This has been quite a year. It started with such promise in January but in February a crazy English tourist pushed Judith’s head into the cornerstone of a building, knocking her out and then as she proceeded to walk away she trod on my little boy breaking his fingers. It was an act of total callousness and utter disregard. Because of a head injury some years earlier Judith could not have a proper brain scan to check her for injury and it was only later as Judith’s vision started to develop problems and she had epileptic seizures that it was decided that the blow to her head had caused deeper injuries. While surgery was being planned she had a major seizure with necessitated and air life to Amsterdam and emergency surgery. The offending blood clot was removed but the near total blindness that followed the last seizure remained. The neurosurgical team assured us that she would regain some or even most of her sight with a little time, but those months over the spring and summer were a long and painful wait. Judith never stopped trying to live and be what she loves being the most, a wife and mother, but it was a difficult time. I found I had teach myself not to watch over her all the time, but still I would as she felt her way around her garden, tending to it just as she moved about the house still tending to all of us. Jobs that used to take just minutes would take her an hour or more but she never stopped trying. Our natural inclination was to take many of her duties away from her, but it was more important than ever for Judith to try and do the things she normally did, even when they resulted in failure. In these weeks she inflicted any number of accidents on herself. Cuts, burns and a great many bruises marked the trial and error progress that she made but always she pushed forward. I think at times like these it is often very easy to become focused on yourself, on your condition, but I don’t think she never lost perspective and her parenting beat meant that we never felt anything less than the centre of her attention.

In September the first ray of hope started to chip away at the blurred walls of her limited vision and slowly sight started returning. She was filled with excitement and happiness when she could once again see the children and days later was able to read as they signed to her. I cried my own eyes out that first night when we sat on our big bed and signed to each other once again, I had my dearest friend back. As I stood in our bathroom washing I realized that I was being watched by her. She was sitting on our be looking in on me and I cried again, happy that she was finding such joy in my nakedness. I had forgotten how beautifully reaffirming it was to have my lover appreciate me in all my glory.

Progress has been steady and now she can, with concentration, read a large text font, and walk in relative safety with an escort. Her vision is a very long way from being healed and we still have many concerns. It is clear that she has Quadrantanopsia - this is blindness in one quarter of the visual field. Like hemianopia in general, quadrantanopia is often homonymous; that is to say, low vision or blindness occurs in the same quadrant of each visual field. For example, Judith suffers lower (or inferior) homonymous quadrantanopia and is experiencing vision loss in the lower quadrant of the visual field of each eye. This is having two damaging effects, firstly she cannot see changes in the level of the pavement (sidewalk) under her feet and she cannot always detect people coming up to her. Sissi has had additional training to help her deal with the former problem and reduce the number of falls Judith takes. The second effect is that she does not see people approaching her until they suddenly appear right up close, it is an effect that she is finding very un nerving and it is this more than anything else that is eroding her self confidence. This steady loss of confidence has been behind her reluctance to go back to writing. Before the incident writing was a major outlet for her, a way of dealing with the limitations of total deafness, it is a vital outlet that has been choked off. I find myself missing her literary musings terribly. For now I try to comfort myself with the sight that she has regained and the pleasure she can once again take in our children.

In case you were wondering about the young English woman who caused all this pain she is still in prison and likely to remain there for a further eight months. She is still referring to the attack as “the accident”. She wrote a letter to us recently apologizing for the “accident”. I wrote back telling her I was not aware of any “accident” having taken place and that if she was in fact referring to her assault of my son and wife then she needed to acknowledge her responsibility for the attack before any parole hearing would consider her for release on license. If she is looking for forgiveness she will have to wait until Judith’s eye sight is 100% recovered and Nicky stops having nightmares of his mother dying before I even give thought to that one !

I should finish on a positive note and not a negative one.

It is a beautiful winter’s day here and this morning we are wrapped up in coats, hats and scarves and went for a long walk along the Maas in the first snow of the season. The bitter arctic wind sweeping down across Holland this weekend is wonderfully refreshing and this morning I watched as Judith did a “French Lieutenant’s Woman” impression on the cruise ship jetty out over the wide river while swepted by the snow and wind, her long black hair swirling about in the air, Mariaske wrapped up in her arms. Standing there on the bank retrieving kids gloves from a freezing puddle of water while the kids bickered over who dropped them in the first place as I froze my ass off I was struck by what a lovely sight they made. It has been horrid year but there are times when a beautiful sight can go some way to making the journey there worth the pain.

