INKTLAP In my weblog of 19 April you could have read that my mother was not a very gifted seamstress. Occasionally, however, she ventured on some sewing work. One thing she made for me was an article which in Dutch is called an inktlap.   "inktlap" The inktlap was associated with the use of the kroontjespen (see picture). Before putting away the kroontjespen that you had used to write with, you were supposed to wipe the ink off. Less well-behaved children sometimes used their handkerchiefs for this, or even their pants, but we were supposed to do this with an inktlap        "kroontjespen"  When my mother made an inktlap, she cut pieces out of old clothes, sewed these together with yarn and finished it off with a button. Initially, I was quite proud of what my mother had made. But later my classmates appeared to have much more sophisticated specimens industrially manufactured of cloth that absorbed ink so much better than mine. My inktlap was usually made of cloth that must have made great trousers, but was absolutely unfit for absorbing ink. Later I wondered why my mother, who was known for her generous nature, saddled me with such shoddy goods? The answer probably lay in the fact that my father rarely gave her enough money. I remember when my mother went to the market, she often used to run like mad so that she could use the tram ticket, which was valid for one hour, for the return trip as well. Later, after my father's death, she took her own kind of revenge, not on my father, who was so much compelled by habit that he was unable to change. But more on her long years of being cut short. She spent the money that my father had saved so parsimoniously, in a way that can at least be called lavish. She gave generous tips to everybody who came to deliver anything and presented almost anybody who came to visit her with sums of money. She spent it so generously that if she had lived much longer, she would most probably have ended in poverty. This weblog appeared on 5 June 2004 on Internetsite overtom.nl.
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