What do your shoes say about you?

Tuesday 24 October

Edwin and I have this hare-brained idea that we could spend a very long time together, taking loads of photos of ourselves in silly poses around the Netherlands, and the whole world, wearing wooden clogs. Only we don't have any yet.

Wednesday 25 October
12am Edwin reminds Jane that he has to work a half day and to make up for it, he gives her some early birthday presents. She scores a jaunty little winter cap and Roald Dahl's BFG (De GVR - De grote vriendelijke reus) ... in Dutch language. One of Jane's all time favourite books. She reads him a chapter and he gently corrects her pronunciation when required.
12.30am Edwin receives Anke's text: "Can I come over to your place before work at 8am tomorrow to wish Jane a happy birthday? I may not get another chance to see her on her birthday ..." Anke, who has moved only 2 months ago from Frankfurt, Germany to Eindhoven, Netherlands, is being placed by her work in Atlanta for 3 months - she leaves in a week. Edwin knows Anke and Jane don't have much time to catch up over the coming days.
12.35am Edwin silently panicks in the dark, quickly recalculates some logistics, then says he has to put up some birthday decorations and that Jane should get some sleep.
12.36am Jane is sleeping soundly.
3am Edwin crawls into bed, exhausted.
7am Edwin gets up and says he has to get ready for work. He puts on work clothes (jeans and a sweater) and says he's making Jane's birthday breakfast and that she's not to come downstairs until it's ready. Jane is semi-somnolant.
7.25am Jane awakes to the breakky-call and staggers down the stairs to find ...
7.28am Jane is already crying, she sees 31 long stemmed roses in a massive vase and hears her favourite Sophie Koh track Anywhere playing on the stereo. Edwin stands there in his best suit, with a red-ribbon artfully tied around his waist, wearing ridiculous klompen, holding a card with a four leaf clover and a lady bug on the front. His eyes are kinda moist, and he apologises for not being able to say his birthday message from memory and it's all a blur. Because the ending "will you please marry me?" is the only sound that rings in Jane's ears. Even now.

7.31am Jane squeals "Of course", and he presents her with a small box saying "I got it back to front - I bought you the ring before I asked you to marry me." Jane is confused, worried that there might be a diamond in it (when she and he had agreed that there should never ever be a diamond, but rather a round-world-plane-ticket in its place). Relieved, she opens it up to see the friendship ring Ed had bought for her a couple of months back, that fits conveniently on her third left finger. She then looks down and sees she has her own pair of matching shoes to wear. An engagement jig is spontaneously choregraphed.

8.25am Anke arrives with cake, birthday candles ablaze. Kind, considerate Edwin couldn't tell Anke that he was going to propose to Jane and didn't want to ask Anke to move her scheduled birthday wish appointment. They share their fresh news with Anke and have tea and cake together.

9am Anke leaves Jane and Ed's house, late for work. The first bottle of champagne for the day is uncorked. Edwin reveals that he does not have to go to work at all. More reason to celebrate. He then tells Jane the struggles he had on Tuesday night, smuggling his suit into the pantry and hiding the roses somewhere because he didn't expect she'd be home. (Ref: Close proximity to walls, blog entry from Tuesday 24 October. Jane eventually piked on her "practise your dutch session" and surprised Edwin when he arrived home after work at 8pm.) But she never suspected a thing.

11am Little sister Su calls from Australia. She wishes Jane a happy birthday. Jane and Edwin blurt out their news, as they know that they will be gushing on about it all day ... and they want her to find out on the actual day. Susan punctuates the phonecall intermittently with breathless exclamations of "Oh my god! Oh my god. That is awesome!"

12pm Jane readies the house for birthday celebrations. Cakes are set on little plates while crackers and cheese take their place on a board. She even tries to bake appelflappen, the Dutch pastry that people treat their friends with on their birthday.

1.50pm Edwin's parents, Gerry and Jan, arrive for Jane's family birthday party. She'd said earlier that week she'd been missing Vegemite on toast, but has neither the precious paste nor a toaster. Edwin's parents do not disappoint and deliver the goods. Yeah!

2pm Edwin's sister Sylvia, hubby Fred and their kids, Nick and Sanne, turn up. Nick is thrilled, because he's seen a train on the way, and tells Jane so. She has no idea what he's talking about but cuddles are on tap that day. In amongst all the commotion Jane has baked her appelflappen so well that they come out topped with a nice, even blackened char. Inedible. Everyone congratulates her on her efforts, while warily eying off the miserable morsels. She blames the oven's instruction manual's being in German and Dutch as the reason for why she can't operate it. (Of course, her being culinarily challenged doesn't even get a mention).

2.10pm More gifts arrive, but a brilliant surprise slagroom tarte is presented, and the klompen leitmotif chimes once more.

