Going Dutch: the Story of our Relocation

I dropped my wee boy off at school this morning. It was his first day. He’s not even four yet, but they start early here in the Netherlands. Three weeks after moving here from Edinburgh, brave little Calum walked in the door and sat quietly as the teacher conducted the class in Dutch. He told me afterwards that he understood goedemorgen.

Everything is different for us now. The car’s been ditched, and the school run was done on my new pride and joy: a bakfiets. This thing is a cross between a bike and a wheelbarrow, with an optional tent on top for rainy days. We rode past the weekly market, past the ponies in their field, and the 18th century windmill which had yet to get going for the day.

We live in a village called Santpoort-Noord, just outside Haarlem, to the west of Amsterdam. My husband has taken a job at the University of Amsterdam (he has a scary two years to learn fluent Dutch), and I still can’t believe I’m doing what I said I’d never do, and following him out of the country.

I never wanted to leave Scotland. I lived in London once, but it was too foreign for me. I speak Gaelic; I play the fiddle; I’m a lifelong supporter of Scottish independence; I love malt whisky, Irn Bru and haggis. I don’t deny it: I’m a cliché tied up in a tartan ribbon.

For me, the run up to our big move was more like a wait on death row. I was a hand-wringing banshee, mourning all that I would leave behind for the sake of my husband’s career. Having always been fiercely independent, this was a hard pill to swallow, and it put an inevitable strain on our marriage. But as I’m a freelancer, used to doing everything by e-mail, I’m praying that at least my work will survive.

The worst of my wrath is reserved for the modern university system, which kicks its academics around in an intercontinental football match while they struggle to secure a permanent post. Hiring a local is actually frowned upon. I’ve seen marriages reduced to international skype arrangements, and though I considered it, I concluded it was tantamount to divorce.

My husband didn’t just fancy the job; he needed it. And we needed the money. So we took the plunge. And so far we’re loving it, despite all the many portents of doom. First, we lost the house of our dreams because that Icelandic volcano grounded our aeroplane. The next day our rental agent’s firm went into liquidation, and sacked her on the spot. Then, during our last ditch attempt to get hold of a family house, another agent went bankrupt and pulled the plug, and the entire rental market disappeared down the same drain.

Until I started the Holland house hunt, I was a reasonably lucky person. Suddenly, my life had become less credible than the most corny soap opera plot. My flagging sanity was not helped by three of the most exasperating features of Dutch houses: stairs, ovens and washing machines.

The stairs come as the biggest shock. Health and safety in Holland is generally a case of hoping for the best. Stairs (aptly named “trap” in Dutch) most often resemble ladders, and are rarely enclosed with banisters. I encountered one which could only be descended backwards, with painted handprints to help one on one’s way. Should you ask about your children’s safety, you are assured that once they’ve fallen once, they won’t do it again. Sure. They’ll be dead.

Then there are the ovens. I’m no domestic goddess, but I do like to bake a good cake. To this day I can’t understand why the majority of kitchens I viewed – in suburban family houses – contained no more than a microwave oven, beautifully built in. From a nation of impressive bakers (our local flour comes straight from the windmill), I just don’t get it.

Lastly, washing machines do not live in kitchens. They hide either in the attic – up the aforementioned ladder stairs for ease of laundry-carrying – or in the garden shed, for those gentle saunters through the midnight snow.

It’s just cultural differences, and I’m sure I’ll get used to them, but in that first six months they made me boil with rage. My own house in Edinburgh would rent out for half the price, with enormous outlay to satisfy safety requirements. Dutch houses don’t need a single certificate, and generally come with live wires dangling where the lights should be. It’s not just the bulbs that are missing – it’s the fittings too.

Fortunately, through it all, light entertainment was provided by my new best friend, Google Translate. A school form for Calum, according to the web tool, wanted to know about his “pathological gambling”. I think that was meant to be “playing behaviour”. But my favourite was the estate agency blurb which started, when auto-translated, with the winning words, “Are you looking for a spacious home, so you can pull?”.

To cut a long story short, we did find a spacious home: a swanky penthouse flat to tide us over till we can find something with a garden and a lower price tag. It’s not the family-friendly house we wanted, but it’s got a living room as big as a cruise ship.

We didn’t know how the kids were going to react. Calum (nearly four) and his little sister Anna (two years old) had never been in Holland before, and had never moved house.  We did our best to ease them into the idea; not an easy task when the very concept of countries is still beyond their comprehension. Calum actually concluded that we were moving out of the Milky Way.

It was quite a challenge, as the wee man is enormously resistant to change. But little by little, he got it. Our masterstroke was to bring the children to Granny and Grandad’s in Peebles for two weeks before we left the country. While there, Calum started talking already about his “old house”, knowing that we would not be back.

The big day came. I took them on the plane, and fed them sweeties to help pop their ears at landing time. Calum, a born engineer, saw Amsterdam’s many wind turbines from the air, and his face filled with joy. “It’s beautiful!” he gasped. “I’m never going to want to leave here, ever!” Anna couldn’t speak, as she was chewing on an entire packet’s worth of jelly-tots in one go. I couldn’t have been happier.

