Tulip fever

I really, really meant it last year when I said "Next year I will definitely try to be there again" but things don't always work out the way you want them to. Fenced in by non-negotiable deadlines, I will once again spend Queen's Day in laborious London instead of anarchic Amsterdam. So, like last year, yesterday I once more dug that orange top out from under a pile of more frequently worn clothes to join the London version of Queen's day. We in London have to celebrate it a few days early though, as unfortunately over here we can't get the day off for it.

At least it looks like this year London had one up on Amsterdam. The weather yesterday here was gorgeous. It was the first real Spring day we've had in months, blessed with sunshine and warm temperatures. The forecast suggests that you guys back in the Motherland may not be so lucky this year. So basking in the sun we sat, surrounded by the other orange people, listening to Andre Hazes' songs and eating a patatje met. For one day a year I am not ashamed to set free my inner Dutch girl. Something true for many of us Cheese Heads in London apparently as once again I ran into some familiar faces! London can sometimes suddenly be very small.


The walk afterwards -by sheer coincidence- let us straight into a magnificent tulip garden. It wasn't part of the celebrations and I didn't even know it was there but it certainly was an appropriate find. The fitting ending to such a delightfully Dutch day of course was dinner at the local Pancake house with a starter of bitterballen. Stuffed beyond belief on this healthy diet of saturated fats, I look back on a great day but not without some secret hope that maybe next year...

Queen's Day in London 2008