then lunch had yet to come. When the resident of Nijesleek has to list everything on the menu, it seems more sensible to take a look at the menu. “After an aperitif and the starter, we got a main course with rouleau of guinea fowl and morel sauce, Dutch asparagus, vegetables and rösti. Then we got ice cream after,” she recalls. “Yes, they were all luxurious things. Wonderful.”
During dessert, Princess Beatrix sat down at the table where Verboom-Prikken also sat. “She indicated that she was happy that she could sit with us for a while. We were lucky with that, because there were about twelve tables and the royal family cannot be everywhere at once.” The woman from Drenthe was amazed at what Beatrix knew. “For example, she knew where Frederiksoord was. And when I spoke to Willem-Alexander, he also knew it, because he had been to the Colonies of Benevolence in 2018.”
Verboom-Prikken could not resist pointing out to the king that museum De Proefkolonie has also been opened there since 2019. “Did I ask if he wanted to come by? No, but I said very subtly that the museum is very worthwhile,” she concludes with a wink.