Everyone at the discovery centre thought it would be nice if the guests from the guesthouse came to visit. The fact that it was as many as seven people was really no problem for them. They immediately invited the guests for Monday, to come around 11.30 am, get a short tour and have lunch with them!

The guests gathered behind the guesthouse, behind the drying room, where Bianca was hanging laundry.

"Have fun there!" she called out to them, waving them off.

The welcome was particularly warm. Rosalie ran up to them and pulled them in. Jan seemed shy, but was rather exploratory. Anton saw him looking from one to the other, and went over to him.

"Hi, I'm Anton!" he said as he squatted down to get on the same level.

"I'm Jan," Jan responded, "and I'm a discoverer here."

"Only here? Or are you a discoverer at home too?"

Jan thought for a moment... "At home, I want to be one too, but I think Mum finds that a bit tricky. She doesn't want me to make too much of a mess. But when you work in the garden, you always make messes," he said indignantly.

Anton nodded, understanding his problem. "Do you come in with clutter then too?"

"Sometimes a bit, in the garden I always have clogs on, and I take them off again when I go inside. But sometimes there is still some mess on my trousers or in my hair, messes from the plants. I often don't think about that, and then sometimes something falls on the floor. I want to clean them up myself, but Mum always does it right away. She finds it really awkward when something is lying around. She is also quite busy, hihi, busy with the printing shop. Mum and dad are making books from Rosalie's stories. Her stories are fun yo!"

"I like to believe that, Rosalie is good with words. And you are good at gardening... I heard you made your own vegetable garden here. Can I see that?"

"Yes, come with me! Rosalie, I'm going with Anton to my little garden for a while. We'll be right back."

Joke had been observing them, enjoying the way Anton interacted with the child. He adapted perfectly, not acting childish, but getting down to the child's level. Actually, he was the same towards herself, she thought, he always came down to her level, mostly her emotional level. She smiled and asked Jan if she could come along. He nodded eagerly!

Jan walked ahead of them, outside, around the corner to the side of the building. Full of pride, he pointed out his garden to them.

"What is this cute stuff?" asked Joke, stroking her hand over the tiny plants. She knew what it was, but was eager to let Jan tell her.

"That's cress, ma'am. What is your name? I'm Jan."

Joke nodded at him smiling, "Jan, my name is Joke. And I am Anton's wife."

"Then you are lucky, Anton is a nice gentleman, he is a good listener!"

"Yes, that's right, he always listens to me well too. He listens with his heart..." said Joke, putting her hand on her heart. "Or actually with his soul, with his feelings. He really listens!"

"Yes, not just a little bit. He just seems to see it in front of him when I tell."

Anton grinned: "That's right, I see that too. I have no idea what your house looks like, but I see you in a garden, busy keeping things looking nice, and then running back to a terrace, actually more like a veranda, just like here with a roof over it. I can picture you kicking off your clogs there and going inside to enthusiastically tell your mother what you've done. But then some little plant messes fall out of your hair or down your trousers, and she immediately runs after you with a dustpan and brush... That's what I see before me."

Jan laughed, unable to speak for a moment with pleasure. "It's like a movie when you tell it like that! But it makes sense! Can you also see before you what our garden looks like?"

Anton laughed: "I have no idea what that garden looks like for real, but I see a lawn, with all kinds of plants, thick bushes especially, around it."

Jan's eyes got big and his mouth dropped open: "That's so, that's what it looks like. Well gosh... I always get to cut the grass if it gets too long. And I also get to pull weeds. And I told Mum I want to prune that one bush, an ivy, because it's getting much too big. The branches are so long that they grow over the other bushes, or sometimes in between or underneath. It's just not nice anymore."

"No, then it becomes a mess hey, then those other bushes hardly have any room left," Joke thought. "And did mum approve of you pruning?"

"No, far too dangerous."

"Pruning shears are dangerous indeed," Joke responded understandingly, "you can cut off a piece of your finger with them, maybe not through your bone, but a piece of your skin. She wants to avoid that, of course. I'm thinking... could we do it together? I don't like working a lot in the garden, but one of those times, with you, I would like that. Do you think your mother would approve?"