Author: Nina

My oldest daughter, Hilke, is well known for being something of an embarrassment at times, as all children can be of course, but Hilke really does have this knack for dropping her mothers in it.

With Judith still not able to see very much and me having a day off I had gone to collect our kids from school. Judith had asked me to collect a few items from the supermarkt so I took the kids with me for a little bit of a treat. I should explain that we do not often go to the supermarkt because most of our fresh produce either comes from my in-laws farm or from the local organic farm here. With Judith preparing our meals from scratch there is little need to visit the big stores so for our kids it is a bit of an adventure, especially the Albert Heijn just off the Vrijtofht which is not unlike a cave inside.

No sooner had we got into the store and we ran into some of Hilke and Nicholas’s school friends and their mothers. Put any women together in a store and we go into gossip mode and shopping is relegated to a poor second place while we catch up on news and the kids are left to run riot through the store. We happened to be standing in the toiletries isle talking when Hilke and friends come along and start to give their critical attention to the shiny and colourful products on display and I kept a little of my attention on what they were saying between themselves;

“My mother uses this, it’s very good” said one little girl with all the earnest intent of a telesales operator.

“But your mum has some HUGE spots on her nose, it can’t be that good !” replied another who was clearly an early developer of her Bitchy Gland.

Pausing by the tampons and sanitry towels the girls started a deep debate on feminine hygiene products. Dutch schools start sex education at age seven so they knew about periods even though none were menstruating themselves yet. I think their interest had much more to do with the wide variety and very girlie styling of the packaging rather than any interest in the contents but when one girl discovered a familiar brand she grabbed it and stated very clearly;

“This is the one my mum uses, only she buys a big super box of them!”

“Does it have wings?” asked Adrie trying to show some knowledge of the subject.

“No, it’s a tampon it has a string not wings” replied Mahault.

“you tie it to your underwear with the string then?” asked Marysa.

Just when I feared that this could soon turn into a bit of a car wreck unless one of us mothers intervened my daughter jumped into the fray;

“It’s a tampon, that means you stick it up inside you” she said with all the authority of a girl who is academically at the top of her class.

“OOooooohhhh” was one’s response, “EWWWWWWWWW!!!!” was another’s.

I am not, I should point out, a religious person, but with the intervention of Hilke I started to pray. I prayed like the life of my first born depended upon it. Those of you who have met Hilke, or who know of her will understand why only to well.

“You put them in your ‘gina to stop it up”. By know the girls were starting to draw a small audience – this was not going to end well, I could just feel it but like a rabbit stuck between headlights I froze. Hilke was now clearly the leading authority on feminine hygiene products in this group and all attention swung around to her.

“So why do tampons have strings?” asked Marysa.

“So you can pull them out when you go to the wc, all tampons have strings” she stated.

One girl noticing one particular box of tampons and picking it up exclaimed “Hey these ones have skirts, why do these have skirts, is that in place of a string, because you can pull skirts down” said the little asian girl whose name I can never recall. “Do your mothers use these Hilke?”

CRASH ! The wreck I had been dreading happened.

“No mama uses sponges” she proclaimed over the shop noise and looking toward me as I tried to shuffle to the nearest cover.

“SPONGES !!!!” came the loud and collective response, and as one they started to examine the shelves for sanitary sponges. It took them a few minutes to realise they were not on the shelves but then one girl held up a large bath sponge in her hand and triumphantly, and very loudly, proclaimed…….

“Your mama puts THIS in her vagina ?” I swear the entire store stopped dead, I could have heard a pin drop if the frantic beating of my fibrillating heart was not drowning out all sound in my ears. Even the gossiping mothers came to a complete stop.

Gasps of “Mmmmuuuhhhh!” showed they were clearly impressed, or horrified, or perhaps both.

I think Hilke, upon seeing the expression on my face, sensed that her allowance was seconds away from being stopped until she reached her late teens and so attempted to ease the situation by telling her friends “No, no, no, they are tiny little sponges” Hilke added, slightly helping matters. “Like cotton wool balls. She orders them specially, you cannot buy them in here”.

By now men in the store were giving me full lengths looks as they walked past, I could guess what they were imagining. The gossiping mothers edged towards me and some sort of unspoken agreement between seemed to nominate one of them their spokeswoman.

