Golden light over Park Frankendael

Golden light over Park Frankendael, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Yesterday we had spectacular skies of sun, cloud and hail. Today it is altogether grey and a lot colder and we are expecting snow, the first snow of the winter. It is moving up from the south of the country and it remains to be seen whether the snow will stay around long enough to be photographed.

The snow is falling now (mid-day) and I am waiting for Zorah, our cleaning lady to turn up. Thursday is her day. Three weeks ago, we had the worst winter strom in years, two weeks ago the coldest day of the winter, last Thursday was mild and bright and otday it is snowing... not such a problem for her to get here but maybe a worse problem to return home.

I will be going to a concerrt in Paradiso later, a concert by Adrian Sherwood, of On-U-Sound records fame and producer of the African Head Charge albums. We now have Fred's old record player upstairs as mine was not turning around properly and being a Technics, it is apparently very difficult to repair. Fred, on the other hand had a 'Dual' record player, made in Germany and very reliable. The only problem is that it is a bit too big for the cupboard and I have to find a way to support a shelf above, where we can put the CD's. The CD's are now stacked up next to the cupboard and there are so many of them, so many that it is quite incredible how they all managed to fit in in the first place.

Apart from African Head Charge, we are also listening to many records of Black, best known for 'Wonderful Life' from 1987.

Tags: Asterdam, snow, African Head Charge, sneeuw, Black, Wonderful Life, hail

A little bit Christian and a tiny bit green

Light throwing shadows, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

This is a photo of a window, showing both shadows and reflections, one such reflection, on the left, showing what looks to be, but isn't, a cross. A good time to reflect, then, on the perceived Christian influence on the plans of the new government. Het Parool made a list as follows:

- better off pensioners have to pay contributions to their own pensions
- general pardon for asylum seekers from before 2001
- continued moratorium on stem cell research
- development of alternatives to abortion
- no new experiments with further extension of euthanesia rules
- no 'coffeeshops' near school
- civil servants can refuse to officiate at marriages where both are of same-sex
- prosecute people who use under-age prositutes
- increase taxes on cigarettes and alcohol
- attention to be given to the consequences of divorce


Altogether not so drastic, even though one continues to ask oneself, why did it have to be a small Christian party called to make up the numbers, when there were other alternatives? Just as in the UK, they are making great strides in stopping religious groups from discriminating, why here in Holland so we have a government which is allowing discrimination?

Just as Europe was never mentioned during the campaigns, despite it being a major issue, the environment was also relatively ignored while people discussed whether or not kindergartens should be made free and whether or not the pill should be included in the basic health insurance policy. Again, when everyone knows that the environment is a big issue, one might have thought there would be more discussion. As it happens, the new government seems to think that spending an extra € 800 million on the environment (€ 50 each) will be enough to ensure that Holland will be the cleanest country in Europe by 2020. A mis-match between goals and resources. About half of the money to be spent will come from taxes on flights. Oh dear...

Tags: regeerakkord, roomsrood, regering, christen unie, politiek, politics, Dutch+politics homo+rechten homohuwelijk green+politics

Cows or jet-skis?

Cows in de Ronde Venen, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Last night we had our dear friends Jon and Pieter round for dinner. We were supposed to be going into town together, but we ended up staying at home enjoying good food (thanks, Fred!) and delicious Argentinean wine (Argento Cabernet Sauvignon and Alamos Malbec).

Pieter had spent the morning being interviewed by Dutch Radio One, the foremost national news broadcaster about plans to flood the area where they live, the Groot Mijdrecht Polder. Apparently, a decision about this will be made on Monday and Pieter was invited to talk about these plans on behalf of the people who live there, not exactly as a campaign leader but more as a spolesman who can communicate the thoughts of the inhabitants.