Jan beamed: "I'm going to ask her that right away! She's coming to pick me up after lunch, will you still be there then?"

"I think so, because I have understood that we are allowed to have lunch here. And otherwise I'll just wait until she gets here. Agreed?"

"Agreed! You know what else seems nice to me? If we could add a bit of cress to the food... Would it be big enough already? I think so, because it's been a week since I sowed it, also on a Monday. Please wait a moment! Then I'll go ask inside and get a bowl and scissors!"

"Is good, we'll wait here!" said Anton. He put his arm around Jokes shoulders, "What a super sweet idea of yours. Where his mother still sees some lions and bears, you offer an opportunity. You have the time, she doesn't, or at least she thinks she doesn't. So she doesn't have to feel guilty either. It would be nice for Jan, if she is okay with it. Ah, there you are again," he continued to Jan.

"Yes, I may cut it off carefully, just above the ground. I'm going to try not to add soil, because that doesn't taste good. Sjaak said cress is nice on a slice of cheese."

He just chatted on as he cut the first tufts of cress. He smelled it. "It smells a bit spicy..."

He put a few sprigs in his mouth and tried to chew. He made a dirty face. "It does taste nice, but now I have all these little things in my mouth, I can't swallow it. Well, just rinse it later."

He happily cut on. "Oh yes, here behind, that field, there grows lamb's lettuce, and next to it a lettuce with a difficult name, but Rosalie has thought up a joke for that, a mnemonic. It's called Ru and then Cola... rucola."

Anton and Joke shot into laughter. "Great, you'll probably never forget it that way!"

"No, no way, that's so spicy too, said Sjaak, that ru-cola lettuce. And here... do you know what this is?"

He pointed to the fourth compartment. Anton looked closely, and replied, "It looks like you planted onions here, is that right?"

"Yep - those are onions. They still need to grow quite a bit, then we can harvest them, cut them up and bake them a bit. "

"You're a smart one, Jan!"

"Yes, Mum says so too, she says I've become much smarter in just one week here at the discovery centre. It's much more fun here than at school!"

.

While Jan was in the garden with Anton and Joke, the others were inside talking to each other. The guests got a tour, asked questions, discovered possibilities and were absolutely thrilled with the way people lived and worked.

"This is so much more than a school, this feels like a small society. No system, just letting things become, let them come, let out what is inside you. For the discoverers, and for your companions just as much." Marieke felt delighted by this opportunity.

"You bet," Patrick said, "I learned a lot last week from Sjaak, the gardener at Bloemenhof. He guided Jan and me in creating a vegetable garden, right around the corner here on the left. I marvelled at how the man, while always having his nose in the plants, was so able to let us discover things for ourselves by asking questions. Jan especially, but I also discovered all sorts of things in silence, also looking for the answers. It was very instructive. There are those things we do according to a system. If you want to sow something, you buy a bag of seeds and look on the back to see how deep the seeds should go into the ground. That is deeply a system, not necessarily a wrong system, but it makes you stop thinking for yourself. You just follow the instructions. But what did Sjaak do? He asked questions, seemingly stupid unnecessary questions, but it made Jan think and ask questions himself. We spent a whole morning, and we learnt so much, discovered so much. And Jan, it was his first morning here, he was so satisfied, and incredibly tired. He was supposed to come the whole day, but his mother picked him up after lunch. Since then, he has come all mornings, instead of one day a week, as was first agreed. Just this morning he said he didn't like weekends, because then he couldn't come here. Recognisable, eh Rosalie?"

"Yes, it really is! The weekends are okay, but I hated holidays at first. I wanted to be here, typing stories here. This is my workplace. But luckily, I was also allowed to type at home, and with Ineke and Ilse, which was just so cosy! I did write three long stories during the holidays. The shortest was fifty pages, which is quite long!"

"That's heartily long," Marieke thought, "and I think your stories will get longer and longer in the coming years, that they will become real books, don't you think?"

