of windmills and tulips and little girls in clogs

When I was a little girl I dreamed of far off places. I dreamed of The Netherlands.

What was it like where my grandpa had grown up?

In my dreams I conjured up fields of tulips with Dutch windmills in the distance and little girls like myself running through the fields wearing little wooden clogs.

Two grown up little Dutch girls we stop the bus at Wassenaar Oldenbarneveltweg and with our suitcases safely in tow walk down the street Hugo de Grootestraat. The street where our great-grandfather built half the houses Uncle Tom later will tell us.

We peer eagerly in the windows. "Do you remember what they look like?" Sigrid asks. And there at number 1 is Aunty Nelly waving somewhat frantically.

How peculiar yet wonderfully familiar to be with family on the other side of the world. They speak to us in English but sometimes forget and speak to us instead in Dutch, thinking that we understand. Not wanting to be rude we smile and nod.

An amazing meal is prepared, which reminds us of Pup and Oma and that amazing pot roast gravy we have never come to master. We steal glances over the table as to whether we should lick our plates clean, but decide it's probably best not to make ourselves look like little Aussie ferals.

Through the streets of Wassenaar we stroll, through "the village", past the house where Pup and Uncle Tom grew up, past the florists selling rows of tulips, past the old Dutch windmill that has been converted into an art gallery.

The little girls in wooden clogs however, were nowhere to be seen.