Willothewisp.org

I am Tyjardia.

I was born in Den Haag and grew up between my family’s house there and my Grandmother’s house in Amsterdam. I went to school in Den Haag where I met my life long and most wonderful friend Nonke. Little did I think that when we first met I would one day be married to her, but that came later. After school I went to university where I did medicine, and where I met Nik. He and I were married six months after first meeting, because sometimes you know when something is right.

We completed university and our training together, working in Norway, and the UK before returning to Holland. We had returned to Holland in order to start a family but as we settled back into life in Amsterdam my husband Nik died from a cerebral hemorrhage. That was eleven years ago, he was just twenty seven at the time.

Six years ago my best friend of twenty five years, Nonke, and I became lovers quiet by accident. It caught us both very much by surprise, but it has been the most wonderful discovery to find that my dear friend could also be my lover and so very special to me on so many more levels. The fact that she has brought her two lovely children to our relationship has only magnified the joy I experience every day at being with her. We have been married for six years now and I could no longer imagine myself by anyone else's side. Nonke and the children showed me that broken hearts can be repaired, and that the sun can always shine again.

We have been running the Willothewisp web site for four years now and in that time we have had tens of thousands of hits each year and a great many e-mails about a great many subjects covered there. One of the subjects most frequently raised has been that of violence against women, and the abuse of women’s rights generally. In view of this we have now separated off our women’s section into a sub-site called ‘ Violence ‘ so that it would be easier for visitors to leave feed back and comment. Also new is our Wowblog site which is proving to be a rather good platform for Judith, and more recently Nina, to air their respective writing skills. Of particular interest to me is the restructuring of this site to allow for the expansion of our Living Well pages. Anything that helps raise awareness to people that their health lays in their hands first and foremost and not in the hands of others has to be good.

I am Nonke.

I am Nonke, I was born in Den Haag and grew up between there and Amsterdam. While at school I met my life long friend Tyjardia and together we have gone through life together in one form or another. After school we went to university where I read linguistics and educational psychology. While at university Tyjardia and I met the men who were to become our respective husbands.

Nicholas and I had our daughter Tia while I was in the last year of university, sadly she died some years ago, but I went onto to have two boys before Nicholas and I divorced seven years ago. Tyjardia lost her husband some ten years ago.

I think it came as something of a surprise to us both when six years ago when Tyjardia and I became lovers, but then I suppose given how close we had always been it was not a very big leap. We are now married, same sex marriages being legal here, and I believe that I have never been happier and more complete than I am today.

With so many relatives from our respective families living in the south we decided to move away from Amsterdam five years ago. It has been a very good move, with both our children and us reaping the benefits of life here. We have the added bonus of being close to our brave & resourceful little cousin Judith and her delightful wife Nina whom our children enjoy so much.

Hobbies & Interests

• Children.
• Education.
• Pyschology.
• Health & Medicine.
• History.
• Women's Issues & Rights.
• Interior Design.

• Our last web site prompted many people to write us, in fact we had so many letters from people of all sorts of backgrounds, and places that replying to them all became a full time task.

In particular I loved hearing from school children who wanted to know more about life in Holland, the children had the ability to generate questions on aspects of Dutch life I had never before considered.

Over the last four years the site has expanded and last time my cousin Judith combined her site with ours. Nina has added some pages as well making this now more of a family site than ever.

Following requests from those who have written to us we have expanded the information about Holland and life here. We are also adding a few pages about aspects of Medicine that we have been repeatedly asked about as these have often touched each of our own areas of expertise.