The Groot Mijdrecht Polder is an area of about 1,000 hectares, about 20 kms south of Amsterdam. It is mostly farmland but has the distinction of being about 6 meters under sea-level, not exactly the lowest area in the region, but close to it. Jon and Pieter have a lovely home there, with a beautiful garden and they are famous for giving excellent parties, most usually accompanied by superb weather, except famously the one time they gave a party at the beginning of July a couple of years ago, when it rained. Anyway... there is always plenty of birdlife around, notably a family of storks with a great big nest in the garden, and also waders, herons, ducks and geese.

The reasons given by the authorities for flooding the area concern the fact that the area is sinking, that it costs a lot of money to pump the water out and that the water which IS pumped out is of bad quality (not sure why but it could have something to do with fertilisers).

However, it should be mentioned that there also happen to be plans to not only flood the area but to raise some of the the ground and build a town of 3,000 houses. The flooded area would then be used largely as a recreation area, causing people to pose the question of cows or jet-skis?

In the interview, Pieter mentions that there have been very few discussions about alternatives to the so-called problems of the area, noting for instance that there is an area even lower than his polder, near Gouda which is being used to build another few thousand dwellings. Anyway, what started off just a couple of years ago as an investigation into the problem and possibilities has quickly turned into a matter of possible no-return, as tomorrow (Monday) a decision is going to be announced.

By all accounts, the area is not under immediate threat of being flooded, this may take over ten years, but a wrong decision will destroy everyone's confidence, and so we wish everyone on the polder that the decision tomorrow goes the right way.

Pieter's interview (in Dutch) can be found on http://www.nieuwsshow.nl/ under the title "Protest tegen 'uitpolderen' Groot Mijdrecht".

Tags: cows, jet-skis, holland, nederland, amsterdam, flooding, housing, development, local politics

Light coming through the roof

Light coming through the roof, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Just back from the cycle ride to Blijburg, the beach where I spent so many days in the heat of last summer. The sun was there again and it felt great!

I mentioned earlier on some of teh great things the local council has been doing with our tax money, so I ought to add here the beautiful cycle and pedestrian bridge, the Nescio Bridge, which they recently built to connect us to the new lands of Ijburg and Blijburg beach as well as all the beautifully laid cycle paths around the city of Amsterdam.

Just yesterday we cycled down the street where I used to live for five years, namely the Vrijheidslaan, where they have reduced the lanes from two to one, each side of the road and have just added a wide cycle path, meaning we can avoid the cobbles and the bumps of the side road. It might take a while for them to finish such work and Amsterdam does seem to be full of holes and road blocks, but the result is a city which keeps getting better, at least for cyclists.

A beautiful February day

"Riddy", originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

It is a very very beautiful day here today. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, the tits are chirping and last night as we cycled back from the party at 2 o'clock the robins were singing. It feels warm. Time to go for a nice cycle ride out to the country or the beach. Every year we seem to have a day or two like this in February when one can really feel the approach of spring, especially as the evenings are defintely lengthening. Really, it might be a bind living up here bin the cool and mostly cloudy north-western part of Europe, but the seaosn are a wonderful compensation.

Will these men still be working by the time they are 65?

Funnelling cement, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

These chaps were here preparing for the fountain which has been placed in our street.

The project started in May last year and is almost finished. It is very beautiful. A round 'square' raised almost half a meter from the now very narrow road, a round fountain in the middle and six old chestnut trees in round beds. Just missing some street lamps and benches.There seems to be very little which needs to be done now before the taps and the lights are turned on and we have our very own fountain. It is so great to see our tax money being spent so well, this following on from the recent upgrading of an open spece nearby to a proper park with lakes, benches, footpaths, children's play areas, gardens and bridges. All excellent!

Anyway, the reason I am asking whether these hard working men will still be working when they are 65 is to do with the fact that the new government which is going to be formed next week has come up with a plan to help fill the pension gap. The main idea seems to be that those who retire after they are 65 will erceive a bonus, whilst those who retire earlier will have to pay extra/new taxes. This si supposed to stimulate people to stay on in work longer and reduce the burden on the state of pension payments.

