100 things I love about the Netherlands: 1

Suldog made a list of 100 he loves about America. That inspired me to make a list of 100 things I love about the Netherlands. BUT… I will try do make this list with photographic ‘evidence’ so to speak. So the plan is as follows: I’ll be posting one (or more) photo(s) every week of something I love about the Netherlands. That will what… take me about two years to complete the list? (Maths were never my strong point.)

What the hell was I thinking when I decided to do this? Two years! So I’m not promising anything. I might get bored or be dead before the list is completed. In which case I’d like to say “I’m sorry” in advance.

So here come the first photos of something I love about the Netherlands. Let’s start with something obvious:

 

WINDMILLS

This windmill is called ‘De Meeuw’ (The Seagull) and dates from 1851. It is situated alongside the Reitdiep (a river, partly canalized) in a very small village called Garnwerd (in the province Groningen). It is an eight-sided stone stage grain mill. Although no longer in use, in Summer volunteers let it turn to show people how such a mill used to grind grains to make flour.

Thursday’s Trifles

Thursday’s Trifles are based on what I’ve read in our local newspaper Dagblad van het Noorden

A fine 50% discount

A judge in Groningen detracted 50 Euros from a fine, because the suspect had taken the trouble to make the journey to the Groninger Court to defend himself. A trip of about 200 kilometres.
The man was convicted because he had, under the influence of alcohol, demolished a window of his brother’s car. The judge gave him a 100 Euros fine, of which 50 Euros were a conditional sentence, taking both into consideration that the guy had already paid for a new window for his brother’s car and that he had made the journey to Court.

 

Mouse shoots dentist

This isn’t funny.
A Dutch dentist died a tragic death on his holiday location in the French Dordogne. The dentist had taken a shotgun into the garden of his holiday cottage to hunt for mice. He wanted to kill a mouse with the butt of his gun, but the blow caused the gun to go off and it killed the dentist.

Inspired

Both Don’t Bug Me and The Hidden Realm post b e a u t i f u l photos. I asked Don’t Bug Me how she managed to create a certain effect (a dark background) and she explained it to me. Then Dave from The Hidden Realm posted some gorgeous macro shots of a flower. These wonderful bloggers inspired me to pick up the camera and give it a try myself.

And look… this is what came out… (now, I’m not saying my photos are even half as good as theirs, but I’m certainly making some progress. Finally the things I’ve learned during the Beginner Photography Course I followed last year start to sink in and begin to make sense to me. Hoorays are in order.)

 

you can click on each photo to enlarge it

 

Small world

So I’d booked a holiday in Oxford (see previous post). Not even a real holiday, because I had to learn all about Art History, from the ancient Greeks to the 1980’s. And all of this only to be able to say: “Which University did I go to? Oh, Oxford. Trinity College to be precise. Had a fab time.”
Who?
Me?
A snob?

I really had a fab time by the way. Had a large room in a beautiful college building, with the worst bed ever.

Had early morning walks through the gardens…

…followed by breakfast in the beautiful College Dining Hall under the watchful eyes of former College Presidents.

At one of these breakfasts I sat opposite two elderly ladies who were also from the Netherlands and one of these ladies was telling us that she used to be a teacher and that she came from Amsterdam. “I was born in Amsterdam and lived there until I was 15. We then moved to another part of the country.”, I said. “Which school did you go to in Amsterdam?”, the lady asked. “Cartesius Lyceum”, I said.
“I taught Geography at the Cartesius”, she replied.
”Wouldn’t it be funny if you turned out to be my former Geography teacher?”, I laughed. “What’s your name?”
”I’m Mrs. Bezema”, she said.
At which point somewhere in the back of my mind a little light switched on.
“You actually were my Geography teacher!”

And I did remember her to be a very sweet lady. She was our class mentor. I hadn’t recognized her. No ‘I knów you, I do!’-experience here. And who expects their Geography teacher from 26 years ago to be sitting at the same table in a College Dining Hall in Oxford? When you’re not even from Oxford. Not even from Great Britain.

The woman in the red coat is Mrs. Bezema

And no, she didn’t remember me. I had only been in her class for two years before we moved and I hadn’t made a lasting impression. Which is a good thing. Because I’m not a brilliant student and the only other way to make a teacher never forget you is by drawing the blood from under their nails I think.
Glad I didn’t. 
She could have taken her revenge with a butter knife. (I’m not making this up. She’s actually holding a knife, in a very threatening way, in that photo of the Dining Hall. See?)