“Sponges?” asked Mevrouw Klaas. At least the store seemed to be returning to normal after the revelation that one of their customers appeared to spend her menstrual cycle with a bath sponge shoved up her twat.

I explained that in fact natural sponges were the very first form of tampon ever used and that unlike the tampons and towels stocked in stores like those on the shelves they were natural, hypo-allergenic and do not cause toxic shock to their users. Having experienced an intra-vaginal allergic reaction to tampons as a teenager I knew better than most the dangers of manufactured sanitary protection. They also caused no pollution during their manufacture, and contained no dioxins (the most deadly poison known to life on this planet and routinely used in the manufacture of tampons and sanitary towels).

In the end the girls interest moved onto something else, as did everyone else. On the way home I tried to explain to Hilke that it had been a little embarrassing for me but in true Hilke form she counted by saying that it shouldn’t be, periods were quite natural – yeah thanks Hilke through that talk back in my face why don’t you, I think I know that much better than you do given your age!. I know we have always been very open and straight with our kids but it does come back to bite us at the oddest times.

Author: Nina.

Judith is home and working hard to bring normality back, more or less. She is adapting really quickly to her blindness as long as she is in the house and garden. She is even back to working in her garden, having worked out that she can do it by feel and smell. Watching her at work made me think of a rather lovely piece she wrote before having to go into hospital and I would like to share it with you all here:

"As spring starts to roll into summer it is a natural wonder that the tripping of the sun past the equinox triggers this incredible burst of life into the world, a few degrees of inclination in the planet and life leaps and bust forth in a torrent of passion, how utterly wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

I have always thought that gardens are sex made manifest, on a warm early summers night gardens are passionate and hot lovers who assault all of our senses in a frenzied bid to ravish us. I can almost feel myself being flung against the cool stone garden walls as Flora and Fauna’s delicate fingers insinuate their way under the soft linens of my dress and caress my bare skin trying to tease fertile arousal from me. As I walk the garden’s borders in the dark I feel the soft breath of Crown Imperials and Fox Gloves on my neck as the vanilla scent of clematis kisses me behind my ears, melting me, making my knees weak and my belly tingle.

We mammals have legs, we can move in order to seduce, but flowers, plants and vines are rooted, literally, to the spot so for them their seduction has to be done through messages in the air, signaling to each other, entrapping us as unwitting eavesdroppers on their whispers of love. Messages of seduction, messages of love, messages of passion and sex. All of life is a love affair, the urge to reproduce, to copulate and blossom does not discriminate. Gardens are lovers to anyone who walks through them, their smell intoxicates and seduces.

As I meander through my paradise I think of Primavera, that beautiful painting by Botticelli of spring. Venus, precious and beautiful Venus is standing in the centre of the picture, set slightly back from the other figures. The Charites, also called Three Graces, are elegantly dancing a rondel. The garden of Venus, goddess of love, is guarded on the left by Mercury. The myrtle plant that surrounds her is a plant that represents sexual desire, marriage, and child bearing. From the right, Zephyrus, the god of the winds, is forcefully pushing his way in, in pursuit of the nearly naked nymph Chloris clad only in a diaphanous gown. Chloris gave her name to chloriphil, the substance that gives all plants their green colour. Next to her walks Flora, the goddess of spring, who is scattering flowers. Flora tells how she was once the nymph Chloris herself, and breathes out flowers as she does so. Aroused to a terrible fiery passion by her beauty, Zephyr, the god of the wind, follows Chloris and forcefully takes her as his wife, raping her. Regretting his violence, he transforms her into Flora. He makes his gift of contrition to her a beautiful garden in which eternal spring reigns. The painting actually depicts the two separate moments in the narrative, the erotic pursuit of Chloris by Zephyr and her subsequent transformation into Flora. She is beautiful with a rich flower garland on her head and delicate spring blooms erupting from her dress, arms full of flowers. Chloris/Flora, nymph, lover, mother, giver of life, force of nature. I would love to be Flora.

One summer when I was in my very early teens I was in my grandmother’s sprawling garden. As we wondered arm in arm down her rose tunnel her lovely, lyrical, aging voice spoke a verse I had never heard before…..

“Spring-time and Venus come, And Venus’ boy, the winged harbinger, steps on before, And hard on Zephyr’s foot-prints Mother Flora, Sprinkling the ways before them, filleth all, With colours and with odours excellent.”