Nice idea, but, and this is a big but in a country which has the worst record of age discrimination in Europe, how many people are going to be able to stay at work until after they are 65? Companies are continually downsizing and getting rid of the older workers and such workers, if they are over 55 seem to have very little chance of being given a new job afterwards.

So, the lucky few who manage to keep hold of their jobs until they are over 65 are going to be given yet another bonus from the government, whilst those unhappy ones who have been dumped on the economic scrapheap will be penalised. We have a Christian-Social Democrat cabinet to thank for this.

In the meantime, we hear very little about how age discrimination is going to be tackled in a realistic way... this has to be the other side of the bargain. I wish these chaps well in their further careers.

A rare old storm

I wanted to write a blog about the storm which is raging outside but I do not have any storm photos on flickr so I will combine this post with some references to YouTube, where I have found some excellent videos.

The storm we have is said to be the worst we have had for very many years in Holland and the National Crisis Centre has actually called on people NOT to go outside, if they can possibly help it. The wind is so strong that it is blowing things off rooves and houses, making it easy to be hit on the head. The rain is causing a lot of flooding too.

Having spent the afternoon at home yesterday because of the rain, I was determined not to stay inside all day so I deceided I would brave the winds, not actually having seen the forecast about the very bad storm. It was all quite an experience, even though I managed to avoid the worst of the winds by cycling down narrow streets offering protection. In the meantime, the wind was whipping up froth on the canals, blowing up spray onto the streets. A large old tree fell down, crushing two cars underneath, while the taxi driver who stopped to take a pic with his mobile phone said another had fallen on the Nieuwmarkt and had squahed a Porsche (he said with a smile of satisfaction). Just before, I had seen my ex-colleague and liquidator, Peter Verloop, cycling along the canal, seemingly without a care in the world. Hat's off to Peter, as it was a rare storm!

At some stage the heavens opened, there were flashes of lightning, cracks of thunder, sheets of water coming down, branches and twigs fell, awnings flapped, the aeroplanes, which unbelievably still flying powered through the wind, in between the very fast moving low cloud. The road home was hazardous, as first of all I had to cycle through the rain and now there were large puddles on the cycle paths and a whole load more debris lying around. Many many motorbikes has been blown over, fortunately not onto the cars parked next door as far as I could see. I was soaked to the skin, at least to the extent I was not covered by my excellent rain jacket (Murphy and Nye, still looking as good as new two years on), notably my private parts which all of a sudden felt very cold. Anyway, the good thing about cycling home in the rain is that you can take your wet clothes off and have a nice warm shower, which is what I did. Only after did I go upstairs and switch on the TV to see what they were saying about this storm. It'd've been a pity to have taken their advice and not to have experienced the storm, so often they seem to happen at night and this time we had ringside seats!

Anyway, despite teh fact that we can now see last autumn's crysanthemums flowering almost next door to this spring's daffodils, we have finally been promised something like winter for next week, with maybe even some snow, if we are lucky!

The YouTube references can wait for another day.

Well, well, well, with eleven people dying in the UK as a result of the storm today (three in Holland as well), and such storms being a predicted efect of climate change in north-western Europe, one would have thought that the topic of climate change would be discussed on Question Time this evening. But, no, even in a week when there was nothing much special reported about Iraq and the Home Office, those two subjects came up AGAIN for discusison with the panellists making exactly the same remarks as all panellists make every week, when these subjects come up. Boring!

A last thought though and that is that Fred managed to get home safely, despite all the trains in Holland being cancelled because of the storm, because one of his colleagues, Thea, who actually lives in the opposite direction gave him a lift in her car all the way home! How wonderful. Poor Eric, though was stuck on the Belgian/Dutch border and was last heard of trying to find a bed for the night in Antwerp.

A Sunday afternoon walk around Amsterdam

After a delicious dinner the previous night (only the carrots didn't work out too well as they stayed hard), it was a late-ish start to the day. A beautiful sunny day, thanks to a rare ridge of high pressure coming our way. We decided to take advantage of it by going for a walk around town, a typical, Fred, Charles and Henk activity.