The flat put even bigger smiles on their faces: the enormous living room is easily big enough to accommodate all our old outdoor toys. The children get proper exercise just moving from one end to the other. I’ve played for céilidhs with dance floors half the size.

The crisis which I thought inevitable has not come. Once or twice, Calum has squeaked that he wants to go home, but not with much conviction. Granny and Grandad have visited already, and will be back again soon; Skype takes care of the bits in between. Anna asks on a daily basis for Dolly the Sheep, for which read the National Museum of Scotland, but I suppose this will fade. We are developing new favourites: the fantastic local playpark; the NEMO science centre in Amsterdam; even our local bank branch, which has an irresistable lego table.

As for my own reaction, I’ve made an alarming discovery. I suffered a greater sense of dislocation while living without internet access (in both Scotland and Holland) than I did by moving country. It’s the 21st century condition: our veins are plugged into the worldwide web. Thanks to Facebook, my social life has barely skipped a beat, and through the internet I’ve found some great new friends locally.

It’s the little things you miss – that’s what you always hear from ex-pats. You do find yourself abnormally excited about elusive everyday items. I never thought I’d see the day when I would be excited about a bowl of Weetabix. And I do believe I jumped for joy when I found a tin of Heinz baked beans. Now that I’ve found the international shop, wee Anna’s got her beloved Spaghetti Hoops back, and I have a place to go for my sunset yellow hangover cure.

Anna’s other addiction is raisins. Foolishly, I concluded far too quickly that the Dutch don’t do those little cardboard packets of kiddy raisins, and was wheeling her around clutching real matchboxes stuffed by yours truly. What an idiot. They were in my local supermarket all along, hiding on the sweetie shelf. Goodness knows what the locals thought I was giving my children to play with.

When it comes down to it, if you’re looking after young children, they’ll carry you through. Calum and Anna have been so positive about everything that it’s impossible for me to be otherwise. The only big problems we have are the same ones we always had – the children won’t eat what’s put in front of them, they won’t go to bed on time, they fight like cat and dog. Plus ça change.

Everything else is a voyage of discovery. There’s nothing like being in a new country for learning that norms are relative. Take that health and safety thing for instance: nobody wears a bicycle helmet. I’ve seen cyclists standing on their saddles, babies riding up front on mopeds, passengers of all ages wobbling on any part of the bike frame that’s free. Children disappear into the street to play all day, without their mothers nipping anxiously at their heels. The UK starts to look seriously neurotic in comparison.

I’m liking the Dutch tendency to view rules as bendable guidelines, but it’s a strange, double-edged sword. There’s a proverb which says “You already have a no, now try for a yes”. Every clerk and administrator stonewalls your every request, with the hope that you’ll stop bothering them, but with the expectation that you’ll wear them down. Dutch people keep arguing till they get what they want; polite British people fall at the first hurdle. I haven’t yet figured out when No means No, and when it just means Try Harder.

Another thing I’m noticing is fitness levels. In Scotland, after two babies and too much coffee cake, I am reasonably average in shape. In Holland, everyone seems wholesomely, naturally trim. They start cycling at four years old, and stop only when they die. An old lady pedalled past me up a hill last week. The indignity.

You might wonder where I found a hill in the Netherlands. We live next to the dunes, the two-mile wide natural wall of defence between the North Sea and the low-lying land. It’s a beautiful hilly ride to the beach, complete – for some reason – with highland cattle and Shetland ponies, which will always put a smile on my face. Not forgetting the naked men on the beach, which have caused me a few double-takes.

These parts haven’t been reclaimed from the sea, but much of the Netherlands has; Schiphol actually means “ship hole” – boats were lost in it during storms, and a naval battle took place there in the Dutch Wars of Independence. I’ve noticed in woodland paths, and even under pavements, the sand is full of broken shells. It reminds me this country is on borrowed time, on borrowed land.

Maybe I should stick to the country walks. I appear to be a little too innocent for town life hereabouts. I brought the kids to Amsterdam, and looking for an ice cream shop, wheeled the buggy through a side street. I did wonder about the shifty-looking customers at the massage parlour, but having found a place opposite with ice cream, it took me a while to notice the heady aroma wafting from the coffee shop next door. The poor shopkeeper, who must be permanently stoned in that atmosphere, was charmed and a little stunned, I think, by our appearance.

And, just yesterday, I wandered through Haarlem with my husband and kids. Turning a corner ahead of them, I saw a girl in her underwear, beckoning in a window. My husband pushed the buggy right past her, completely oblivious. I saw her, every bit the sullen teenager, slighted by his inadvertent snub. The sad image has stuck with me.

But I don’t want it to stick with you. Holland is about so much more than red light districts and coffee shops. I’ve only seen a fraction of what it has to offer, but I’m beginning to live the life, and much to my surprise, I’m loving every minute of it.


Catrìona Black, Herald 24.11.11