She lent down to me and told me that some of her best times with lovers had been in gardens. My Oma was famous for the long string of male and female lovers she had had in her life. Amidst stories of some of her lovers I found I was seduced by her garden, it was the first time but not the last, I have been a prolific lover of gardens ever since. In my time I have flitted from one garden to the next enjoying every brief liaison, and in some I have even indulged my own passions and lusts and given myself over freely to the botanical and the human delights with equal abandon.

But this night I was wondering through my garden as I often do on summer nights, naked. I had shrugged my nightshirt off my shoulders as I left the hardness of wooden deck and stepped onto the cool grass. As my feet touched down on the soft, cool carpet of grass the first caress of the garden came and touched my feet, tickling little teases of grass between my toes, cool and soothing. Away from the house lights I was now blind but it did not matter, I know my garden so well I do not need my now failing eye sight, I fancied I could almost navigate by smell alone. Turn left, ah yes, there is the clematis along the Roman wall, turn right the first burst of early Honeysuckle by the first border. I turn right to walk alongside the big stone and flint wall and my guide dog Sissi though will not let me be out alone and walks past me brushing my leg just enough to tell me; “I am here, I am watching, call if you need me” as she wanders off to take her own pleasure in the garden’s scents. Imagine if I had a dog’s nose, how wondrous my garden would seem then. I could smell every tiny little bud, every mote of soil. I wondered if she could smell ladybirds, do caterpillars have a smell ? Does she see the smells of my garden as a haze of intermixing colours in the air? One thing was certain, she must be able to smell the wild garlic I sow in the borders to keep pests at bay.

The air of the night wrapped itself about my naked body pushing away the fog of the warm indoors and breathing freshness over every part of me with a kiss as sexy as any lovers kiss. Just as with a lover’s kiss this one also swelled my breasts and firmed my nipples sending an electric tickle down into my belly. As I walked by memory I marvelled at how well I could move about despite not being able to see. Under foot I could tell where I was on the grass paths by the feel under my feet and by reaching out I could feel by the plants location where I was placed. Fox gloves came to my hands, their tall bell like structures filling my hands so I had to be alongside the wall. I love to feel for the separate little fox bells in my fingers and feel their delicate little structure.

Then I turned towards the long wildflower grass and stepped lightly into the patch and enjoyed the caressing of thigh high grasses and wild flowers. As I pushed through the light sea of grasses as the lush smell of them washed about me, and all over my thighs delicate thin fingers tested and teased their way up. I bent forward and pushed my hands down into the gently rolling surf of grass and meadow flowers, the little strands and stalks between my fingers, crisp tight heads of grasses popping past me. The swaying heads played against my breasts, naughty little fingers reaching up to tickle and tease until I felt the familiar warmth of milk starting to let down inside them. It feels like grass and meadow flowers are growing out of my legs, as though I am becoming Flora, how wonderful would that be, to breath out sapphire cornflower heads and golden Marigolds, sowing my garden afresh with each exhalation

Then Sissi has circled back to me and pushed her muzzle into my right hand, the message for me to look about and pay attention. I looked.

I cannot see detail in such darkness any more but I can see shapes and coming towards me siloetted against the light from the house was a very familiar shape indeed. My very own Chloris clad in a diaphanous gown of fine white linen. I could make out the roll of her hips, that gentle swaying saunter she has that exudes sensuous sexuality. Wading through the floral surf she reached out and put her hands onto my hips and pulled us together. I smiled to myself as I realised her scent was “Flowers’ a vivid mix of Jasmine, sweet pea and rose. I reached under the edge of her nightshirt and traced her nakedness underneath with my fingers, from the smoothness of her thighs, across the curves of her waist and across the flatness of her belly. Exactly a year before that same belly had been great with child, from womb to home our baby now slept soundly while we reconnected with each other and with the nature in our garden.

I un-did the buttons on her shirt and pushed it off her shoulders. As it dropped to form a white pool amid the darkness of the grass about her feet I stepped back . Chloris naked before me. She took my arm and we walked the night time paths of our garden past Amethyst, Summer Sorbet, Wisteria and Akebia. Come sunrise the amazing dance of life in the garden would continue. The reproductive structures of the flowers and plants form pistils. The stigma at the top of the pistil would go back to catching pollen so that sperm from the pollen will travel down this tube to the ovules. The ovules, or eggs, in the ovary are then fertilized, in short, sex.

