Hi all

Greetings from Pont L'Abee, France but more on that later...

Have been having some computer problems at the home we're staying at so I've spent part of the evenings trying to transfer files from the memory card of the camera, and not enough time blogging so will try to catch up tonight.

Friday and Saturday (18th and 19th) were our "Dutch Roots Tour" with Nancy's parents. Although Nancy's mom was born in Canada (on a farm on what is now the Langley airport), Nancy's dad was born in Amsterdam and was in Holland during the occupation and liberation before immigrating to Canada with his family as a young man.

Prior to, and during the war, Dad's grandparents owned a farm and an apple orchard about 150 km's east of Amsterdam. As you may know the winter of 1944 was extremely harsh, and the Germans, knowing that the Allies had already liberated the southern half of the country, kept tight controls on the food supply. Many Dutch people starved to death. The city dwellers fared much worse than those on frams. As the eldest son, twice Dad rode his bike to his grandparents farm (a round trip of about 300 km's) in winter to bring back food for the family. Once he narrowly evaded a German patrol at night, the other time he had to hide behind a downed tree to avoid being mistaken for German by a Spitfire fighter pilot. During warmer, happier months in the late 30's/early 40's, Dad's family would visit the farm for a vacation. On Friday we visited the farm, met the farmer/orchardist who now owns the farm, bought some apples for our trip and walked down memory lane with Dad. I'm so glad the boys could be part of it.

We also visitted the nearby, hundreds of years old, church where his grandparents, (Nancy's great grandparents and the boys great great grandparents) are buried. When we found the marker Nancy immediately knelt and started picking weeds from the top of the plot and Gideon crounched beside her, pulling at the moss. What a picture...

Later that evening we had dinner with some cousins, second cousins....you know the drill. The boys met some distant cousins who spoke no English, and they no Dutch, but still they played for more than an hour before dinner and even ate outside together on the patio.

We spent alot of time getting lost on small backroads alongside canals and quaint farms, which was no burden at all. As Nancy puts it 'When you're on vacation, there's no such thing as being lost'

Saturday was the Dutch Roots Tour in Amsterdam. Dad took us to the still standing row housing complex and pointed out which one he was born in, which relative lived here and there, where he ran when he got chased by the police for playing soccer too close to a disappproving neighbour's home, which homes used to be the general store, the shoemaker and the baker, where he used to play soccer using the columns for goalposts, where they got on the bus to be taken to the ship to immigrate to Canada, and where he was when he heard two German symapthizers talking about the invasion in Normandy. We walked around the complex for over an hour, and asked questions, and he talked. Precious times. We drove past his school, now a shop for something or other. What was especially moving was Dad pointing put where a damaged Allied bomber had crashed near his home while trying to make a landing on an empty field. As Dad described the crash his voice quavered. Still very grateful 60 years later for the sacrifice.

We saw the gasworks where Opa (Dad's father) worked, where he gathered with his family and colleagues for a photograph, and where one colleague sang them a song about a bird. We saw where Oma (Dad's mom) lived, which park she and Opa went for walks in in the 20's during their 7 years courtship, and the canal that Oma's father was a boatman in. A wonderful day.

After supper back in Zwolle, Dad and the boys and I went for a ride on the bike paths and dykes For those of your that enjoy biking, Holland is heaven. We'll be doing lots more of that when we get back from France.

Nancy's memories:
*the wonderful aroma driving by the rusk factory
*waving the Canadian flag out of the window whenever we made a driving mistake
*the tall verdant green trees on either side of the road on our 'detour' home
*seeing the park where Oma and Opa courted and wore out the insides of the sleeves of their coats holding hands
*the wonderful way it must have been to grown up in 'Elim' villiage with Dad's relatives close by
*how many people and times Dad was chased growing up-the shoemaker, the police, his uncle. No wonder he's in such good shape!
*Jonas eating a raisin bun with Gouda and calling it 'heaven on a bun'

Sunday was our road trip to France. We left at 7:30 AM and by 5'ish were at our B&B destination in Normandy. It was good trip, rain on and off, but no trouble. Never before have I driven through 3 countries in 4 hours! (the time that it tooks us to drive through Holland, Belgium and enter France). It was also a treat to see all these places that you've only studied about in history or geography (Rhine or Waal Rivers, Antwerp, Ghent, Somme River...)

Upon arriving we had tea with the owners (an ex-pat British couple) and had a nice talk about the history of their 18th century manor home and even older farm, and the area. There home was actually a German headquarters (the Germans on the mnain floor, the family downstairs) and was one of the few buildings in town not burned out when the Germans retreated because it stands back from the road. After dinner out we took a very leisurely drive through the Norman countryside admiring the hedgerows, the manor farms with the walls, toured one very old church cemetary and stopped at several memorial sites to the American paratroopers who dropped on these fields in the early hours of Juen 6, 1944. Mom remarked how was hard to imagine such a peaceful countryside being so full of war.

Off to the D-Day beaches, memorials, museums and cemetaries tomorrow.

Love to all, S.