Untitled Document

Top row from left to right: Craig, Birgitte, Richard, Tony, Manon, Laure, Hannah. Bottom row: Danielle, Bart, Eva, Elliot. Please note that Hannah was the only person refusing to wear a Kate T-Shirt. *Growl*

From left to right: Tony, friend of Laure's, Laure, Dinyar, Bart, Birgitte, Craig and Elliot (in front of the tree)

	Group picture at the entrance of the Haunted Castle
	Craig ponders at the entrance of the Haunted Castle whether he dares to go in...
	Elliot wanted to go into the Haunted Castle as well, but got scared as it was darker in there than he thought. Doesn't that Kate Bush Fan Club T-Shirt look stunning on him?
	Strange phenomena indeed... ;- )
	Yours truly, Eva and Manon, who really had enough of Carnaval Festival now. Note how even Kate's face on my T-Shirt looks shocked. She looked normal before we went in. I swear!
	Hannah, Danielle and Elliot in Carnaval Festival. Hannah tries to look brave but you can see she's scared of the clowns too! Elliot decided not to look. Smart boy.
	This is what Carnaval Festival looks like. Clown alert!
	Some people apparently can't do with just one picture. Seriously damaging the brain, this attraction. Especially that horrible tune that you can't get out of your head. Don't say I didn't warn ya!
	Elliot with a life-size icecream. Looks like he won't want another one for quite some time to come...
	Julie and Hannah reliving their childhood in the merry-go-round. I bet they say they went in there for Elliot. Yeah, right!
	Despite my warning Hannah took Elliot into the Land of Laaf. The manic look in that bunny's eyes says it all...
	The guard at the entrance of The Indian Waterlillies is still looking out for that pretty woman that danced beside him 25 years ago...
	...but he'll have to do with Hannah and Elliot instead. Bummer!
	The Indian Waterlillies: Bewitchingly beautiful!
	In the meantime Julie finds it difficult to depart from the merry-go-round
	Thankfully Danielle has the same problem
	Danielle: "One more time!"
	Julie: "Wheee!"
	Elliot wouldn't go home before he could bounce on that big couch. Hopefully the giant who owns it won't mind he jumped on it a bit...

This Katemas party turned out to be an international one, as we've been having a few guests over from the UK: Craig, Hannah and her two-year old son Eliott, and Richard and Julie. Craig, Hannah and Eliott stayed over at my house. Together we drove to De Efteling, where we arrived at a quarter to ten.

Everybody would meet in front of the entrance at the park at 10 o'clock. Not long after we arrived we met Katemas veteran Tony together with Laure and a friend she had brought along. Shortly after ten we all got impatient and it turned out that Danielle, who would bring along Richard and Julie, was running late. So we decided to buy our tickets and go to the Haunted Castle to wait for others to arrive there.

To my - and everybody else's - horror Kate's tombstone was removed. Instead the Haunted Castle was draped with cheap Halloween decorations that was so outright childish even I didn't like it -- and I'm quite childish so that means something! (See the pictures above to see what I mean) But we didn't let that bring us down - oh no! As if I knew we were going to need it, I had brought a cassette player so that we could enjoy the Efteling Special songs during the wait. Although everybody except me eventually grew a bit tired of listening to the same six songs over and over again, it was great fun. At least, in my opinion : P

Soon after we arrived at the Haunted Castle we met Bart and his husband Dinjar as well as Nancy, who had dragged her boyfriend along. The last to arrive were my two friends Manon and Eva and Danielle with Richard and Julie. After taking some group pictures we ventured into the Haunted Castle. If you want to know what it's like in there you've got to wait until the movie's finished or read the next issue of Homeground (the latter will be available sooner I'm afraid). We then went to see The Red Shoes. It's quite a silly attraction, mostly due to the fact it's 52 years old, but especially our foreign guests found it quite entertaining.

Our next stop would be more interesting (at least in my opinion): the Indian waterlillies. Some people wondered what the Kate conneKTion was so I showed them. Unfortunately, Nancy caught that on camera. I haven't been able to capture and destroy the film, so I can only hope she'll never put it on the 'net somewhere... For those who weren't there: there are shots in Them Heavy People (during the verses) where Kate stands outside in a oriental-looking setting wearing black pants and a red blouse (or whatever it was, my copy of the special is quite bad):

that sings the intro of Yma Sumac's Taity Inty and then conducts a frog band that plays Bert Kampfaert's African Beat to which some fairies dance on enormous waterlillies:

This is my all-time favourite Efteling attraction which I've loved ever since I first went there when I was two years old (although normally small children are usually scared in this attraction, so beware!).

After this we split up in smaller groups and went off to explore De Efteling. At noon we met again in front of a restaurant and had lunch together. After lunch we all went our seperate ways again until 5 PM, when we met for the last time in front of the Haunted Castle to say goodbye. The park was open until 9 PM, so people could stay as long as they wanted. I spent most the day with Hannah and Eliott, Craig, Manon and Eva and we've covered most of the park that day. Especially Craig and Hannah had a great time, as they'd never been to De Efteling before.

All in all it was a great day which I'll fondly remember for a long time to come. A very fitting way to celebrate 25 years of This Woman's Work indeed! Sadly, the pictures I have taken are mostly worthless. My film must've been cursed: I only saw a big black spot on all the photos! Luckily, Hannah's pictures did turn out to be very nice and she sent them to me (thanks hun!) so I've scanned them and put them up here instead.

My friend Anja - who sadly couldn't be present that day - was kind enough to lend me her video camera to make a video of the Katemas party. My friend Eva filmed everything. That turned out to be a good thing, because when I attempted to film our ride in the Piraña (a double-loop and corkscrew roller coaster) I only filmed the departure as I had pushed the 'record' button one time too many in my excitement. So no roller coaster on the film, sadly, but we did caught our perilous ride in the merry-go-round earlier that day.

I haven't found the time yet to transfer the film to a video tape as of yet (sorry!), but I'll do so very soon. When the tape is available I'll put up a message on the front page of this site. So keep checking back for updates!