Motregen! After dry weather earlier this year, it was lovely recently driving home through soft, misty rain. “Motregen” came to mind – literally I guess, ‘moth-rain’ which could suggest something soft with the delicacy of the wings of a moth. My husband, Hans, used to comment on such rain when we were in the Netherlands (The Dutch word ‘motregen’ sounds much nicer than the English ‘drizzle’).

Some years earlier I had enjoyed the starkness of winter in Europe – my memories of bare trees standing starkly against a grey sky in Amsterdam are still very strong. It was good to learn how people with Dutch background described the weather (het weer). I used to love it when Hans commented on a ‘zwoelle wind’ – perhaps ‘balmy’ is a good translation? It describes a soft, gentle wind.

Thinking of those times together in the Netherlands brings other memories – from Hans I learnt the phrase ‘het glooiende landschap’ literally ‘sloping’ landscape – he was referring to gentle rolling views. I also learnt so much about the birds we saw – merels (blackbirds) cormorants (‘een aalscholver’ is one cormorant) herons (‘een reiger” is one heron) and of course, classic looking white swans (‘een zwaan’ is one swan). My apologies for not having learnt enough about plurals of words! Still remembering bird-life, Australian friends were very enthusiastic about the ducks (eenden), which they saw when they travelled by train between Amsterdam and Den Helder.

Other memories are of big trees – beeches (with lovely big red-leaves – ‘rode (copper) beuken’ – is ‘rode’ the correct form?) near kastelen (castles), also birch trees (berken) and kastanjebomen (chestnut trees).

To return to the weather – there was the time we stayed in Maastricht and it snowed overnight which meant we came out to a magic looking snow (sneeuw) scene and another time on a cold morning, there were ‘bloemen op het raam’ – literally flowers on the window. It was ice on the window in lovely shapes. And yet another time, out east in the Achterhoek, washing on the line was frozen stiff and the leaves of the boerenkool (curly kale) were very icy-looking. Because of its strong leaves it survived – amazing! Another happy memory of the Achterhoek is of the hilly, wooded area – Montferland – magic memories indeed.

To finish on a different kind of watery note from motregen – having in my mind’s eye the magic memories of all the waterways in the Netherlands – canals (een kanaal, de gracht, een vaart), rivers (een rivier, een stroom) and ferries (het veer of een veerpont), lakes (het meer). Other watery features which Hans enjoyed showing me were the Biesbos (in the Betuwe, where the orchards used to be?) I learn now from the dictionary that ‘bies’ is a bulrush). From one of the early visits there seems to be recollection of a lake called ‘de Blauwe Hand’ (the Blue Hand) or did I dream that?

Tot de volgende keer – ‘Good travelling’ to us all – either the ‘real thing’ or the still lovely journeys down memory lane.

(foto top-left Trijnie Boon)