"My stories are already real books, Annelies and Bert, Jan's parents, have made a printer shop at their house, and they make books out of my stories. If you like it, you can even buy them!"

"Really?" asked Johan in amazement. "How nice! Where can we buy a book from you?"

Marieke interjected: "Yesterday in the circle... then you already told me they were making books out of your stories, but at the time I couldn't imagine that it was really so. I'm sorry, Rosalie, that I didn't take you seriously!"

"Doesn't matter, I understand, you don't know my stories yet hahaha. Annelies and Bert are selling my books, and if they sell enough of them, they are going to sell them in bookshops too. They think that will work out."

Marieke looked at Johan questioningly. She saw that he nodded. Using her fingers, she asked, "One, two or three?"

"Three of course," Johan said. "If Rosalie's stories are good enough to turn them into books, I want to read all three! And when our sweet little girl is born, I want to read them to her!"

Rosalie laughed: "I'm writing another book, for your baby and for all the other people who want to read it. I don't have much yet, I only started it this morning. It's about a butterfly, I named her Vlinnie. I don't know the whole story yet, but that will come naturally, that will come... what's that called again?"

"Bubbling up from your soul," Bea helped.

"Exactly, from my soul. My soul already knows the whole story, or is growing it as I type, I don't know, doesn't matter, as long as the story gets there! Why do you have tears in your eyes, Marieke?"

"That's because you named your butterfly Vlinnie. Johan thinks I'm like a butterfly too, and he sometimes calls me Vlinnie, which is my pet name."

"Really? I like that!" exclaimed Rosalie happily.

While they talked in the back of the building about writing books and all sorts of other things about which the guests were asking questions, Jan entered the building again, with a bowl of cress, and with Anton and Joke following behind him. Joke walked with him to the kitchen, as he had asked her how he could get rid of the bit of earth that had come between them anyway. Despite Joke being used to having all the answers pre-written as a child, Anton's approach to the things she encountered as an adult had taught her that it was good to discover for herself. And through Jan's stories, she had noticed that it was good for him too. In the kitchen, she asked him, looking in the cupboards for something they could use. He found a colander, was excited for a moment, but then held up a leaf of cress and was afraid the water would then wash away a lot of cress too.

"I think you're right," said Joke, "do you have anything else here with smaller holes?"

"Yes, this one, a big sieve!"

Ineke just entered the kitchen and heard his exclamation. "I bought those especially for your cress Jan!"

"Thank you, sweet of you, Ineke!"

Ineke briefly ran her hand through his hair and left him further to Joke.

Jan put the sieve in the sink, emptied his bowl into it, picked out the last leaves that stuck in the bowl, and put those in the sieve as well.

"So," he said, "waste to throw away! And now water!"

He turned on the tap, gently at first, moved the strainer so that all the cress got wet.

"Damn, that soil doesn't really want to come out yet. I think those lumps need a harder stream!"

He opened the tap far, startled himself by the hard jet, whereupon Joke put her hand under the jet, causing the water to spread over the cress.

"Wow, you turn it into a shower!"

"Yes, nice huh? You try gently running your fingers through the cress, it might help us wash away the lumps of earth. I don't know if it will work though, I have yet to discover it too!" laughed Joke.

"Yes, that works, because now the lumps break up, look, your shower washes them away!"

He let the shower go on for a while and then closed the tap again. Glowing, he looked at Joke: "We managed that beautifully! But now everything is way too wet, then we'll get floating bread!"

Joke shot out laughing. "That's nice for babies who are just learning to eat bread, but we don't like that anymore!"

"Do babies really eat floating bread?"

"Yes, something like that, pieces of bread without crust, made wet in a little milk. Then they soak it up like that! They usually don't have teeth by then, or maybe a few, but then they don't know how to chew yet. That's why you have to make it easy for them for a while."

"Funny! Do you have many children?" asked Jan.

