You know you’re back in The Netherlands when
- - the guy at the customs office instructs you to wear your seatbelt (mind you, he’s not a policeman and he’s not my keeper) even though his colleagues have put you in a lane where the window is on the wrong side of the car, so there is no way in hell you can hand the guy your passport if you have a seatbelt on. A friendly suggestion on his part would have been all right. It was the way he said it.
- - you find a notice in your letterbox telling you there is a package for you at the post office which you can collect the next day after 10am, but when you go to collect it, the package isn’t there and the idiot teen behind the counter treats you like a piece of dirt when you are annoyed and want to know when it will be there. Of course, how did I have the audacity to ask?
- - you are surprised when a person behind a counter treats you like a human being.
- the people in the restaurant at the table next to you are speaking so loudly you can’t hear yourself think.
- - your ears are being bombarded with the voice of the singer Jan Smit everywhere you go (and believe me, he’s a very bad singer).
- - you have to wait for a long time before you can buy a ticket at the safari park and people are constantly trying to jump the queue and bump your legs with their push chairs.
- - car drivers in a car park where there are lots of children running around want you to drive at least 50 mph and start blowing their horns when you refuse to go any faster than the 15 mph you’re allowed to.
- you experience the same thing on the highway where the maximum is 80 mph and they want you to go even faster by signalling with their headlights and tailgating.
- - you get the feeling that even in these troubled times you’d rather live in London.
- - you break out in a rash again and are back to being a grumpy old woman.
