We are family...

Having survived my planes trains and automobiles day on Monday and worked the rest of the week in Ireland, on Friday I headed for Dublin airport to Fly to Holland for what turned out to be a busy round of visiting and meeting friends in Franca’s home city, Rotterdam. I arrived from Ireland during the afteroon without incident, apart from forgetting to collect my luggage from the carrousel, luckily I was still at the airport when I remembered. I got to Rotterdam early enough to walk with Franca’s mum to the station to meet Franca and Fleur who came up from France by train, an 8 hour journey on 3 trains, one taxi and a lift from a friend.

No time for a lay in though as Saturday morning was shopping morning for the party we were giving on Sunday afternoon for our Dutch friends.

Saturday afternoon was an exciting afternoon for Franca, as we went to see a half brother that she did not know she had until very recently. After an odd, getting to know you, hour or so it turned in a lovely afternoon and evening, discovering parts of Franca’s family that we were previously not aware of. I think as things stand Franca’s ‘new’ brother and his family will be firm friends… indeed just like family. Franca's brother turns out to be a good cook and in fact went to hotel school, before embarking on another career, so he could probably teach us a thing or two about our business, and he will no doubt have an opportunity to do so before the end of the year work permitting.

On Sunday afternoon we had a little party at Franca’s mums house for our Dutch friends, many of whom have already been to see us in France, and have even helped us working on the house, so that was good fun catching up with people we had not seen for ages, and as is the Dutch tradition we, and Fleur in particular, got lots of lovely presents, which made the suitcases somewhat heavier on the return trip to France.

On Sunday evening we went out to dinner with the witnesses to our wedding, they are the equivalent of best man/chief bridesmaid in English terms. We went to a Spanish tapas bar/restaurant, which was great fun with live music from a strolling trio, making for a lovely atmosphere, and a fun evening.

I am more or less convinced that as far as the food goes I am unimpressed with the Spanish tapas, not a patch on a Greek meze, but then that is probably just down to my taste, after all you can’t like everything. When you go to Spain the food tastes completely different, this from the man who has not got further than Santander, but they cook a mean paella there.

Then on Monday morning at 5:00am I was back in the car to drive to Amsterdam airport to catch a flight back to London to go to work…