May

Hi everybody,

Welcome to my new blog post. First I want to say thank you for reading all my stories, experiences and awkward situations over and over again!

Let’s start…

On Friday the 5^th of May Seema had to go to her work. The girls were crying and didn’t want their mommy go to work. When we walked to school they were still quiet and sad. Isla had to take a toy to school that they could sell for charity. So I had 2 sad children walking next to me and a ‘hobby horse’ underneath my armpit. This whole situation looked so random because of this horse. After a few minutes I thought let’s cheer them up and sing a song. I started to sing on the melody of ‘If you’re happy and you know it’.

‘’If you’re happy and you know walk to school with a horse, hiiiia.’’ (to make things clear) I made a horse noise. Suddenly is saw to smiley faces.

The whole way we sang different versions of this song:

‘’If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands… clap, clap…’’

‘’If you’re happy and you know it cross the street… look, look…’’

Is saw that people were watching us and most of them were grumpy parents with a just out of bed look. This situation already made my day.

On the 7^th it was time to go to Oxford. I went with Marielle and Morgane (French Au Pair). But I was very disappointed because I didn’t like the city at all. I’m used to the liveliness of London so this city was really boring. And of course the old universities looked beautiful but it’s old and old is old so I wasn’t impressed.

On the second week of May I was homesick. I hear you thinking Annelein and homesick? I know that’s what I thought too. This week I was just very unhappy and I had the feeling that nothing could change this. Normally when I am a bit tired or grumpy a day I can fake a smile but this time I couldn’t anymore. In the beginning I thought why am I feeling this because I can’t be homesick after almost 9 months can I? But I think you can. Before I came to London Carlijn (a family member who had travelled a lot) said to me: ‘’It’s not the question if you get homesick but when.’’ And I think that she was totally right. That week I skyped with my parents often and after a week it was over fortunately.

Then something else. Here is an update about the Zumba classes I join.

The name of the teacher is not ‘Alejandro’ but ‘Pedro’. We always have to scream while were dancing and that’s so annoying because for example when we’re jumping we have to scream ‘’whoeeeee’’. When I’m jumping I’m out of breath and I can’t scream: ‘’Whoeeee, yeeeeej, eeh eeh eeeh.’’ He said that this is good for your lungs. It sounds that it could be true but most of the time I do it on the Ennelain way: I playback. 😉 Every time when I walk home I walk pass a Mac Donalds, KFC, Bakery, Sandwich shop, Supermarket and a few Restaurants this practised my self-discipline.

On the 13^th we went to a restaurant because it was Seema’s birthday. Graham bought a cake so at one point the waiter brought the cake and the whole restaurant started to sing happy birthday.

The next day I booked a boat trip with Alexandra. My English Au Pair agency organised a boat trip over the Thames. I took the train to Waterloo station because in this area would the boat depart. When I walked pass a building I saw that people were laying down a red carpet and the main entrance was fenced. On the fence it said: British Academy Television Awards. I thought OMG I want to know more about it so I asked one of the security men. Eventually I had 2 wrist bands in my hand to watch the red carpet. I love everything what involves red carpets, shows, celebrities etc. I was so happy and eventually I had to hurry because the boat would leave in 10 minutes.

I have to admit that I wasn’t thinking about the boat trip anymore but by mind was in celebrity land.

Alexandra and I had a short pick nick because I had to leave to be in time for the red carpet. Alexandra decided to stay at the park with some other Au Pairs.

Around 5pm. I saw a few famous faces but I didn’t know them by name. So I had a look at Google: Joanna Lumley, Benedict Cumberbatch, Cuba Gooding jr, Jim sturgess and Joan Collins.

At the end it started raining so badly. I didn’t have a raincoat so I had to use my umbrella but this wasn’t ideal because at one point my umbrella went like this (I don’t know how to describe it). Because of this I was holding a sort of water bag in the air. After a while it was really heavy followed by a grumpy man behind me because the ‘bag’ with water fell on top of him.

On the 16^th it was my first day as a volunteer at ‘Brunswick Park Primary school’. From now on I volunteer every Tuesday at the reception class (Dutch= groep 1). This is a class for children of 4 and 5 years old. It was really interesting to see. The class rooms were decorated with pictures, words, arts and craft projects etc. This is quite normal for a class room but I’ve never seen a class room that’s it’s covered with so many things. They used every single space. I couldn’t work every day in this busy environment.

The children have so much freedom that I’m not used to give children. For example in the building are 2 class rooms. Both classes consists of approximately 26 children. When the children have free play time they can play in 2 class rooms. And both class rooms are connected with a porch and a garden where the children can play as well. So it feels like the children and toys are everywhere. I mean it’s amazing for the children and I don’t think it’s a negative thing but it was so new to me.

Because of the move my week schedule is a bit different so here is a new schedule:

Monday	– Brownies (scouts) Isla
Tuesday	– Volunteering
Wednesday	– Zumba (me) – Gymnastics Isla
Thursday	– Zumba (me)
Friday	– Seema at home

On the 20^th I had lunch with Denise (friend from Holland) and Bo. After that we went to a few shops in Oxford Street. It was nice to see her again and it feels really strange that I will be in Holland in 2,5 months again.

One evening I went with Alexandra and Kiara to a Greek restaurant near the Thames. We had a beautiful view what ended in a photoshoot.

The next day I went with Lara to Columbia road Flower market. This was a busy street full of stalls where you could buy flowers. When we walked pass a hotel a famous looking man stepped out of a car. He was wearing sunglasses and a cap. He looked like the actor: Robert Pattinson (Twilight movie) so we tried to make eye contact to ask if we could make a picture but he looked one second at us and walked immediately with his luggage through the main entrance. We thought that this was suspicious and were 90% percent convinced that it was him but after some Googling I saw that man couldn’t be him because he was at the Cannes Film festival. After this we went to a small festival in North Greenwich. We sat in the sun and enjoyed the nice weather (finally).

Alexandra and I went to Brighton at the end of this month. We had 3 lovely days!

Welcome to my crib…

Quotes of the month:

‘’It’s not fair that you can see my boobies and I can’t see yours’’. – Erin
One evening Erin came out of bath and I gave her, her nickers to put on. I pretended that I was very silly so I said: ‘’Erin where did you put your knickers? You can’t walk around the house naked.’’ Of course she was wearing one but I helped her to put on another one. At the end she was wearing 3 knickers and 1 on top of her head. She looked at me with big eyes and she wasn’t 100% sure if I was acting silly. When I ended the joke I asked her: ‘’’Which one do you want to wear?’’ She said: ‘’The pink one because I already farted in the this one’’.
Another evening Graham had to go to a ball of his favourite football club: Arsenal. He had to wear a suit and a bow tie. I was standing on a stool because I had to help him to attach it and he is very tall. The girls were impressed by his look. Isla said: ‘’Daddy your bottom looks like the one of Özil (Football player of Arsenal).
Isla wanted to give a presentation about Holland at her school. I thought that this was such a sweet idea!