Sam was looking at one of her four children playing soccer in the pouring rain. It was 7.30am. Pitch dark. Freezing cold. She was wondering to herself who in their right mind would make a bunch of five year olds play a soccer game at this time of the morning…and when it was bucketing it down!

It had been five years since she, her husband and kids had moved to the Netherlands and these small things still continued to surprise her. After having spent her whole life traveling around the world, living places such as the West Indies, France, Egypt, Italy, Ivory Coast, Zambia, Zaire, Hong Kong, and England, she marveled at how she could still be surprised at the endearing idiosyncrasies of certain cultures; like the French and Italians taking long lunch breaks and not adhering to the afternoon opening times indicated on the sign on the door, the Ivorians sucking on sugar cane as a form of toothbrushing, the Brits and their love of tea any time of the day, and obsessive talk about the weather, the Egyptians leaving one seat empty on the subway insisting someone else need take it more than themselves. And so on. She knew all too well though, that all these small differences is what made every country so special in its own way.

Francesca, Sam’s eldest daughter, now at the ripe old age of six, was watching the game with her.

One of the other five year old’s Dads, dressed in jeans and a light sweater, no umbrella, drenched – another typical trait of the Dutchies being their ability to embrace the wind and rain to another level – came sauntering up and struck up a conversation with Sam about the weather. It never seemed to stop fascinating her how these people, not unlike the English, found it compelling to speak about the weather at any opportune moment. She wasn’t sure why as it rained pretty much 11 months of the year….

After a few exchanged banalities, the man asked where Sam was from. Despite having lived all over, her ten years in British boarding school had taken it’s toll on her accent. Sam hesitated, if only for a second, in that moment she asked herself if this man truly wanted know and had time to hear her long story, or whether it was just a casual early morning, polite, pass the time conversation. She decided on the latter and swiftly answered

“I’m from London”

Francesca, who’d been listening in on the conversation quietly, quizzically looked up at her mother, then at the man and said in a loud and confident voice,

“but Mummy, you’re not from London!”

Sam smiled and looked down at her ever wonderful perceptive daughter and quietly, almost as if confiding to herself, whispered

“You are quite right my darling, I’m not from London” 

To be continued……