Chapter 48 – The cottage in the woods

Martin and Louisa spent the rest of the day in the park. After having visited the museum, they went for a long walk through the park. The high sand dunes were impressive, especially when you know that there is no sea or beach nearby and still, it looks like you're only a couple of yards away from the sea.

Martin and Louisa enjoyed the spicy smell of the pine trees and the heather and really enjoyed being outside. The weather was good, sunny and there wasn't much wind. They walked next to each other for at least one and a half hour. Louisa admired Martin's strength. The paths weren't adapted for strollers, so Martin carried James most of the time. He held the boy firmly in his typical way, between his armpit and his hip. James really liked to be carried that way. He felt safe and stayed warm, with his father's arm wrapped around his back. He giggled and babbled happily, until the rythm of his father's regular footsteps and velvetty voice lulled him into a light doze.

Martin pointed to what looked like dunes and explained to Louisa,

"The nature reserve is located on the sandy soils of the Veluwe and is largely formed by water, ice and wind. The push moraines were created in the penultimate ice age, the Saalian, between 200,000 and 105,000 years ago. The sand ridges and melted water valleys date from the last ice age, the Weichselien, between 70,000 and 10,000 years ago. In the Middle Ages, large drifting sand complexes were created in the sand under human influence, which were largely fixed again by afforestation at the end of the 19th century. The area has been managed for forestry and agriculture for centuries and included some small settlements. At the beginning of the 20th century the area consisted of sand drifts, heather and different types of forest with scots pines and different deciduous trees."

Louisa took his free hand and enjoyed the precious undisturbed moment together. It was very quiet in the park the only person they saw from a distance was the ranger, accompanied by his German shepherd dog. The ranger kindly waved to them, but much to Martin's relief, he didn't approach them.

The longer they walked, the quieter Martin became. He was never very talkative, but now he seemed to be in his own bubble. Louisa knew by now that she'd better not disturb him with unimportant chitchat, so she just walked next to him and enjoyed the environment and the fresh air.

By the time they arrived at the car, it was time to go to the cottage they had rented for the next two days. Martin programmed the navigation system according to the directions in the reservation notification.

When they passed a village with a small supermarket, they decided to buy food for the coming days. Breakfast would be included, so they didn't buy to much bread, but they chose ingredients for two decent dinners and lunches, as well as fruit and a bottle of white wine for Louisa.

About half an hour later, they arrived at a farm not far from the cottage. Here they had to pick up the keys. The landlady explained that she would bring them breakfast in the morning, but Louisa quickly replied.

"Oh please, we would like to be on our own, without being disturbed. Would you be kind and just bring it after I message you?"

The woman laughed and said, "in that case, I have a better idea. I will give it to you right now for the first morning. The cottage has an oven in which you can bake off the bread and then you can pick up anything you would need for the next morning tomorrow at any moment that would suit you, alright?"

"Splendid!"

Louisa gave her a big smile and took the basket with goodies that the kind lady just filled. She had taken the bread, fresh oranges, milk, yoghurt, home made jam, cheese, ham and a dozen of eggs.

"That will do, I suppose. There is an orange press in the cottage. And here is a description how to find the cottage. A good thing that you arrived while there's still daylight. Otherwise, I would have shown you the way. One would quickly overlook the narrow forest roads in the dark".

Louisa thanked her and returned to the car where Martin was waiting, drumming impatiently with his fingers on the wheel. He suspected Louisa to have waisted their time with useless talk. But when he saw her arrive with the basket full of ingredients for a healthy breakfast, he mumbled to James "I underestimated your mother, James! She has just had a brilliant idea as it appears!"

As an answer, James giggled and kicked his feet.

"Martin, please let's have a look at these directions first. We wouldn't want to get lost and stumble into an excentric vagabond with a gun again, would we?"

Martin refrained from commenting and took the A-4 with directions from Louisa.

"Good that there's still daylight", he said. Louisa smiled. "I will help you count the crossings", she said.

Martin started the Lexus and slowly drove off in the direction indicated On the paper. They found te cottage without any problems, thanks to the clear instructions and thanks to adequate cooperation between them.

The cottage was well hidden in the wood and Martin started to feel a bit uncomfortable because there seemed to be so little open space in the garden. When they entered the cottage, he was pleasantly surprised .

The living room had very large sliding doors leading to a spacious terrace with a view on a beautiful open space in the wood. On the right side, the garden was bordered by a narrow stream.

Independently from each other, both Martin and Louisa made a mental note to keep a close eye on James, whose crawling skills became better every day. Of course letting him explore the world around him should be part of his upbringing, but they both knew that a toddler could even drown in a rock pool!

"It's lovely here, don't you think, Martin?"

"Ehmm, yes, adequate and immaculately clean."

"My pupils seem to have picked up some of your lessons about hygiene then.. This cottage was found during the project about the Netherlands. I will let them know! Without any details about our stay, don't worry", she added, anticipating on her husband's famous 'non of their business!' , that otherwise would certainly follow.

While Martin unpacked, Louisa took care of James, who needed some physical exercice after having traveled nearly all day, either in the car, in his stroller or in his parent's arms. Louisa played a basic version of hide and seek with him and made sure that he would crawl towards her every time. They had a lot of fun together.

At some point, Martin felt a bit excluded, which had a negative influence on his already rather bad mood. He couldn't really explain why, but today, being together with those two most precious people in the world seems to make him somber. It felt as if he had a heavy stone in his stomach. He really got frustrated by the fact that there wasn't a rational explanation for it. He sighed and tried not to think about it any further, because it seemed to bring up bad memories about his time at boarding school. The other boys having fun together, without ever inviting bedwetting stinking Ellingham to join them...

He took a deep breath to shake off the odd feeling and entered the living soon as James got a glimpse of his daddy's long legs, he immediately changed direction and crawled towards him as quick as he could. Louisa laughed out loud when she saw it and said "now look who eagerly wants his daddy to join us and have fun!"

Martin crouched and opened his arms for James, who immediately tried to stand up, which made it very difficult for Martin to keep his delicate balance. Louisa came to the rescue. Under her son's loud protest, she picked James up before her men fell either backwards or forwards. Martin quickly sat cross-legged to find more stability and when Louisa put her son back on the ground James made another race towards his daddy.

Louisa perfectly understood that Martin would prefer a somewhat quieter game, dug up the colourful stacking cups. Martin made a tower with them and James had a lot of fun destroying it.

Some of the cups rolled away. "Now James, if you want me to make another tower, you will have to get me all the cups first", Martin said. "There's the red one under the table, can you get it for me?" James followed his fathers finger that pointed towards the missing object and then crawled towards it. The next challenge was crawling back with the cup in his hands, not easy on the wooden floor! Martin and Louisa were both curious to know how James would solve this problem.

Martin was already prepared to catch the cup, should his son try to roll it back to him, but James had another idea. He simply brought the cup to his mouth and held it squeezed between his teeth and crawled back to his father.

"Clever boy!", Louisa exclaimed. Martin grunted and wiped the cup with his handkerchief, before building another tower.

He showed James how to stack the cups and eventually his son managed to stack the first two cups all by himself. "Well done, James, well done!" Martin said. Louisa heard the pride in his voice and smiled, glad that the deep frown that had been present on Martin's face all afternoon, was gone now. At least for the moment...

To be continued.

Thank you for your patience! A happy Saint Sylvester to everybody. next chapter will follow soon in the New Year.