"No, unfortunately Anton and I haven't had any children at all. I don't know why, but it's fine. I was very sad at first, but not anymore. I do notice, though, that I really enjoy chatting and working together with someone else's child, with you, for a while like this. I really enjoy that. So, also for myself, I hope your mother will agree to let me help you prune. We'll see, first let's get that garden cress drier."

As she was telling, Jan had discovered something new. He let the sieve land on his hand again and again, and as a result, more and more drops seemed to disappear from the sieve.

"I have already made a start, see!"

Joke chuckled. "I saw it, nice!"

She grabbed the dishcloth, rinsed it out and wrung it as dry as possible.

"Now if you put it on this, would that work even better?"

Jan tapped the almost dry dishcloth with the sieve.

"Good job, a lot of water is still coming out!"

Joke wrung it out firmly once more, and banged it gently against the bottom of the sieve. Laughing, they looked at each other.

"Nice huh Joke, working together!" exclaimed Jan.

" It really is!" she laughed.

"And how is it here with the cress?" they heard Anton's voice.

Joke looked back at him, smiling, and Jan replied beaming, "We've showered the cress and are now slapping it dry with the dish towel, or else we'll get baby floating bread!"

Joke laughed. "What a great guy you are, Jan! Baby floating bread... I think the cress is dry enough now. Shall we tip the sieve over a plate or over a bowl?"

Jan looked at the bowl they had just used and the plate Joke had grabbed from the cupboard. "Over the plate, otherwise half of it will fall next to it!"

He tipped the sieve over above the plate, tapped it a few times and picked out the last leaves with his thumb and forefinger.

"So, we got them all, and the soil is out nicely!"

Jan put the sieve on the counter, took the plate to the large table next to the kitchen. Joke haphazardly grabbed a stack of plates from the cupboard and started setting them down on the table.

"Anton, how many people are we?"

"No idea, dear, but we'll find out later when everyone sits down."

Joke smiled and put the pile of plates she had left on the table.

"What else, Jan?"

"Cutlery, there are so many of us now, I don't know how many..." He looked at her mischievously: "Shall we put all the knives and forks on a plate? Then everyone can get their own cutlery!"

"Good plan, let's do it!" Joke grabbed a plate and helped Jan put the cutlery on it.  He put the plate on top of the other plates in the middle of the table, went back to pick up the bread toppings. The sweet toppings were on a tray.

"I've never done that before, but I think I can do it best," Jan said.

"There's a sturdy rim around the tray, so I'm sure the jars won't just slide off," Joke thought. Still, she kept a close eye on the tray, and helped Jan put it down on the table.

Jan looked at her with a sigh: "Rosalie is right, our bodies are too small. If my body had been bigger, I could have done it all by myself."

"True," Joke said, "but fortunately we could do it together. Together is also good right?"

Jan was already laughing again: "Yes, together is good, working together with you is fun!"

Meanwhile, all the others also came towards the dining table.

"So, here people are already hard at work on lunch, I see," said Ineke. "Can I help you with anything else?"

"No way," said Jan, "we'll get it done together! More bread, cheese and sausage. And the cheese slicer!"

Joke grabbed the cheese and sausage from the fridge, because Jan couldn't reach them, handed over two small plates at his request, and put everything on them. Different sausages on one plate, the cheese and cheese slicer on the other.

"Do you want to put those on the table? Then I'll get the bread."

Not waiting for an answer, Jan turned around and took out two loaves of bread from the cupboard, and a basket, on which he started dividing the sandwiches. When he was done, he grabbed the bread bags, carefully pushed most of the air out of them, turned the end over a few times and put the bags with the remaining bread, with the end turned over, back in the cupboard.

"You handled that cleverly, Jan, figured it out yourself?" asked Bea, looking around the corner.

"No, copied it myself," he laughed. "Rosalie does it like that too. She says the bread dries out if there's too much air in it. Look, nice basket of bread, but would it be enough?"

"What do you think?" asked Bea.

"I don't think so, but then we can fill it up again, right?"

"We sure can!" said Bea. "Come along, we'll have a nice lunch, I'd like to taste that cress of yours!"

To chapter 69. The garden and the printer shop

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