Our walk took us up Linnaeusstraat, past Oosterpark, behing Artis, along the Calendar Panden, past Kadijk, up to Het IJ, in front of Centraal Station, behind again to Westerdok and Reaal Island, back along Brouwersgracht, Spuistraat, across to the Red Light District to Nieuewmarkt and straight back through Plantagebuurt. Excellent, sun shining all day, just a coolish wind, although a lot less brisk than the previous few days.

P.S. I will keep this slideshow on here, as it sort of illustrates the walk we made yesterday, but I find it altogether too busy. Great software, again, but I don't think I will be in a hurry to use it too often. Removed 19 January 2007.

Saturday evening at home in January

Bahir Dar shepherds, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Not so much to write about today and not so much time as Eric is coming round for dinner. A Jamie dinner, Fred cooking roast lamb wih aubergine and me making 'dinner-ladies' carrots - sliced carrots laid down with garlic, orange peel, parsley, olive oil, cooked in orange juice, white wine and vegetable stock (from a cube - so handy always!)

For desserts we would have been eating apple crumble were it not for the fact that they were selling three pineapples for a euro (I managed to bargain for a fourth one as it happened) outside the Turkish grocery store on the Pretoriusstraat. Jamie tells us we can eat this with castor sugar and mint, so we will try this as well.

All washed down with some lovely (and cheap) Argento wine from Gall and Gall. I am bringing a box of six home whenever I can, as there is a 3 for 2 promotion this month and we want to take advantage, the question being whether or not one drinks more when one knows that the fridge downstairs is full of bottles of cooled Chardonnay.

In the meantime, listening to extended CD singles from East 17 and 2wo Third3 from the mid-nineties, having discovered 4thChild, the previous singer of 2wo Third3 on MySpace, through a link from Marc Almond. May I recommend a link to Marc's site as he has placed an excellent song there called Weakness for Roses, sung to the accompaniment of Martin Watkins' piano, a song written by Baby Dee. Just how wonderful is the internet?

The clocks went back

Groningen - autumn colours, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

And it was another lovely sunny autumn day here, spent at Chantal and Gien's joint birthday party, followed by dinner with Fred and Henk back home.

Travel consultancy

Jordan - Wide expanses of Wadi Rum, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

In the meantime, our friends Jon and Peter turned up for coffee and cakes this afternoon, with Peter asking for suggestions about here they might go on holiday in the coming weeks, to get both good weather and interesting sites.

We looked at Zanzibar, Sicily and Jordan.

We were in Zanzibar in mid-November last year, just catching the start of the south-eastern African rainy season, where we experienced two or three enormous downpours between the warm sunshine... a great combination with a three or four day safari up country in Tanzania.

Sicily has tremendous culture and can expect to be reasonably warm at this time of year, although now it seems to be experiencing along with much of the rest of Europe, very warm weather for the time of year. I'd recommend Palermo and Siracusa.

Finally, Jordan offers the beach life in Aqaba, desert life in Wadi Rum and the spectacle that is Petra.

I'd have liked to have ben able to suggest Marrakech and offer Fiona's riad for a week, but she is there right now, in the process of selling it. A pity, seeing as it was such a lovely place, but better to have your money where you need it.

And, in the meantime, I am wondering if there is money to be made in organising budget itineraries for far off places for other people.

A day out on the bike

Chewing, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Another lovely autumn day and the weathermen predicted a warmer day than Monday. There would be an easterly wind, which would mean it was bets to go west... and then to the beach at Zandvoort. It is a lovely and varied cycle ride which takes one through the middle of both Amsterdam and Haarlem, through a waterland area, with reeds, lakes and ponds, full of sun-bathing herons, ducks, coots, grebes and swans, along past some lovely old polders, with cows, horses and sheep grazing, under the flight path into Schiphol, through some lovely beach woods and over the sand dunes, with the deliciously scented lime trees and down into the town of Zandvoort spread out above the beach. A pity the town of Zanvoort is so ugly, but no complaints about the beach down below, with voews up and down the straight coastline to Noordwijk in the south and Ijmuiden in the north.