3pm As previously arranged, Jane's parents, Rayner and Susy, are online on the webcam 11pm AEST (Australian Eastern Standard Time). As lovely surprise, her older sister, Melanie, and her sleepy niece, Mary, are also in Traralgon. (That only leaves baby sister, Su, and brother-in-law, Lance, still in Melbourne). Almost all the family is around.

3.15pm After some technical difficulties and a few logs-on and off, Jane and Edwin commence a "translating relay". After introducing the eight people crowded around the webcam in the Netherlands location to the four gathered around the Australian one, heartfelt birthday wishes are sent through the airwaves to Jane. And also to Susy for her birthday the following day. From Traralgon, Rayner pipes up with some Dutch here and there, and everyone in Eindhoven cheers and claps when they hear him. At some point, Edwin and Jane manage to say in alternating sentences, that they have an announcement to make. Gerry and Sylvia immediately suspect that Jane might be pregnant. Jan is sitting in confusion as the kids are running around rattily and making lots of noise. Jane is asking the the Aussies to make the light a bit brighter on their side. All of a sudden, Jane and Ed announce their engagement and everyone hollers, surprised. It gets a bit difficult to hear, so Jane blocks an ear and takes the microphone and tells the story to her family in English (reporter-on-the-ground style), while Edwin tells his version in Dutch to his own. It's announced that the church in Zeeland, Netherlands (the town, not the province) has been booked for 14 July 2007. That's 14 months to the day after Jane and Ed will have met in Darwin. 14-07-07. Fourteen is Ed's lucky number, and also the number of the house Jane lived in as a child. And Jane's Australian family is invited to the wedding of course. They log off. (Susy later tells Jane that she didn't sleep until 1am AEST. Far too much excitement).

4pm Edwin's parents have to leave for their previously scheduled bridge game not expecting that this news would be delivered. They cannot stay for champagne, so Jane and Ed promise to take a bottle to the next family dinner and toast it then. (Needless to say, Jan and Gerry don't play such good hands that evening, so awed are they by the announcement).

4.30pm Champagne flows at Annie Romeinverschoorstraat 65. Fred and Sylvia have loads of questions. It doesn't seem so long ago they had the same exciting things to think about. The kids want to go to Ikea to play in that room of balls. The Van de Meers leave.

5pm Jane and Edwin finish the champagne and get ready for dinner.

7pm Kitty and Charlotte are waiting at De Bommel in Kleine Berg, as afgesproken, when Jane and Edwin arrive. They enjoy a delicious meal together over (Jane's) stilted Dutch. Various phone calls and texts are sent by apologetic Dutch friends who are sick or can't get a ride into Eindhoven. Birthday felicitations are sent anyway, and the proposed party of fifteen at the bar later on is diminished to eight. Jane doesn't mind one bit.
8.30pm The quartet walk the three doors down to Grand Café Berlage. Sjoerd and Helga turn up, as do Lenise and Nico. The party of eight has a drink together.

9pm The cake that was ordered the previous day is cancelled, and slices of apple tart come out instead. Everyone sings the Dutch "Happy Birthday" which is "Lange zal zij leven, lange zal zij leven, lange zal zij leven in de gloria, in de gloria, in de glo-ri-a", to a tune that sort of sounds like "Here we go 'round the Mulberry Bush" ... but not really. Jane's attempts at a rousing "Happy Birthday" in English peters out as her and Lenise's reedy voices run too thin by the second line.

9.15pm Champagne comes out and eight glasses. Everyone thinks that Jane's birthday is really rocking on. But there's more. Edwin and Jane announce their engagement, which everyone reacts to in their own way. Charlotte thinks we're joking. Sjoerd and Helga are surprised but happy. Lenise makes an "O" shape with her mouth. Everyone gets up and kisses each other and congratulations go on and on. The café staff and clientele don't know what's happening at our table. We order a second bottle of champagne.

9.23pm Inga, a close German friend from Melbourne who is living once again in Germany, sends Jane a text, apologising that she can't make it to the birthday drinks.

10.30pm Jane is happy and all engaged and stuff, when suddenly a familiar face appears before her. It's Inga, who's been driven for 90 minutes from Duesseldorf by her Dutch-speaking German friend, Ajan! What (another) unexpected surprise! Inga brings Italian pastries, saying it reminds her of Melbourne.
Thursday 26 October
12.15am The party ends and the newlyweds, Sjoerd and Helga, give Jane and Edwin, the betrothed, some advice - "Bugger the cost, just do the wedding the way you want it", but of course they say this in Dutch. The four of them all ride their bikes home part way together.

12.30am Edwin and Jane get home, completely in a daze. The clogs sit in the Van Ras/Hardjono loungeroom, reminding them of een mooie dag, a beautiful day.

And what do these shoes say?

That Edwin and Jane are going to get married!

No sign of blue days to come, despite the blue font here. Much better mood is to be had for days, weeks and months thanks to this happy day!