One of my friends were visiting with her daughter and they invited me over for a week-end. Arina was kind enough to take me to the trainstation in Zwolle, and after about an hour in this monstrously fast train I was at my destination, and Sue, my friend and her daughter Meisie met me at the station. They were delightful to be with, and we went to an open air antique market where I bought a whole bundle of old prints, not at all valuable, but very nice.

On Sunday they were all going to church, and as nobody enlightened me before I came, I had of course only brought leisure clothes, not at all suitable to go into the Lord's house to give praise. Now see, Sue was quite a few years my senior, well, about 22, but she still dressed to kill, and loved her adornments and her make-up. Her dresses or pants suits were always designer stuff, and in my eyes designer stuff are always a bitty flashy. This Sunday will stay in my mind forever as the most painful and uncomfortable day ever, as apparantly this church had a South African Dominie [preacher], and come hell or high water, I had to go and hear him preach, and afterwards meet him. So Sue brought one of her colourful pant suits, with lots of adornments sewed on, and I was told to get dressed. Sue was a friend, but had always treated me like a wayward teenage daughter, so I put the suit on. As she was a big bossomed, small hipped woman, and I was more of a pear shape, the pants with their skinny legs, that looked good on her, looked like a bally stiffly stuffed rag doll on me, while my small upper body was drowning in the top. Sue critically eyed this apparition, then announced that I needed some jewelery, and out came a flashy gem studded string that had to be coiled around my neck, but she was not finished yet, and I was told to take off my smallish silver earrings, and she handed me a pair of huge, also gem studded things and this monsters hung almost on my shoulders, enlarging the holes in my lobes as it was so heavy! Then out came the make-up! Sue wore a lot of rouge and eye shadow, usually green, as she had green eyes, and wore mostly green clothes. By this time I was as meek as a lamb, as none of my remonstrations made a difference, and my sallow cheeks were beautifully reddened, and my eyes were done up heavily in green! I peeped in the mirror and my sole cried. But then I remembered that I had no shoes, only my sneakers, and shuddered at the thought of me all dollied up with a pair of sneakers on my feet. Again Sue just took it in her stride, and disappeared to her room, then came back with a pair of lovely very high heeled shoes, and I was ordered to put in on! It was too small, and I told her so, but, she said, my feet are in, and as I will be sitting all the time, I could take it off if it hurt me. Ha-ha!  Ignoring the many stares I received, some really incredulous, I made it to the pew where we were to sit, and as my feet were aching like the blazes, I took the shoes off immediately! After the long and quite boring service everybody was standing outside in groups, talking, and I hobbled alongside Sue to where the Dominie was holding court with some of his ardent followers. When he heard that I was also from South Africa, he started talking, and as he droned on and on, my feet swelled more and more, until they hung out of the shoes like two over raised unbaked breads! When at long last his attention was seeked by an elder, I was free to go, and could hardly lift my bally feet off the ground, so, to the horror of Sue, I took them off and walked barefoot to the car! She was not impressed, but I couldn't care a fig! The weekend however  was lovely apart from that!

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 I couldn't get hold of Arina, so I had to take the bus to Hattem and walk all the way up to the farm with my sore feet. It took about a week for those two manhandled parts of my body to get back to normal! Next day Arina informed me that she and a few friends were off to Italy for two weeks, and I was given a lot of instructions to follow.