Back to Blog Home

The other night while I was chopping cabbage for coleslaw I suddenly had a thought about words.

“But what does cool spit or a cool single have to do with cabbage or coleslaw?” I hear you cry. “Have you gone mad, Michelle?”

No (well, no madder than usual). You see, the cabbage I was chopping is called spitskool in Dutch, which set me off along another train of thought. I got to thinking about how I hate it when people make that horrid sound at the back of their nose and throat and spit in public. It’s antisocial and unhygenic and just one of my Pet Hates.

Then that reminded me of earlier that day. I’d been into town and was waiting for a tram on the Coolsingel, one of Rotterdam’s main roads. I was thinking about the hero in my current work in progress, and while I was doing this thinking and waiting a very well-muscled, attractive blond man joined the crowd of waiters-for-the-tram. Perfect hero material, thought I! He was gorgeous, but his nose was cutely imperfect (I like a few flaws in my heros - I think it makes them more interesting). It was a sign!

Suddenly he totally ruined my happy thoughts by - you guessed - making that noise at the back of his nose and throat and spitting onto the Coolsingel tram lines. Yuck. I don’t know if he was single, or not, but I just thought, “Spitting on the Coolsingel is just not cool.” Or hero-material worthy.

I’m going with a Matthew Macfadyen look-alike for my hero, instead, because I bet Mr. Darcy would never spit in public like that . . .