Norg

Saturday 2nd April my mother and I went to Norg. A beautiful place in Drenthe in the Netherlands. It’s surrounded by woods, heathlands, fens and meadows. People who know me well know that this is the place where we go on holiday each year.

One of my first times in Norg.

Inside the cottage, my mom (right) is knitting
something for me I guess.

The first time I went there, I still sat warm and cosy inside my mommy’s belly. My uncle and aunt spent their holiday in a little wooden cottage called ‘Tummetot’ (named after the gnome of Astrid Lingren’s stories) these days and we stayed with them for a couple of days. I have lovely memories about my younger years in the woods! My uncle and aunt got two children, one girl – a bit older than me- and one boy, a little younger than me. So I always had someone to play with. I remember the squirrels running around the cottage and robbing little pieces of bread from the birdfeeding table, the

Making 'forest dishes'

woodpeckers with their drumming and loud sgueeking noise and at night the screaming of an owl. We always had so much fun and we were never bored. If we didn’t have anything to play with we always made something up or created stuff from the thing the forest gave to us. I can see the three of us, when we were ate the age of about 10, sitting around a table outside and making all kinds of ‘forest dishes’. Using pineapples, sand, rocks, twig and everything else we found.
When I was 8 years old, me and my mom spent our holiday

On the campingsite, making a landscape,
using all kinds of natural things.

for the first time at the campingsite.
The weather was very bad one day, we saw the lightning strike the field in front of us and it rained all evening! You don’t feel very  save in a tent on a moment like that. Luckely my aunt and uncle stayed in ‘Tummetot’ so my uncle came to ‘rescue’ us. After a couple of hours the rain stopped and the thunderstorm passed. What was left where very large pools! After all the excitement of the storm, we didn’t have to think what we wanted to do with them! My uncle and cousins and me went outside and danced like idiots in the pools!

And now…things haven’t changed that much. I still like to dance in pools after a large rain shower!
The past 5 years we all went together to the campingsite. Often, girlfriends, boyfriends and other friends were brought along. It was like one big happy camp, with lots of laughing, playing the guitar, singing, playing, cycling and making forests walks. But little kids get big and leave home.
This is the first year we aren’t going to spent our holiday with all. But who knows what the future will bring. I am certain the big happy camp will be restored one day. Because Norg is a very special place. It’s like a second home, for me at least. But I know lots of people how feel the same way about it. You have to have been there to experience the special ‘Norg sensation’
My most favourite place is a heathland called ‘Noordsche veld’ which means something like Nordic Field. There are Scottish Highland cows and goats who are grazing the fields. It is not only a beautiful place but, a very interesting place for archaeologists! There are a couple of megalithic graves (dating from the Neolithicum, Bronze Age and Iron Age) and some celtic fields (prehistoric farmlands.) Everytime I go there, I can’t resist the urge to look out for artefacts. I always come home with my pockets full of flints. But I never found an artefact like a scraper or a handaxe.

This is me (with red hair!) Watching through a telescope in search of Highland cows I suppose ;-)

A holiday without Norg isn’t a real holiday. So now me and my mom are celebrating our holiday with my grandparents in a cottage in the woods in June. We’ll stay for one week and somewhere in July mom and I will stay a week on the campingsite: http://www.boscamping.nl/ (in Ducth!)

Our tent (right) and the one of my uncle and aunt (on the left) and the orange tent is a guest tent.