Gardens are definitely sex made manifest, wonderful fertility and pulsing with life. So one night this summer take your lover out into a garden, walk naked together and really feel the magical dance that goes on all around you. Close your eyes and let it soak through your senses to warm and arouse you and then…………………….celebrate life !

Author: Judith."

I love how so writes, how her words grab me by my senses and take me into the scene with her. I think tonight, at the end of this hot sultry summers night I will take her back into the garden at midnight and celebrate life all over again.

Nina

Baby Noah is born: Last Saturday night I helped, indeed I was honored to help, my sister in-law deliver her baby boy into the world. Judith sat watched over us, and our children with their reassuring presence provided comfort and security for Carol as she labored through the previous day and night. The children are old hands at childbirth now, they made themselves busy making sure chilled fruit juice and ice chips were always on hand. When just after dawn little Noah finally put in his debut appearance on this stage we call life Carol’s husband Geoff cried upon seeing his new son. Noah spent the his first hour of life resting on his mother’s breast as we left them to get to know each other in peace and quiet, this what I feel is the perfect start to life, it took me back almost a year to the birth of our own Mariaske.
So Congratulations to Carol and Geoff, and welcome to baby Noah Joost. You came into this world peacefully and calmly in your parents home and I will pray that same loving spirit carries you through life.

It has been a worrying last couple of months for our little family so I think it is perhaps a good time to take a breath and enjoy the thing that connects us all and which, whatever challenges the future may bring us, will carry us on through together, Love. When life challenges us it is al to easy to lash out in all directions as a response, but ultimately such action, no matter how satisfying it may be in the immediate, merely depletes our energies and corrodes our spirit.
My mother-in-law is a very spiritual woman and she has a wonderful expression that she has applied to her entire life, through some forty years of marriage, family life, adopting, fostering and raising children;

“ Faith manages”

Judith was injured in town a couple of months ago and a little problem with her eyesight has arisen from that incident. With care, attention and faith Judith’s vision will heal and return, and Nicholas will find his comfort and security once more. It will take time of course, at this stage no one can tell us how long Judith’s sight will remain compromised but the HBOT and high dose EPA/DHA treatment continues. So far the treatment has not improved her vision but there is no further loss. One very happy side effect of the treatment has been the positive effect it has had on her hips and pelvis with her now reporting that she has long periods of being entirely pain free from there. Tyjardia and Judith are now exploring ways to further exploit this effect. It seems that even the darkest clouds hide a silver lining. So for those of you wondering why Judith has not been her usual prolific mail writing self please be patient, she finds reading text very hard work at the moment, and in itself it frightens a her little as well.

Amongst all of this our other two girls are sailing along relatively gracefully with both of them providing much needed comfort and reassurance to Judith and myself. Mariaske is crawling with a vengeance and is into absolutely everything. Judith’s guide dog Sissi has found her work load doubled, the poor thing simply cannot relax when Mariaske is in crawl mode and feels obliged to police Mariaske in case little one needs rescuing. Hilke is proving to be a very strong little soul, despite her often sharp and bossy manner she knows when to set these aside, and has really rallied to her Moeder’s support without once having to be asked.

My beloved sister in law, Judith’s older sister, is couple of weeks from giving birth to her first baby so I keep our car fuelled and ready to go, overnight bags packed. Her pregnancy has gone well and she is very fit so everything looks set for a normal home birth. She grew up in a matriarchal household of babies, natural births so she knows all the right things to do by instinct. I always wanted a sister when I was growing up, well now I have the best of sisters so I am determined to be there for her at this most important of times.

Tyjardia and Nonke have passed all the bureaucratic hurdles required of those wanting to become foster parents. Now at long last and now they await their first assignment. They both have so much to give that any child placed with them is going to be very fortunate indeed. My in-laws will be on hand to give them plenty of help and advice as will Judith and myself so what could possibly go wrong ! LOL. Of course the answer is that when you foster children you have to expect the unexpected because that is about all you can be sure of. I still vividly recall when Nicholas first came to us and the chaos that followed for many months. SO……..Nonke & Tyjardia……Good Luck !

So there we have it, good news and bad news, worrying times and heartening times, this is what makes life’s rich tapestry and shows us how to value what the universe has bestowed upon us.

Love & Light to you all, XXX