I’m officially exhausted – I was at a party for about ten hours yesterday. An all-day party for an 80-year-old, M’s Opa (granddad).
There was a bouncy castle, a pool, a pool table, lots of food and beer and the whole W family was there. It was a perfect day for a party, bright and sunny but not too hot.
We had Dutch delicacies for lunch – homemade kroketten with breadrolls seasoned with mayonnaise and mustard, pickled mussels, and Dutch biscuits taai-taai and pepernoten. I could have taken pictures but I was too busy enjoying my pepernoten and kroket! All washed down with Oranjeboom beer. Dinner was an assortment of roast meats and veg, pavlova, black forest cake and apple crumble. Washed down with more Oranjeboom, or Crownies if you preferred.
I paced myself – drank lots of tea and lemonade and had a beer with lunch and a beer with dinner – but I still feel hungover this morning. Perhaps it was all the water I drank when I got dunked in the pool…
Opa’s birthday present was a 1983 Mercedes Benz. I have no idea what model, but he loved it and when we left last night he was sitting in it looking at the dashboard and trying to familiarise himself with all the buttons.
Tonight we’re having an early Christmas celebration. Wish me stamina!
Top picture: Opa playing footy with his great-grandchildren.
Bottom right: Reuben the Dog waiting patiently for a scrap.
5 Comments
Does Opa still drive? Wow.
Happy Birthday to your Opa!
Hmmm, kroketten, taai taai and pepernoten!
Taai taai and pepernoten is what we eat for St Nicholaas (Sinterklaas), which was yesterday(5th december). It doesn’t usually get eaten the rest of the year, same with marzipan.
Sinterklaas is like christmas in Holland, most people (especially with kids) celebrate it with presents, though christmas is becoming more popular, and more and more people do presents at christmas too.
Presents wrapped as surprises, poems and chocolate letters usually feature as well during Sinterklaas. And you have to leave some carrots, sugur lumps for his white horse.
Ok, enough rambling….!
😀
Lol at jl’s comment!
p.s. you’ll probably have to update your feed to my personal blog Constance, I’ve changed domain names… And I don’t think my latest post has come through on the old feed.
jl, yes, Opa still drives!
Thanks Simone! Yes, I should have mentioned it being Sinterklaas day yesterday. Did you celebrate it? Opa was reminiscing about how he used to feel quite ripped-off as a child, to have his birthday fall on Sinterklaas day 🙂 We didn’t do anything traditional apart from the taai taai and pepernoten. I wonder if Opa will make some olliebollen this year? Do you do anything traditional to celebrate?
I’ll check and change my subscription to your blog, Simone.
No, we didn’t do anything… Might do when we have kids…
Mmm, oliebollen… Mum made some for last new year’s eve. This year I think she’s working a lot around that time…. To much work for me, ha ha! You have to let them raise and stuff… You never know though, I might be in the mood all of a sudden! 😀
Opa taught me and M how to make olliebollen. It’s very fiddly, though, isn’t it?