Tulip Fields...

If we ignore for a moment that we were trying to survive a global pandemic, we had an incredible spring. Mother Nature seemed to have taken pity on the Netherlands as our weather was the best in the 14.5 years we’ve lived here, so we were all happy to get outside as much as possible. We didn’t have enough bikes for everyone in The White House Commune, but we could still go out in couples. Ashlynn enjoyed showing Bjarne around The Hague. Veronica and Brett cycled to Lisse to check out the bulb fields on March 31. They were too early for the tulips, but enjoyed the aromatic hyacinths. 

On April 10, Veronica and I rode to Wassenaar to our closest fields, which had tulips...

…and daffodils.

It felt great to be back on my bike. It was my first time out of our village in 3.5 weeks. Whoever would have thought that a 20-minute cycle ride could be such a big adventure!

As you can see, the fields were colorful, but not fully in bloom yet. 

Veronica was very excited to get her drone out.

She clearly really gets into being one of the Women Who Drone. Here is the finished video...

…and here are a few shots of us from the drone. 

I returned one week later to find a big difference in the fields. Although these two shots weren’t taken from the exact same angle, the difference between the above and below shots is pretty drastic.

I was excited to meet up with Terri, who I hadn’t seen in two months, for a socially distanced chat. Surprisingly, she had never visited any of the bulb fields in the more than 20 years that she’d been living in Holland, so I was happy to show her the closest tulips.

Veronica was happy to bring Brett there a few days later so he could see what all the fuss was about. 

The weather wasn’t as great at the end of the month when I took Ashlynn back for a final visit; she hadn’t been to the bulb fields since she was little. The field shown in all of the above photos was near its end, but this field across the street was in full bloom. 

 

The White House Commune Goes Hashing...

Due to restrictions on households mingling, much of the world had to switch to “virtual hashing.” Unlike many virtual club gatherings, such as for the American Women’s Club, this didn’t mean online. Instead, either a hare would lay a trail and hashers would run it on their own sometime that day, or hashers would just run on their own for a reasonable distance so their run could count. Then everyone would meet up that evening on a Zoom call. We considered ourselves very lucky because there were six hashers in our household, so we could still do live trails as long as we were somewhat discrete. Our first was on March 29, while other hashers were doing a Virtual AH3 Hash in Amsterdam.

Opee laid a fun trail that included a lot of back alleys around our neighborhood. 

A bunch of kids made arrows around his arrows in one section of the trail, which messed us up for about 15 minutes. Surprisingly, this was the only time that this has ever happened to us. 

In an effort to be discrete, he had us crawl underneath a bridge to have our beer break. 

This was only Bjarne’s second hash, but he seemed to enjoy it. 

On the next Sunday, only Opee and I were in the mood to do another Virtual AH3 Hash, so we just went for our own run. A nice bonus was that Ashlynn, Bjarne and Kati were having a picnic along the Vliet, so we had an impromptu drink stop in both directions. 

The following day was Brett’s 23rd birthday. When we asked him what he wanted to do, he answered, “Hash” (not that he had a lot of options, but we were still impressed with his answer), so Opee set a trail for the three of us. For his birthday dinner, he requested real mac and cheese, so we had to make a separate vegan batch for Veronica and Ashlynn. For dessert, Veronica made a yummy key lime pie. After dinner we had a video call with his parents and twin sister (silly Ashlynn had asked if they were identical) in San Diego.  

Ashlynn and Bjarne were willing to join us a few days later when Opee hared our first Virtual FILTH H3.

That Sunday, Opee laid a Virtual BMPH3 trail for the four of us (again Ashlynn and Bjarne opted out). As you might have surmised, we were actually hashing more often during the early days of lockdown than we normally did as we could also run with the Brussels Manneke Piss H3 from afar. It definitely helped that the weather was incredible. 

 

Self-Isolation Photo Project...

In no particular order, here are a cross-section of my favorite images from Veronica’s Self-Isolation Photo Project that she worked on during the first month of “intelligent lockdown” in Holland. Brett helped her with some of them, but she planned each of the shots, including the variety of locations, clothes and props. She’s really taken her photography to the next level. Feel free to check out more of her work at www.instagram.com/veronique_photography.

 

Life in Quarantine...

Veronica missed taking aerial and body combat classes in-person in Exeter, so was happy when her instructors started teaching virtual classes. Ashlynn and I joined her for some body combat. 

Bjarne even jumped in for one class. 

Puzzles began as something for Brett and Veronica to do, but soon became an obsession for me and Veronica (more on that later). 

It wasn’t all fun and games since Brett had to work on his PhD thesis on climate science within the math department (needless to say, I don’t understand anything about “Water Vapors’ Influence on the Greenhouse Effect” but Jimmy loved discussing it with him) and Veronica had to finish her master’s dissertation on “The Normalization of Veganism in the British Print Media.” They took advantage of the nice weather to work outside, most often on the lido deck but also occasionally in the front yard.

Jimmy’s 55th...

It was a beautiful spring day on Jimmy’s 55th birthday, the first of three birthdays that we celebrated together within The White House Commune. It was convenient that we had our own group since the Dutch government had banned gatherings of more than two outside of the family. 

Our celebration started with cocktails on the terrace (which we affectionately referred to as the lido deck).

Jimmy enjoyed sharing his Hawaiian shirts with the boys. 

Ashlynn and I cooked both a vegetarian and a vegan lasagna for dinner.   

She and Bjarne, our resident bartenders, were in charge of cocktails. 

Veronica and Ashlynn made a lopsided but delicious carrot cake.