Beach life, again

Blijburg - 16th April 2007, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Another afternoon down at the beach today, when I even went for a swim in the water, taking advantage of the summery weather, which lasted until about 4 pm when all of a sudden a cool wind blew down from the north. I have swum in The Netherlands in early May on occsaions but never in mid-April. Amazing! Tomorrow, we can expect a maximum of 10 degrees lower than it was today... so I can use tomorrow to catch up on tax forms, e-mails, job searches and so on.

This morning, I finally got round to planting the plants we bought on Good Friday in Deventer, namely the forget-me-nots and blue pansies. The pots on the balcony at the front of teh hosue have totally dried out , which provided a good excuse to get rid of the tangly ivy I had planted a few years ago, as well as the dried out dianthus plants. I got rid of everything in the pots and gave them a good wash ebfore filling them with compost from my compost maker, a big green plastic container in the garden into which all the organic kitchen scraps get emptied into.

Almost everything had decomposed nicely into a rich black compost, apart from certain items such as eggs shells, mussel shells (how did they get there, as we do not eat mussels), corks from wine bottles and chicken bones. What is interesting is the intermediate stage of decay, usually at the bottom of the rubbish bin we have upstairs. It is a stinky gooey mess and you have to try hard not to be sick when breathing in the smell when emptying the contents into the compost maker. And yet, a year or so later, after all the fatbodies and worms and other beasts have had there way, this disgusting slime becomes prime compost. A wonder of nature! We will ahve to see how the forget-me-nots and pansies get on in their new environment. Or maybe we should be planting palms and other tropical plants?