Sunday Morning- Den Haag

I need a converter.

You know, something to plug your foreign plug into that then plugs into a local electrical socket. My lap-top, phone and MP3 play were all dead or dying and, if I couldn't recharge them I would lose contact with the outside world.

I made my way into Den Haag as people had told me I would find a converter there. But the shops did not open till 12. So I strode across the square to seek shelter out of the cold. I was not dressed for the weather and felt out of place in the chill wind that came from somewhere in the North Sea and had made its way into Den Haag like the Germans must have when they swept all before them in the blitzkrieg invasion of 1940.

The cafe’s lived inside the shopfronts surrounding the square. The tables and chairs that filled the square were empty of people and even birds this Sunday morning. I sought shelter out of the cold inside a Bier Huis and ordered cafe au lait. Women in groups told their stories to each other before they manned the department store counters. Well-dressed and beautiful to my eyes, they talked the way women do everywhere; debriefing, repairing bruised hearts and souls, rejoicing in some small, sweet gesture or milestone or plan, and offering sisterly support and sympathy. They talked and gestured and smiled; dabbed an eye, then laughed raucously- this world that men can never understand or enter, the mysterious covens that have been suspiciously and enviously viewed by outsiders and given rise to dark rumours of spells and poisoned potions and witchcraft by those who could not join or understand them.

Men sat mainly alone; some read papers, novels, or just stared blankly, lost in some reverie, drinking their coffee, waiting for 12 when their day would begin.

I thought of someone I had been close to, and wondered if she was at the Sunday markets with her trolley picking out bunches of herbs and flowers in a place where the weather was kinder than this place. But that was half a world away, and deep into the night, and wondering what may or may not be was a melancholy, useless exercise.

The women were all talked out and left in unison as if a signal had been given.

The sun shone through the leadlight windows illuminating the brown brick walls and grey cobblestones of the interior, and promised a better day.

A young waitress with a butterfly tattoo on her shoulder brought me more coffee and said “there you go” in perfect English, sensing I was not from here.

The next shifts of women were arriving. I finished my coffee and left the Bier Huis for the electrical store, to get myself reconnected to the world.