I am now in the French countryside for two days, with Dutch friends in a B&B run by Dutch people. The other guests are all Dutch, but the official announcements are written with chalk on a blackboard in French. We talk a little bit of French among themselves.
Phrases such as: “Is it also fromage for bread?”
There is nothing in the wider area, we are waiting on a pasture of a few hundred square meters until dinner is ready. The first day we ate nothing, we forgot to register on the list in the hall. The coffee maker only works during breakfast.
“We are not a coffee shop.”
The children sit all day with other Dutch children in a pit with water, soon we will go to a French village with a whole string. Then we will buy food at a small Carrefour that we then hide in our gites, because it is not intended that strange food is consumed on the terrace. I am recognized, but usually not out loud, they whisper to each other who I am.
A man, he will undoubtedly read this morning because it is a subscriber, stood behind me when I wrote this column in the breakfast room. He asked: “Are you sorry that Vitesse no longer exists? Or are you already over it?”
He added that he takes a book from me on vacation every year, except this year.
“And now I’ll come across you here.”
I start to hate the target group for my products.
Both our Dutch friend Kees and Eva met a (former) colleague among the other Dutch people.
“How big is that chance?” We wondered aloud on the terrace, the lighting of which suddenly flopped out after the sun’s sink because it is a terrace, but no entertainment area. Small of course unless there is high above someone who has the worst for us. Otherwise I cannot explain a number of decisions lately.
The height/low point is the Honesty-Bar, where you can pour yourself a glass of organic wine if you note it in a notebook. I had a short conversation with a Rotterdam Francophile – “I think everything about this country is great” – who said she always faints when people then donate their glass very full. In the meantime I am really looking forward to Wednesday, then we get clean towels.
Marcel van Roosmalen Writes a column on Monday and Thursday.