I can’t get over today

Today has been immense.

At church this morning, we had 7 baptisms. We had great testimonies and a great sermon, with a packed full church. We also celebrated the engagement of a good friend’s son and the birth of a baby boy to one of the pastors. Our Welsh friends were there too so, all in all, a very good morning.

But then Elbows and I did a dash for the airport to catch a plane to Amsterdam for a work thingy.

The flight was quick. We met up at Schiphol airport with another guest on this work thingy and traveled to a hotel where we were given 20 minutes notice of being collected for an evening out.

I knew nothing of this evening out and had a limited choice of attire. Deja vu - many times over.

We arrived at a rather grand house and then were slowly introduced to the other guests for the evening, and a rather eclectic bunch we were: a Dutch MP ( previous spokesperson for Foreign Affairs ); a Cypriot MP and cabinet minister; the Greek Ambassador to the Netherlands; a former Correspondent for The Times ( having been the Russian correspondent and the American correspondent over his amazing career ); an extrovert actress; an ex-British MP ( and chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for the protection of cultural heritage ) and his wife; a prominent Dutch journalist; some leading Dutch business men and women and our hostess, author and Human Rights Activist and her husband and 2 of her children.

It was like a cast for an Agatha Christie Murder Mystery.

After champagne and nibbles ( including smoked eel ), we were all bundled into cars and taken to a restaurant which specialised in fresh fish. And here I struggled even more.

I had forgotten, since June 2017, what it felt like to be on these do’s. The role of a wife is seriously not an easy one. I was sitting next to the kind host who insisted, out of pure kindness, that I eat food I didn’t want to eat. I struggled.

I was trying to surreptitiously text the kids about homework and uniform, PE kit and shutting up the chickens, at the same time as pretending to be intelligent. Midnight came and we were all still there.

I cannot believe that only 13 hours ago, I was watching baptisms in north London and fitted all the above in between.

:-0

Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to see more of The Hague tomorrow, which is, after all, why I agreed to come on this flying visit.

Meanwhile, Mum is off all drips and seemingly well. We can’t work out where we’re going with all this. A nursing home? ... It wasn’t actually an easy decision to come.
But my sister is on hand and visiting these 2 days that I can’t.