As it happened, it was not so warm and the wind was both cold and quite strong, but coming from the south east, it helped me along. Glad I had a vest, thick shirt and woollen jumper, even though I was wearing shorts. I popped in to the cheese shop in Haarlem, Sansom, where we traditionally buy a French stick, filled with cheese and tomato, an old fashioned shop, much better than our local one, which tends to stink because the owner likes to sell out-of-date cheese!

Zandvoort looked quite empty and bleak, as seaside resorts often do out-of-season, but I found a nice spot on teh beach, sheltered from the wind, to relax and eat my roll before thinking of the return journey. Well, I wasn't going to cycle against that wind, so I had the option of a train from Zandvoort or a ferry from Velsen back to Amsterdam. The latter is reached by a lovely cycle ride through the grassy dunes, past little lakes, woods, herds of highland cattle, sandpits and hills.

At the other end, I seemd to reach horse country as the whole area was full of green fields with horses grazing and riding stables. The horses coats gleamed beautifully in the afternoon sunshine and it was impossible not to get teh camera out to take a few photos.

Getting onto the warm ferry seemed a real treat, and time for a snooze as we spod past what is the port of Amsterdam, with container terminals and so on... a part of Amsterdam which is very well hidden from view. Just recently, the poison ship Otopan has returned, in what has been a major victory for environmentalists. This ship contains over 1,000 tons of asbestos and the owners had negotiated with a Turkish company to have this asbestos cleaned over in Turkey. The Dutch governement signed a release warrant for this ship, which it is only allowed to do if there was only less than one ton of asbestos. When the environmental organisations got ot hear about it, they pressured the Turkish government to refuse entry to this ship of poison. There was a diplomatic incident, when the Dutch minister tried to force the Turks to take the ship, but they did not back down and now the ship is back here in Amsterdam, where it will have to be cleaned using the best (and expensive) methods, thus avoiding undue risks to the Turks who would have done the same job, but using more dangerous methods.

There is another environmental disater for which a Dutch company seems to be responsible.... in Ivory Coast, where the company made millions out of a deal which include the dumping of poisonous substances in various places in Abidjan, whereby a number of people were killed and many more injured. It really isn't good enough for us Western democracies to export our filth to poorer countries. If we make a mess, we should be responsible for cleaning it up ourselves. If we did, we would maybe think twice before making the mess in the first place.

Anyway, back in Amsterdam, there was time to visit the travel agent, to visit Mariette and to watch Strictly Come Dancing - It Takes Two!

A beautiful autumn day

A quick glimpse, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Monday and Tuesday, not a cloud in teh sky, the sun shedding a beautiful golden light down on Amsterdam, with the temperature around 17 degrees. Lovely!

Here are some of the last dahlias in the front garden, which so far have survived all the work going on in front of the house in connection with the drainage system and the preparations for the fountain.

Only not-so-good aspect is that a neighbour, who lives on the square has said that, contrary to what we thought earlier, the underground refuse containers will not be placed there, but probably next to our house on the corner of Hogeweg and Pythagorasstraat.... if so, hopefully in that dead area next to the butchers. Hmmmm... time for an e-mail to the local authorities, I think!

Football supporters in town again

Albanian fan, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

The Albainas were in town yesterday, all dressed in red and black, so we had to assume that there was a Euro 2008 qualifying at the Arena.

It turned out that there was and that Holland played very badly but still beat the Albanians 2-1.

In the meantime, both England and Scotland lost 2-0 away to Croatia and Ukraine, hardly surprising really, although England apparently played even worse than anyone had expected.

