May 4, 2025

Hundred Days of Happiness – Week TwentyFour

We enjoyed the first week of spring vacation with film lectures, family fun, games, Gouda cheese, and unexpected travel adventures!

Our son’s spring vacation has started. We didn’t have many fixed plans, but did manage to have a bit of fun and excitement and have a really nice visit with Granny and Grandpa in London.

Apr 21 – Day 163

Our son is on school holiday for two weeks and trying to balance keeping him entertained and occupied and get work done is always a challenge, but we took some time together to play Rummikub together on Monday afternoon. This game is also known as Machiavelli when played with two decks of cards and is a long time Murch family favorite.

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Apr 22 – Day 164

I had to go to Amsterdam to sign some paperwork in person for work and since our son was on vacation, I brought him along. We walked from Amsterdam Zuid up to the center Amsterdam to see Grandpa and Howard give a talk at the Nederland Film Academy about “Her Name was Moviola” to the film students there and it was a glorious spring day, so here are some extra photos - it was impossible to chose just one. Editing is hard…

We came across this amazing accordionist busking in Amsterdam on our walk. We had to stop and appreciate his performance. Click through to listen.

Last week, this amazing accordionist was busking in the tunnel by the Rijksmuseum. We gave him some cash but I am going go live the busking link below.

— Beatrice Murch (@murchstudio.com) 2025-04-26T11:10:53.381Z

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Apr 23 – Day 165

Wednesday I worked a lot, I had to wrap up a lot of loose ends before going on a mini family vacation.

Grandpa came to stay with us that evening after two days in Amsterdam and brought me an advanced copy of “Suddenly Something Clicked”. It’s a hefty read and I look forward to reading it all together after reading some advanced chapters over the years.

I was happily surprised to see The Internet Archive in the acknowledgements of his book.

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Apr 24 – Day 166

As Grandpa was here and our son was on school break, I drove the car to Gouda to experience the 400+ year old cheese market that has graced the large open square in the middle of this small beautiful city not too far away from Utrecht. Rain was predicted, but luckily it mostly stayed in the sky as we spent the late morning checking out the stalls and buying some cheese to not only bring home, but also bring to Granny in England.

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Apr 25 – Day 167

Friday was our travel day. It was a bit too exciting.

I had bought tickets on the same Eurostar as Grandpa to travel to London for a long weekend. His tickets were from Amsterdam and ours were from Rotterdam. I had it all carefully planned out. We left our little local train station together, and got to Utrecht Centraal. I was to put him on the train to Amsterdam in time for him to pass through immigration check and board the train and we would get the early train to Rotterdam and meet on the Eurostar. His train left from platform 5. Unfortunately, I put him on the train just across the quay on platform 7 and instead of going to Amsterdam Centraal, he went to Leiden by way of Schiphol Airport. Luckily, I hadn’t put him on a train going northeast, but going southwest sort of on the way to Rotterdam. Even though the screens in the train were off, he fairly quickly realized there was a problem. After a flurry of texts back and forth, he disembarked in Leiden and I told him which platform to go to to take yet another train to Rotterdam. We met in the station and all of us got onto the Eurostar together.

He went off to business class - coach 14 - the perks of traveling for work - and my son and I found our seats in coach 13 and settled in. After departing Rotterdam, I went to go check on Dad. I found Howard, and my father should have been sitting across from him in seat 74, but he wasn’t. Huh? I tried to look for him, but there was a steward with a trolley blocking the path, so I went back to my seat to let my son know I needed to search a bit more. Our seats were empty. Huh? I took a deep breath. How could both my father and son be missing on a moving train? I asked around but no one had seen a boy in a yellow sweatshirt leave alone. I set out to find my son and quickly walked up three coaches, knocking on bathroom doors without any luck. Panic began to creep up my belly but I took more deep breaths, turned around and again quickly walked back to our seats. He was sitting there, of course he was, completely oblivious to the worry he had caused. He had gone to the bathroom, as I had suspected, but we had completely missed each other as I had gone one way and he had gone the other. Son found - safe and sound. I had a not-so-quiet chat about safety and staying put and could see the nearby passengers understandingly smiling and holding back their laughter.

Now to find my father. I went back to his coach, he still wasn’t in his seat and as the aisle was clear, I could continue on to the other coaches and found him in coach 15, seat 74. He, like his grandson, was completely oblivious to any worry and was working away on his laptop. I brought him to his correct seat and installed him opposite Howard.

Ahh the joys of being in that sweet “sandwich” generation.

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Apr 26 – Day 168

Saturday was a pretty chill day. Granny and grandson went out to the village, went shopping at the market and had lunch together while Grandpa and “Mum” relaxed at home.

Work friends came over in that afternoon for a lovely tea and I did some website work in person which we usually do remotely. That was nice to work together in person.

That evening, we watched a replay of the Pope’s funeral in Rome.

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Apr 27 – Day 169

Granny, Grandson, and I took the double-decker bus from Primrose Hill to Baker street station, to take the Metropolitan line to Wembley Park, not realizing there was a huge football match on. We streamed out of the station into a sea of people and double lines of Police checking people’s bags for alcohol. We thought there were a lot of people, it was only 12 noon.

We snaked our way through the crowd to turn away from the stadium and walked to the theatre to watch the incredible “Starlight Express”. I remember watching it in 1984 and was really happy to be able to share this experience with our son. They let people take photos at the very end.

at 3:30 pm, we left the brilliant spectacle, bright lights, and loud musical to return to Wembley Park and found ourselves as salmon spawning upstream. We had to make our way back to the Underground station in a veritable mass of people wearing red and celestial blue shirts all pushing towards the stadium. I’m just glad we didn’t even consider going to the game.

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The close of the first week of school spring vacation was just lovely, I was so glad to spend time with my folks in London and so very glad they “just” are a train ride away. Just have to make sure I take the right train.

My father just sent me this movie from 19 years ago today. My ex and I left Bolinas CA on a two month road trip in the VW van we bought from @nakedjen.bsky.social and then eventually sold to @jonbalbertson.bsky.social This trip was our "goodbye" to the states before we left for South America. /1

— Beatrice Murch (@murchstudio.com) 2025-05-04T17:35:43.887Z

I never would have the life I have today living in the Netherlands with my amazing Argentine husband and son without this trip. Life's twists and turns are unpredictable and worth it. Say "yes", even when it scares the shit out of you.