"April VT Meeting in Eindhoven 2004 - 1" Eindhoven Travelogue by Kiriel

I arrived in Eindhoven and caught a taxi to the museum. The man at the desk pointed me towards the prehistoric village. There I met up with my new friends:

Carin
Gorrie
Tom
Alain
Rudy
and our guide Mirella.

Everyone was looking vey relaxed, and rather different... all in costumes!

Inside the "house"

I had known before coming that I was going to be staying the night in the village, but I hadn't realised quite how much we were going to be getting into the spirit of things. I headed to the change room to find something to wear. Unfortunately, as I had guessed, I look rather like a cushion with a string tied around it

Stylish footwear

The shoes I had to wear were really interesting. They were very stiff when I first put them on, and I had the sinking feeling that I was in for some blisters, but in actual fact they warmed up and became quite flexible and comfortable.

Cooking dinner

The first (and most important) thing to do for the afternoon was to prepare dinner. It was important to get the fire on, and the grains soaking for our pottage. Mirella coaxed us away from the cool beers and charmed the men in to chopping up wood, while the ladies chopped up much smaller things; the vegetables. Dinner ended up being three things: pottage, soup and chicken legs (boiled first in the soup and then barbecued).

We were joined by a talented musician, who, much to my surprise, was singing songs in English! A whole heap of irish folk songs. With his Dutch accent, some of the English was a bit hard to understand, but in many ways the accent suited the music, and ended up sounding very much like he had a very strong Irish accent.

If you are wandering the streets of Eindhoven and see a young bearded muso playing Irish folk songs, throw him some change!

My cosy bed

After some wine and some chatting we headed to bed. We knew that with the morning would come the sounds of roosters crowing and wanted to get a relatively early night.

Bed was another thing that I hadn't anticipated from the "accommodation in a prehistoric village". We were sleeping in the sheep croft.

The others decided to sleep in the big box of straw. I opted for the pallets: woven base with a mattress stuffed with straw. It was pretty hard and lumpy, but I had a heap of sheepskins to add, and in the end it made quite a comfy nest.

Unfortunately I was ill prepared for the conditions, so didn't have anything to sleep under, so more skins and my costume made for an interestingly textured blanket. It was ok, as long as I didn't roll over or move, because if I did, I bared myself to the cold.

As predicted, we were woken in the morning. Not by a rooster though.. but a chicken that had come into the hut and laid her egg in the rafters. The crowing of a happy hen was not a welcome sound after a rough night's sleep, but we staggered out into the sun to have breakfast; lovely whole grain bread, cheese and jam.

Baking time

The activity for the morning was making brooms. Heading off into the thicket to pick up bundles of sticks was fun, apart from my first encounter with stinging nettle. The costume I had only went to my mid calf, so the bottom of my leg was stung and burned for about 6 hours. Still... all part of the experience!

I made two brooms; one full sized and one baby one which I gave to Mirella to use as a pot scrubber. I decided against taking my broom home with me at the end of the day; I couldn't imagine easyjet being happy with trying to fit in a large broom.

Then we ground flour so that we could make bread for lunch. It was fun getting floury, and I sang a song for my friends as we kneaded away.

The bread was made into little pockets with cheese and herbs inside. Very tasty, and all the better for being made ourselves.

Flying home on our homemade broomsticks

Sadly the time flew by and it was time to go. I felt SO relaxed after the weekend and was very sorry to have to go. Thanks so much to Carin for organising this meeting, and to my new friends for being so very welcoming to me. See you again soon I hope!