Beach Club De Golfslag

It's not Monday and it is not a brunch. In fact, I think the last time we had an actual Monday brunch is a long time ago. But let me explain why I keep the title. First of all, once I start working again next week, I will mostly go out on Mondays, as that is the day I have reserved to spend with Rihanna Gaga. It was always clear to me, after she was born, that I would aim to work no more than four days a week, so that there would be one day completely devoted to her. It has never been difficult, since then, to make sure it was like this. Although during the weeks I was living in Tunisia and working in the Netherlands, I sometimes had to sacrifice this one day, I have always managed to make sure to negotiate contract in which I would not have to work more than four days a week. And I can hear some people think (and it has been said to me several times): Oh, but Munan, that is only because you work in education. For dads working for commercial companies, that is simply impossible! Oh yeah? I doubt it. If, during job contract negotiations, lease cars, bonuses, secondary working conditions, wages, and what not are all up for grabs - I simply don't buy that working part time or concentrating your working hours in four days would not be. The fact that men feel pressured to work fulltime in Western countries is not proof that the job market can force them to work fulltime - it is proof that they allow themselves to be forced. If negotations about your job contract are always a game of give and take, you could, of course, say you are willing to earn less, take the train instead of taking that lease car, give up your bonus or give up anything else in exchange for that one day to spend with your child - that is, if you really want to.

But that is not the only reason why this blog will always be called Monday Brunches. This is also because there is something about Mondays. And something about brunches. The brunch is the most glorious of meals. You can only have a brunch on a day where you have no other obligations. On lazy days, where it doesn't matter that you merge breakfast and lunch. Where you go wherever the flow of the day takes you. In other words, a brunch is as much a state of mind as it is a specific type of meal. You can merge breakfast, lunch and dinner. Or lunch and dinner. Or you can have your brunch alongside several other mails at several other moments of the day. Again: it is your attitude that makes your meal a brunch, not necessarily the moment of the day.

And then Mondays. Mondays are arguably the most hated day of the week. Blue Monday. Monday, the day still five days removed from Friday. Monday is when you're supposed to get back to work - but I don't. Instead, I spend it with Rihanna Gaga and we do whatever we want. To have a brunch on Monday is turning the entire nature of the day upside down. And therefore, any day can be Monday, and what I mean with that is: that day on which, instead of working, instead of doing what you have to do, you do what you want to do. Therefore, this blog is called Our Monday Brunches. Which can be simply be translated as Our Fun Moments spent bumming at cafés restaurants when everybody else is busy being part of the neoliberal economy. Or something like that.

In any case, It's Thursday and we're going for lunch, but it is still a Monday Brunch. Rihanna Gaga is in a terrible mood. This morning, she refused to put on a pair of jeans and only did so after much deliberation, after which she drew the line at wearing the new pair of shoes we bought her. Those shoes were an outcome of a terribly failed attempt to buy her shoes. She denied everything that wasn't green, and when we finally found a green pair of shoes she said it wasn't the right shade of green. Finally, she fell asleep and we found a pair that was the correct green - though partly brown and grey as well. The lady in the shop didn't understand why we were buying the pair without fitting ("are you sure they go with her clothes?" she asked), but by then it seemd better to just face our three year old with a fait accompli. She liked the shoes, but didn't want to wear them, sticking to her summer shoes from Tunisia. Any new clothes are a struggle and I suspect it is her way of dealing with all the big changes in her life. She's never been the kind of kid that throws tantrums, but recently she's been having some pretty impressive attacks of fury.

We sit down at the terrace of Beach Club De Golfslag, one of the more bland beach clubs at the main stretch of the Scheveningen boulevard. We are enticed by the menu of the day - Char with french fries and salad for ten euros - but are informed that it is finished. Rihanna Gaga tells us she wants French fries and apple juice and alongside that we order a smoked salmon sandwich for ourselves. Service is friendly, but slow and unfocused - one can sense that the season is almost gone for the beach clubs, although the beautiful weather still ensures quite a large amount of patrons.

De Golfslag is ideal when you're with a child: parts of its fence are open, so that you can sit right at the beach while your child plays in the sand. Rihanna Gaga tells us she'll build 'a castle', but soon loses interest. When the food is served, she eats a bit, but then returns to her earlier sulky mood. Suddenly she decides she wants to take off her jeans - and she keeps repeating that sentence: 'Jeans off! Jeans off! Jeans off!'. It's not that I don't understand her. I totally do. She hardly knows the Netherlands. We left when she was a little more than one year old and the only conscious memory she has of the place is the weeks she spent here last summer and maybe the winter before that. For her, Tunisia is the norm. And she gets that this is a big change. She probably doesn't grasp the full extent of the consequences - as in, she'll never see her friends in Tunisia again, she'll never go to her old daycare again, she'll never see the house that we lived in again - but she does fully understand something big has happened. There's much she loves about the Netherlands - much that is, as she puts it, 'wow!' - such as the petting farm around the corner from where we live where we can go daily to look at cows, sheep and cavias, the free playgrounds, and seeing her grandparents more often. But still: it is all so very, very different. The cold, for instance: the fact she always has to wear lots of clothes and probably also the fact that all of these clothes are completely new. Nothing from her Tunisian wardrobe is in any way useful right now. I can't blame her from being upset and not knowing how to vent that. But it is also very, very tiring, especially since the appartment is still a mess from the unpacked suitcases and boxes that came down from the attic. In any case, there is little to be done about her mood right now. We finish our sandwiches and return home to put her to bed.