Four Generations

Four Generations

Here are some snaps of the four of us in Taranaki. What a special few days we had.

Elsie practicing her sitting with Grandma Marjan

Elsie and her Great Grandmother

I really appreciated spending some quality time with my Grandmother - especially as we got lots of time on the drive up and down. I also loved the way that Elsie and Grandma were just enamoured with each other. Here are some things that I learnt about my Grandmother:

• I learnt that while she'll often not have room to finish to her dinner she always has room for dessert
• I learnt that she never eats her vegetables and you can't make her - even by adding things like blue cheese and walnuts to a salad. Nope.
• I learnt that when she was a child she was prescribed a glass of wine per day by her doctor. This was because she looked sickly. She wasn't sickly, she was tough as old boots. But because she was pale and skinny they prescribed her the wine. She used to have it sweetened with sugar.
• I learnt that whenever you offer Grandma a top up of her wine she always says "I never say no". I also learnt that this is true.
• I learnt the reason that her nickname is Lein (phonetically pronounced like a short 'lean') even though her name is Zacharina Adriana. I could never work out where this nickname came from or why her New Zealand friends called her 'Lyn'. How does one get from Zacharina to Lyn? Well it turns out that Grandma was named after her own Grandmother who was also called Zacharina Adriana. My great great grandmother was teased at school because there is a word that sounds very similar to Zacharina that actually means 'miserable sod' in Dutch. So my great great grandmother appointed herself a nickname that had absolutely nothing to do with Zacharina. That name was Lein. Then when my Grandmother was named after her Grandmother the family also continued to use the nickname. Mystery solved!
• I learnt that we have exactly the same hands. Mum calls them witchy boney fingers. Grandma and I prefer to call them elegant.