Hard to get too excited by these things, with the tournament two years away, but seeing the football supporters in town on a nice sunny day, and meeting up with Fred and Annemiek for a drink after work DID remind me of high summer during the World Cup.

Today started off nicely and is ending pleasantly but it has been mostly grey and dull during the middle bit of teh day with some rain.

Tomorrow a photgraphic progress report of the work going on outside the house as they prepare for the placing of the fountain.

The Armenian question

Diyarbakir - Armenıan church, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

What is the world coming to?

When I arrived back from Paris, Fred told me about the latest political scandal, namely that teh two largets political parties in Holland had removed three candidates from their lists of candidates for the upcoming parliamenmtary elections in November. These candidates were Dutch people of Turkish origin and their crime was not recognising the massacres of the Armenians by tthe Ottoman Empire in 1915 as 'genocide'.

Why should they? Well, a lady from a small Christian party wanted to introduce a bill making it a crime for anyone to make a mock any genocide. (People would be allowed to deny it or have their own opinion about it, but would not be able to mock it). Somehwo this started a series of events whereby these two parties asked their candidates of Turkish origin to formally stae their recognition of the Armenian masscres as genocide, as apparently this is part of the internal party business... i.r.r the parties tehmselves recognise the genocide and it would majke sense that the candidates they are presenting to the public also recognise the massacres as genocide. Well, three of them did not and they have been removed from the lists.

Of course, many Turlks are quite shocked about this, as are the rest of us, as what do events from 1915 have to do woith governing Holland from 2007 to 2011? Also, why all of a sudden this request? And, what's more, even the Dutch State does not formally recognise the genocide. Many Turkish leaders have called for a boycott of the elections, especially as the majority of Turks have traditionally voted for PvdA (Social Democrats), which had kicked out one of their candidates.

In the meantime, it seems to be against the law in Turkey to admit that a genocide took place and France is passing a law to make simple denial of a genocide. All set for a collision course.

By all accounts, there were large scale massacres but historical research has not conclusively confirmed that tehre was a genocide and also the context of the genocide has not been dealt with properly. By many accounts, just prior to the genocide, when the Russian troops left that part of the Ottoman Empire which was crumbling to pieces at the time, the Armenians saw theur chance to grab some territory and killed very many Turkish villagers in that area of what is now Eastern Turkey. So there is more than one side to the story, but as is our want, we tend ot side with the underdog and feel sorry for the losers, which in this case, are the Armenians.

We are also left wondering why it is that we have laws telling us what we can say and think when we are supposedly living in a free society, especially with regards to genocide denial. OK, making a mockery is not something we would want to encourage, but to legislate that everyone should have the same opinion is going a bit far. In our own time there are massive legal battles taking place to define whether or not the events in Darfur amount to genocide, so it is obviously not so easy even to define genocide.

Again, one is left with the feeling that the political leaders in this country lack a sense of perspective and the ability to calm issues down. Where are the statesmen? Maybe that is a question every generation asks, whereby only history can give us real statesmen retroactively - we only notice them once they have gone.

Alzheimer - the Opera

Alzheimer - the Opera, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Today is the premiere of Alzheimer - The Opera at the Muziekgebouw aan de Amstel.

The opera has been written by our neighbour Bert Keizer, who is alos a philosopher, writer, journalist and doctor. A busy man. He has spent many years working with old people in old people's homes and has become an expert in their care and various difficult issues surrounding old people, such as death, euthanesia and Alzheimer. He is very direct but full of humanity and has been a big help to certain friends in time of loss.

I was a little shocked to read in various articles which I found about him through search engines that the Americans insist on referring to euthanesia as doctor-assisted suicide. They are always so literal in their use of language but I can't help but think that this term has been developed by the religious fringe to turn people against it.

Anyway, this opera deals with Alzheimer, and, would you believe it, evolution. We were lucky enough to catch a sample of it during the Uitmarkt in Amsterdam about three weeks ago. The music was beautifully sung by some very attractive women and the texts were easy enough to follow.... so we are looking forward to a good evening.

