Back to Amsterdam

Three generations, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Back in Amsterdam, the rain started about ten minutes after I had struggled home on the crowded and steamy hot train, then tram back from Schiphol to Centraal, back home. It was very hot and dark clouds threatened, in the meantime there must have been about 30 children playing in the fountain and then a party of 20 or so standing outside Klein Jansen, celebrating something. Within a flash, the street was empty as teh clouds tipped down their rain and thunder rolled and lightning flashed. Good to get the oppressive heat out of the house... but quite a dramatic return home, all-in-all.

Fred had cooked a nice Jamie Oliver meal which we ate together before Eric turned up later to finish off the left-overs, after which we went off to Spargo for our Friday evening çlub avond'. Maybe this is teh last time I go and drink lots of beers as I felt rotten most of the day and stayed in bed well into teh afternoon. Well, I did get up at about 10 to answer the door to find a young smiling girl with a young smiling father asking me if I would like her to read me something from the bible. I assured her that if I wanted to I could read the bible myself and closed the door on her.

In the meantime, everything has shot up in the ten days I was away and I have had to cut back the vine quite ferociously, although Fred seems to enjoy hiding behind the mass of stems and leaves of the vine. The hollyhocks are not quite out, but the lavatera is. Normally they come out on about the same day - usually my birthday, but this year the lavatera was flowering already in May.

Otherwise, not too much to report. I finally received the draft contract fro my new job, which I sent back with a few queries and it looks very much as if I will be starting at the beginning of next week, hopefully on the 19th, so I had better make the most of my free time here at home.

The last thing to mention is that the blackbirds have come back and built a nest where we managed to stop the wood pigeons from building their nest. So now we have to share the balcony with our feathered friends and not be too obtrusive. Nice to have them back and I hope they have more success than last year when the babies were attcked and killed by the magpies.