By the mid 1980s, Marieke had been living in Tasmania for longer than she'd lived in her native Netherlands, but she retained her accent, and often tumbled into Dutch. Dennis had become fluent during their courtship, so Bart was brought up bilingual. Marieke, "Meke" to her husband, retained much of her culture. As Den put it to his nephew Tom, "If Dutchiness, as you call it, bothered me, I wouldn’t have been attracted to Meke in the first place. She is exceedingly Dutch. ..I’m pretty sure she does it on purpose."
In her vigorous forties, Marieke capitalised on her heritage, running a business called Marieke’s Kleine Nederlanden (Little Holland) comprising a tulip farm, complete with windmills, and a gift shop specialising in handpainted clogs, windmills, Dutch biscuits and such. There is nothing tacky about Marieke's wares; she has everything hand-painted and made from the finest ingredients. She is also a talented photographer, specialising in dramatic portraiture, flowers and landscape. In the story world, it was Marieke who took the photograph you see below.
People like Marieke. She is excitable, larger than life, and full of pragmatic good sense. Her menfolk adore her and she adds colour and fun to her surroundings. Marieke appears quite late in The Kissing Ring. To date, she hasn't popped into any other stories, but, as she herself might put it, Schat, ik heb plannen!
ABOUT THE BLOG
Sally is Sally Odgers; author, manuscript assessor, editor, anthologist and reader. She runs http://www.affordablemanuscriptassessments.com and Prints Charming Books. (Sally is me, by the way, and I am lots of other things too, but these are the relevant ones for now.)
The goal for 2017 was to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. If you're an author, an aspiring author, a reader or just someone who enjoys windows into worlds, you might find this fun. The books are not in any special order, but will be assigned approximate dates, and pictures, where they exist. 2017 is now behind us, but I ran out of year before running out of books. As of February 18th 2018 I STILL haven't run out of books, but many of those still to come are MIA by which I mean I don't have copies and remember little about them. There are more new books to come, and I'll certainly showcase those, but in between times, I'm profiling some of my characters, just for a change. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along on this journey so far!
Sally is Sally Odgers; author, manuscript assessor, editor, anthologist and reader. She runs http://www.affordablemanuscriptassessments.com and Prints Charming Books. (Sally is me, by the way, and I am lots of other things too, but these are the relevant ones for now.)
The goal for 2017 was to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. If you're an author, an aspiring author, a reader or just someone who enjoys windows into worlds, you might find this fun. The books are not in any special order, but will be assigned approximate dates, and pictures, where they exist. 2017 is now behind us, but I ran out of year before running out of books. As of February 18th 2018 I STILL haven't run out of books, but many of those still to come are MIA by which I mean I don't have copies and remember little about them. There are more new books to come, and I'll certainly showcase those, but in between times, I'm profiling some of my characters, just for a change. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along on this journey so far!
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