Groningen Love Affair

Ellie didn’t believe in fate, but if she did, she would have sworn that Groningen was created just for her.

She had just broken up with her long-term partner. Leaving her old life behind, she had moved to the Netherlands, where she had taken a job teaching English at a small high school in a quiet town in the east of the country. She found an apartment on the edge of town, close enough to walk to the centre but far enough away from the university that she could get a place for a reasonable price.

When she first arrived, rain hammered down for days on end. It didn’t help that she couldn’t figure out how to turn on the heating in her flat and all of her clothes were damp and mouldy. In desperation, she went into town to buy new clothes, only to find that there was an enormous indoor market on every Thursday. The shops around town closed early and there was nothing much else to do besides sit at home alone watching TV or visit the bars and clubs, which weren’t really her scene any more. So, when it rained again on her first Thursday in Groningen, Ellie wandered through a maze of stalls selling fish and flowers and cheeses and all kinds of other things she didn’t recognise and couldn’t pronounce. She bought some bread rolls filled with cheese and vegetables from one stall and ate them while standing under an awning next to a stall selling brightly coloured umbrellas.

Afterwards, as she walked through the market looking for something else to eat, she came across a stall selling ice cream. One of the flavours was called Zwarte Piet – Black Peter – something about which Ellie knew almost nothing except that it sounded fascinating and unusual. She ordered it without knowing what it might be like or even whether it existed outside of those few words printed on paper above the ice cream tubs. The woman behind the counter smiled at Ellie in such a way that Ellie suspected already that this woman knew exactly why she had chosen this particular flavour, but she wasn’t going to say anything unless asked directly.

And then Yorick appeared beside her carrying two cups of hot chocolate with whipped cream billowing about their edges. He gave one cup to Ellie who took it gratefully and blew on its surface softly before taking a sip through a straw which emerged from the head of an oddly misshapen snowman rising from its surface. Yorick watched her as he took his own drink from his cup into his mouth without moving his eyes from hers, smiling as he did so with such warmth that Ellie felt herself blush slightly as though he had kissed her instead of given her a drink through which he had breathed heavily before drinking himself.

As soon as he left, Ellie ordered another Zwarte Piet so that when Yorick returned with another hot chocolate for himself but no longer any drinks for others in tow, he could see that there was someone here waiting for him who wanted to say hello again. And sure enough within minutes Yorick appeared again with two cups of hot chocolate this time not only decorated with whipped cream but also tiny Dutch flags stuck into them so they looked like Christmas trees covered in decorations made by primary school children rather than grown adults who should know better.

This time Yorick took the seat next to Ellie after passing over her drink and they talked together until late afternoon when there were hardly any people left in the market except two cleaners mopping water from between the stalls onto the floor tiles which ran alongside them as far as you could see either way along each row of shops and stalls running horizontally across the enormous space until eventually you reached its walls where more shops continued all around it just as they did outside too where you could buy shoes or breakfast croissants or lingerie if you liked doing your shopping surrounded by people eating their lunch or reading newspapers or buying underwear or whatever else was sold inside it too although most people thought it would be nicer to have everything open air where you could breathe well instead of being cooped up inside this huge old building stuffed full with shops selling things people didn’t need because they had already bought them elsewhere or because they never needed them in the first place because they were only used once every fifty years when someone wanted to move house or redecorate their kitchen or buy new furniture because they didn’t like anything they already owned even though they hadn’t noticed anything wrong with it before deciding all at once one minute after deciding exactly what they wanted their lives would be better off if they replaced everything in their house immediately apart from their bed which would stay exactly how it always was forever because now they were sleeping well whenever they lay down upon it unlike before when they woke up every morning angry at themselves for having spent so many hours lying down upon something which now turned out never to have been comfortable at all – although this is not quite true because if you lie down upon something for long enough eventually you will stop feeling angry about sleeping badly every night even though your mattress has never changed just because you don't feel angry any more doesn't mean you are no longer angry about your mattress *but I digress* *if I'm honest* *I'm feeling tired* *and sleepy* *so I'll finish my story later*).