2003 Cassidy Christmas Letter

Dear Family and Friends,

Sitting here, in Assisi, with the snow falling and the town delightfully illuminated reminds me that it’s been a year since I last brought many of you to tears and sent a few more to the psychiatric ward with the annual “Christmas Letter.” The twisted side of me suddenly thought, “Aye, Aye! Better get scribbling!” Here it is folks... the Cassidy Christmas Letter for 2003 and a look back on the year that was.

A funny thing happened at the beginning of this year... it started last year. Yep, I know it sounds a bit peculiar, but it’s true. We were sitting in a bar (quelle suprise!) on New Years Eve in Geneva, Switzerland. Yep, Switzerland, that place where everything runs like coo coo clock work. At 11:55pm (and we knew what time it was because we arrived at the airport only hours before and I had set my watch) the pub owner rings a bell. There was a mild celebration amongst the assorted “revellers.” (After all, the Swiss may be known for their baking, but have you ever met a Swiss Party Animal?) Heide and I looked at each other, slightly amused, wondering what was going on and in my utter infinite wisdom I surmised, “Ahhh.. it must be like last orders... he’s just giving us a 5 minute warning.” The new year was minus five minutes old and I’d already made my first mistake. Still, if you can’t correct them... join them! So, with a pop or three of a handful of party poppers and streamers we saw in the new year in the previous year!

Anyway, on to the year of 2003 proper. To paraphrase a far better writer than I will ever be... they were the worst of days... they were the best of days. We had just moved into a new apartment in Eindhoven. It was, to say the least, well... tiny. If I were cruel enough to swing a cat by its tail in the apartment (which, by the way, I’m not...) I think it would have bounced it’s head off every corner without me having moved more than one pace from the centre of the room. This in itself wasn’t so bad. What was worse was the four hundred zillion watt lights that blazed outside our bedroom window. But worst of all was the church bells. Now I have nothing against a little campenology but I do object to Quazimodo’s evil twin being let loose around the clock when I could do with some sleep. The piece d’resistance was the Saturday morning ritual. Religiously, every Saturday morning at 9 am, we were “treated” to a rendition of ‘Home on the Range.” Yes, the one about deer and antelope... in Eindhoven, of all places! Eindhoven, in the Netherlands... where as far as I could tell we were no where near a range!! Still, I probably could have lived in the place if it had hot water, but it didn’t. Ahhh, those were the worst of times.

You’d think that things would get better when Heide found work in early January. Instead, she landed a job that was like a deep, core layer of Dante’s inferno. Of course, things weren’t so bad for me. I only worked about 25 hours per week and that was full time with a few hours stacked away in the overtime bank which could be exploited as we ran around Europe like a pair of chickens desperately trying to avoid the butcher.

In brief, we visited Paris (cliché), Brussels and Spa in Belgium (fabulous food and exquisite ale), Germany (obviously Teutonic), Luxembourg (What can I say about Luxembourg that hasn’t been said many times before? Well, actually, the small Duchy is an odd place with a seemingly confused identity; Is it French or German? Belgian or something else? I really don’t know but it’s an appealing enough place) Ireland (Get out of Dublin and it’s truly everything the Irish tourist board what you to believe -- fantastic) Norway (sadly, troll free), Spain (fabulously diverse & unbelievably peculiar when it comes to bulls. Fight or Flight. The bull ring or the streets of Pamplona!), The wine regions of France (Ahhh... need I elaborate?) Austria (they can tell the time better than their neighbours), Estonia (“New Europe,” good old fashioned beer) Finland, (didn’t see any sharks so why Heide thought there were Finns everywhere, I don’t know) and Slovakia (gloriously cheap). Yes indeed. Those were the best of times.

Meanwhile we had moved house, yet again, and were now living in the city of Utrecht. The apartment was better than the last one (not a desperately tough feat!) but the landlady who lived downstairs seemed to be in our home every 5 minutes. I don’t know what kind of times these were, just different, I guess.

In September within a couple of weeks of each other, Heide and I had car crashes. I’m delighted to say that neither of us (nor anyone else for that matter) was injured and I managed to wreck the car that Heide’s work had cursed her with. You might expect this to become one of the worse to times, but you’d be wrong. The mangling of the Mercedes was the catalyst for telling us what we both knew deep down. We were at the wrong place for us at this point in our lives. So, we decided to quit the jobs and go travel. Oh yes indeed! The best of times were happening!!

The details of our journey are logged elsewhere so I won’t duplicate the info. Besides, after my writing this web site probably can’t hold many more words! For you, I imagine that being at the end of this letter certainly makes for the best of times. I really feel that Heide and I are having the best of times and we deeply and sincerely wish all the same for you. Likewise, we hope that this Christmas and New Year will bring you all love, peace and joy. Hope to see you in the not too distant future.

Take care,

Mark and Heide

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This Page was last update: Wednesday, December 8, 2004 at 12:01:43 AM
This page was originally posted: 12/21/2003; 4:08:57 AM.
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