Christmas Eve 2013 - Robert & Ellyn

We had a nice afternoon today, We have not been getting out much, partially because Rob has not felt comfortable transferring into the car after his broken leg this summer, but now also because the car is just not working — electronics are all messed up.

A few years ago we had applied for a local wheelchair taxi service. For one reason or another, we had never used it. We decided to give it a try today, and were happily surprised that we only needed to pay a few euro’s each way to get to a local shopping center.

Although christmas eve seems like a crazy time to go shopping, it actually was not too bad in the afternoon. I think many people stay away because they think it will be so bad. We always go prepared knowing that it might be chaos and that many things may already be gone, but so far, we have always been lucky. We just go with an attitude that what ever happens, happens, and don’t really make a set menu until we know what is available.

We go to a really good fish shop and buy small portions of many types of fish that we grill up at the table. It has been our new tradition the last few years, because going to a restaurant is just too much work for Rob to really enjoy it. It’s also very expensive because they have huge set price dinners and he only nibbles at most of it. I posted what I think the menu will be below so that Rob can give me his input.

Rob also did great with using his new ZX-1 power add-on for his wheelchair. He has not used it a lot with others around him and we had not yet tried it in a taxi. Overall, it worked great, and Rob is getting the hang of using it in a crowd. It was great to see him be able to wheel away on his own and have an easier time getting into shops to make some choices for food that he wanted.

I’m also happy to have my shopping buddy back again, and not needing to make all the food decisions alone. Especially as a vegetarian at the meat counter, I’m really happy I don’t need to figure out what what everything is in a foreign language, and then wonder if it is something he would like or how to cook it.

Between having a wheelchair taxi that we can affordably use and Rob being able to get around on his own more, he is wanting to do this more often. Yippee! They also just started a local internet service for groceries, so between us going together and buying online, I hope one of most hated tasks will become more pleasant,

While waiting for the taxi to come home, we met a nice Bulgarian family that we could only partially communicate with in Dutch. Bulgarians have a hard time here because they are not allowed to work easily, and the father was playing the accordion to make some money with his 2 teenage kids patiently waiting for him. The kids live in Bulgaria and are visiting, because he can’t afford the school fees in the Netherlands.We gave them a few euro’s and the nice bakery treats that I had bought for our christmas dinner, and they were very grateful. The kids were great and helped carry our groceries!

We will be having a quiet day at home tomorrow. I bought some small presents to put under our rather funny tree. It is really just two branches of evergreen I attached to a fountain we had. I call it our 2-D flat tree. At nights with the lights, it’s festive though. Most of the gifts are things we needed, but it makes it more fun to wrap them up for the surprise.

Here in the Netherlands they will gift wrap almost anything when you buy it. It sometimes drives me mad, because you have to wait while people even have batteries and small things like that wrapped up. Today I decided to indulge myself and bought an expensive bottle of lotion. When she asked if it was a gift, I said yes, and let her wrap it up for me — complete with a bow. I even had them wrap up some wine bottle stoppers and a candle I bought!

So anyway, that is what we are up to….