And we wish success to Bert in this new venture of his.

The wonders of nature

A worm, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

I was thrilled to read yesterday about the discoveries made in the sea off Irian Jaya/Papua, whereby a team has discovered a number of new species of fish and coral, including a shark which walks under water.

I am slowly getting through Richard Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale, where he goes on a journey back through time, meeting our 'concestors' - common ancestors. It is hard going and a little repetitive but we are now at the stage between land mammals and reptiles. The ebbs and flows of evolution are fascinating and all life on the planet can be explained through its actions.

We were just looking at why humans are relatively hairless and also why we walk to two feet (are bipedal) and here we have a shark, living in teh sea who has decided to walk. One of the often sited critisisms of Darwinistic evolution is that there are no intermediate animals. This is plainly a nonsense argument, as we are all changing in one way or the other and are part of a chain which will last until our extinction brings us to a dead end (like over 99% of species) or evolve into something else. Anyway, here we have it - a perfect example of an intermediate - a walking shark!

We also have an unspectacular, dull brown male wrasse transform into a spectacular blaze of yellow, blue and purple to impress females in their harem and persuade them to mate. Again, a typical Darwinistic phenomenon... the development of extravagant displays of colour as part of the game of sexual attraction... what a male has to do to attract the attention of the females. Like what we see in a peacock, a bird of paradise and even the common blackbird, with his bright yellow beak set against black plumage.

Wonderful!

Here is a photo of a worm living in the sand in Dar Es Salaam. I wonder which concestor we share with each other?

As an aside, we were asked in the Blind Watchamler to guess which of the following three species are closest to each other: man, lobster and cod... the answer being, of course.... (see you tomorrow)

Henk's opening

Henk Renema - van Amsterdam naar Santiago de Compostella, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Today, finally.. the opening of an exhibition of Henk's drawings and paintings, from his three month walk from Amsterdam to Santiago de Compostella in March-June 2005.

The opening can be termed as a great success as there were so many visitors, at least half of them had to spill out and stand in the road or the narrow pavement.

There were 35 drawings/sketches and 3 oil paintings and they were greatly admired and many of them had a red sticker next to them by the end of the afternoon. We had had our eyes on a couple of them but they were sold before we got round to expressing an interest.

I was asked to take some photographs, which I did and I have now put them onto a new special site as follows: Henk Renema. A change from flickr!

Hogeweg fountain project

Hogeweg fountain project - 14/9/06 - twelve, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Another lovely late summer's day here. A lot of activity on the street, as a new group arrived to join the men fixing the new sewers, getting ready for the new fountian, now expected in February next year.

It was fun scrambling around the sand amongst all the big machines and bit of brightly coloured heavy metal It felt like being a boy in a sandpit with earthmovers and the like, only these were man-sized and real.

The men were kind enough to let me walk around taking pics until an elderly foreman with a wizened face came up to me asking me what I was doing and suggesting, very clearly, that I was not supposed to be in the sandpit, I mean, working area. A pity. Still it was a nice atmosphere out there in the shade provided by the horse chestnuts (which have not yet been moved) from the warm hazy sun.

Beach time again

Blijburg - looking out, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Yes, we are really being treated after the wet August we had. A nice big high pressure system has been hanging around, giving us some beautiful weather these past few days and is even lingering longer than expected.

Yesterday was a good day to return to Blijburg and re-live the days of high summer in early July, when it seemd that Holland had moved 1,600 kms down towards the Mediterranean. There were slightly fewer people, it being a Tuesday and the schools being back, but there was still a great atmosphere down there.

It would just not cool down and it would have been the perfect evening to have stayed and had dinner, but the beach is a little out of the way and Fred was havinga drink in town with Annemiek, so it was a spaghetti nothing (aglio, olia e peperoncino) dinner on the balcony, listening to Marc Almond's Vermin in Ermine and Ali Farka Toure, by candlelight. Sublime.