Meet-up!

I had always vowed to not get involved in fandoms and for all the years I have been fan of stuff (be it Colin Firth, Richard Armitage, David Bowie, The Flying Doctors way back when, etc. etc.) I was successful. Fandoms are always full of drama and I don’t much like that drama, so I mostly kept to myself. Then I started to blog and before I knew it, I was part of a Richard Armitage blogging fandom and for some reason I don’t seem to mind!  Maybe because blogging is on my own terms and no one else’s? This year I crossed over to the next threshold in fandom life: actually meeting other fans in person!

I met Suzy from the Silverbluelining blog in the very early spring of this year (or was it late winter?). She lives in northern Germany, I live in the Netherlands, and we met for a day in a Dutch city that was half way between her home and mine. We had a great time. Then a few months later I thought I could do this again! So, I met Hariclea from the Opera is Magic blog for dinner when I was in London and that too was a wonderful experience! Definitely going back some time to go to the theater with her! These are two wonderful, intelligent women that are fun to hang out with and I loved meeting them. 🙂

Fast forward to this past weekend when Suzy came over to visit me here in The Netherlands and stayed over at my house. We had a marvellous time. After she arrived we walked around my home town and then my family joined us for typical Dutch pancakes at a pancake restaurant. The next morning we watched my son play handball (alas, his team lost by a huge margin) and we then went on to The Hague. Suzy wanted to see the Escher Museum there. On the way I made her eat some raw herring  at a fish stand (typical Dutch thing to eat, every visitor to this country needs to be subjected to that), which she seemed to unexpectedly rather like! For the record, I love it. Later, in front of the Escher museum, we ran into a hat-makers market. We strolled around and tried on some hats before entering the museum. It was beautiful to see all these intricate works of art by Escher, his art never fails to amaze.

We took a picture of ourselves in a mirror ball with Escher art reflected on it as well…

… we got Escher shopper bags…

… and back outside again we saw the police on horseback practice for the Dutch opening of parliament (which was today, the 3rd Tuesday in September, which this year I didn’t see live like I did last year)…

We had a late lunch, did some shopping and ended up at Scheveningen beach where we had a glorious sunset while enjoying some evening nibbles and drinks…

All the time we chatted and chatted and chatted and while Richard did come up, it really wasn’t all about him. We talked of all sorts of things and one of the things Suzy told me about was her job. She kept on referring to “meine Flüchtlinge” (“my refugees”) when she spoke of her job, which I thought was absolutely adorable.

When we got home that evening, we shared some wine with my husband (thank you, Suzy, we love the wine!), and also gushed over some actors in his presence, prompted by all the lovely images that were showing on my laptop screensaver. The man’s tolerance for this ladies’ talk never ceases to amaze me. 🙂 On Sunday morning we had a breakfast with scones (yummy! – there’s a Marks & Spencer in The Hague and I bought some fresh scones there the day before) and then Suzy had to leave again.

It was a lovely time and I am living in anticipation of any next meet-up. So, yep, bring it on: if anyone of you is ever in the Netherlands, let me know! I’m very willing to meet more of you!