Dear Reader,

You've probably been waiting for it: the moment when my father says he's too busy to write a newsletter and he'll hand me the job. This time, unfortunately, with little time before the deadline, so I have to come up with something to tell you in a short time. Normally that's no problem of course, but I actually haven't been to Fluwel much this summer.

My summer this year. The photo quality is not the best you've ever seen, but it doesn't need to be because we just spent twelve hours on a plane so we look like crap.

That is the first time in a long time, because from the age of eleven I have actually worked a few weeks every year. Peeling bulbs, sorting and counting new types of crocuses (we have seen those types grow from 3 bulbs to enormous batches in those years), running orders for various small companies that order special daffodils ... there was always quite a lot to do, and my sisters, brother, and I, with our entourage of friends, were always the first to be called upon for all the small jobs.

The first year of peeling bulbs

In the first years that I started at Fluwel , I had brought a few friends from the high school where I had started that year. I had enticed those friends with the promise that we would not have to work all day (we were a bit young for that), and that we could go to the beach every day after the last break at 15:00. We could also all sit at the same table, because at that age you are allowed to have a summer job, but before the age of fourteen you are not allowed to work at a machine, so we could also chat all day long while we had to manually grab and count out new containers of bulbs. At the end of the week we got paid and we all thought that was an astronomical amount of money. On Saturday we could go straight to town to buy some, because of course we had not seen each other enough by then.


The second (or third? I don't remember) year at Fluwel. My sister Pleun is also there now.

My friends and I continued working at Fluwel throughout high school with pretty much the same group of people. My sisters and brother joined later and brought their own friends, so we always had people left to go to the beach with at the end of the day, or to have sleepovers with that lasted the entire vacation, because going back home to a city further away was of course not convenient if you had to be back at work in Burgervlotbrug the next morning.


The table where my friends and I were counting balls. As you can see, the markers we had to write the names on the cards with were also put to good use to decorate the table.

Anyway, this is to illustrate that working at Fluwel has always been a certain certainty in life for me. School years passed, then a gap year, and then university, but the summer holidays always looked more or less the same, but with a few extra things like holidays with friends and student association activities. But now is the first year that I haven't been there much. Of course I have started doing other things for Fluwel , like translating the newsletter, writing other pieces, going to growers (or friends of my father), but this summer I haven't touched a bulb yet. That must really be the first time in my life.

That's why I didn't really know what to tell you when my father asked me to write the newsletter this week. Of course I know what's going on now, but I haven't been there in person, so it feels a bit strange to have to write about it. My brother Karel would be a good option to pass the task on to, or else I could have interviewed him—then I could have told you again this year about the word 'Karelen,' a term my sisters coined for the way Karel sometimes does his work: looking at how something works in detail, then wondering if it could be done differently, performing a complete thought experiment about a possible alternative course of events, and then coming to the conclusion that the task is actually already being done in the most efficient way. The attentive reader will remember this word from last year, when it also came up once. But we can't say too much about Karel this week: he left for Groningen last Sunday to participate in the KEI week, the introduction period for new students in which they can get to know the different associations that the city has to offer. Karel will start his studies there in September, and because he doesn't know that many people outside of his new housemates, an association is of course nice. In any case, I'm curious to see what it will be, because I think he liked several things.


Impression of my own student life. If there is a reader who knows the rowing world: I sent First Year Light in 2019.

I also joined a student association when I started studying in Leiden, but I kept the illusion of healthy living a bit longer because I joined a student rowing association, so I could tell everyone that it was also about the sports, not just about the parties. And that was ultimately true, because I was a member for quite a long time, and I steered some really nice boats and made some really good friends. That is also the reason why I have been home so little this year: I went on a lustrum trip to India with my friends from the rowing association, because we were all going on holiday together for the fifth time. We stayed there for three weeks and travelled through the north of the country, so we saw cities like Delhi, Jaipur, Jodhpur and Varanasi. I had never been to a country in Asia myself, so I found it very impressive, and of course it is great fun to make a trip like that with ten friends. But anyway, that left little time for Fluwel this summer. It can happen, I'm afraid.


One of the two group photos we took this holiday. The same group as the previous photo, but five years later.

I hope I was able to tell you something about Fluwel this weekend. There is still a lot of work going on in the barn, the busiest time of the year is clearly not over yet. But you already know that, because otherwise you would not receive a newsletter from me: my father would have time for it himself. But you will have to make do with this this week. I hope I was able to tell you something about my time at Fluwel so far. I am sure there will be more newsletters from me from time to time, so until then!

Greetings,
Pien