An evening of my own

Once in a life time I have an evening where the only guest is me, myself, and I. Shmuck (the cat) is sleeping next to me, at times giving one of those full hearted stretches that makes you want to be a cat. I sit here, with my glass full of a heavy red spanish wine from Jumilla region. Why I chose this particular wine this evening, I do not know, but it goes oh so well with my Dutch cheese crackers and some white peaches from Spain.
Tell me my friend, how many evenings do you have that you can say "I did exactly what I wanted". Once you have a family, or a relationship, everything is determined by the word "us". So actually doing something by yourself is a bit frustrating. Should I be sitting down, doing absolutely nothing, munching on so so food and drinking fabulous wine? Ironing to be done, dishwasher to be emptied, bed to be made. Really? Does that guilt feeling creep up on you when you do absolutely nothing ? Today, I am lucky, I have no such feeling. I am taking it all in. Crap English cooking or redecorating series, dont care. TV series are just background noise. Just half-watched a series about prematurely born babies that i downloaded. Wrong choice for an evening entertainment, I was in tears throughout. So if you do have an evening on your own, DO NOT choose anything about children, climate, politics, or dangerous sports. Choose something lighthearted. Like yet another braindead comedy with Jennifor Aniston (I had no idea she was 62 years old!). Old girls can still have fun after all, according to her. A bottle of wine, or two, some easy food that doesnt require any more skill other then cutting, a good sofa, a loved one that keeps messaging you because he doesnt want to appear rude to his friend and actually call me. Call me lucky. Call me boring. Call me anything. I am happy. Are you ?

A Spring full of Frogs

Never have I heard a chorus as complete as what we hear every single night outside our bedroom. It starts just before midnight, in the typical Dutch canal outside our small crooked terraced house, intensifies at around 3am and dies off as the birds start warming up their vocal chords and dawn. At first it was a bit of a nuisance, but now I think I will genuinely miss them when they are gone. Considering we live almost in the port of Vlaardingen, or Rotterdam, we smell the fumes of petrol and hear the working cranes, this plethora of quacks and noises is an absolute marvel.
It is the most perfect mating call, and funnily enough, every species of frogs have their own call so the females will only answer the call of a male frog of the same species! How odd yet convenient! And then the fun begins: the male frog mounts the female frog and can somtimes ride them for days on end before the fertilization is complete (years of reading the National Geographic pays off on such an occassion). I will not go into details of the process thereafter, noone needs a lecture on frog breeding, I am certain of that.
But I am grateful to have this little mystery of nature just outside our window, calling into the night , thousands of them, looking for a mate, probably more successfully then the human race.