I know you! I do!

This post of Mara inspired me to write this post of mine.

You know the occasions when you see someone you definitely know, but can’t for the life of you remember where from or what of. Do you know her from a shop you regularly visit? She could be the girl from the checkout counter at your local supermarket. He could be the guy who delivers your mail. Sometimes you just don’t recognize people when they are not in-situ or out of context (which is the same thing; just thought I’d baffle you with my knowledge). It happens to the best of us.

One evening hubs and I were shopping in IKEA (and proud of it! Not like someone I know who ‘only browses’. Uhuh.) and we saw a woman we both recognized. Spent the whole time in IKEA wondering who she was. “What do you think of this lamp? Perhaps she works in a shop we regularly visit?”
“I like that one. She’s not our Aldi checkout girl. I’m pretty sure of that.”
“We could also buy this one or she works in that restaurant we’ve been to a couple of times.”
You know how these things can take over. You just WANT TO KNOW!

Anyway, in the car on our way home I suddenly realized we had seen her once in one of those reality shows you don’t ever want to see again. Poor girl. Hoping to get famous, but only having people wondering if you are the Aldi checkout girl. Although, we díd recognize her. Missed opportunity for us to start our autograph collection of people who haven’t made it in showbiz. Ah well…

But the funniest ‘I knów you’ experience I had was at Heathrow Airport. I had booked a holiday (yes, I did! Hubs looked after the furry bunch and we didn’t have the horses at home yet, which made it easier for me to go away) to do a summer course in Art History at Oxford University, organized by a Dutch company. Flights were included and at Schiphol Airport (in Amsterdam) I met some of my fellow ‘students’. One of them was a woman with a very angry look on her face. “Oh I dó hope I’m not sitting next to her in the airplane”, I thought. And yes, you’ve guessed it, I was allocated the chair next to her in the airplane. We exchanged short nods. She already had a book in her hands, a clear sign that she didn’t want to engage in any conversation, which was fine by me. So I took my book out of my bag and sat down to read. It took some time before the plane actually moved and then it started taxiing. And taxiing. And taxiing some more. It made me giggle and I said sort of out loud to myself: “If we keep taxiing like this, we’ll be taxiing into the North Sea. In which case, I’d rather take the ferry.”

I heard a soft snigger coming from the chair next to me. “My thoughts exactly”, angry woman said.
But then the plane finally came to a standstill and the engines started growling, ready for take-off. And there we went, óver the water in stead of through it. A great relief.
Angry woman and I had already turned our attention to our books again, without having exchanged another word.

Suddenly she closed her book, turned towards me and said: “Do you have dogs?”

Now, you can imagine that I hadn’t expected that question. Did I have a doglike smell about me? Why would she suddenly ask if I had dogs?
”Three”, I said to have a good excuse ready in case she had noticed a certain waft. I hadn’t noticed one myself, but then again, would I?
“Why do you ask?”
”We’re getting a puppy when I return from Oxford and we haven’t thought of a name for him yet. What are your dogs called?”
”Phew, I thought you’d noticed a certain Eau de Chien about me”, I laughed. But she assured me that wasn’t the case.
“Marjolein”, she said. “Carolina”, I answered. And with these formalities out of the way I told her the name of our only male dog Biggles. “Hmm, Biggles. Yes. I like that. Wait!”, and she got her phone out and texted Biggles to her home front (this was shortly after you were allowed to use a mobile phone in an airplane). Immediately she got a message back. “Not approved”, she said. “Any other names?”
So I mentioned all the male dog names that sprung to mind and she kept texting home, getting messages back like: “who thought of that?” and “that’s just silly” or “definite NO”. Which made the short flight to London very hilarious. She wasn’t so bad after all. Not every first impression is the right one.

Because they had captured a couple of terrorist suspects a couple of days earlier at Glasgow Airport, our plane had to wait somewhere on the edge of the airport until a coach came to pick us up and bring us to the terminal (don’t ask me why this made things safer). We were told we should stay seated until the coach had arrived. But of course there are always individuals who don’t understand what’s going on so people kept standing up to get their bags out of the hand-luggage compartments and moving to the front of the plane, where the exit stayed firmly closed. Poor airhostesses kept telling them to please return to their seats, because they couldn’t get out of the plane anyway. It turned into sort of a Chinese plates act for the stewardesses. As soon as someone sat down again, another one stood up, and then another one and the poor girls kept running to and from people, trying to stay polite and explaining the same thing over and over again. Some people just kept trying to move towards the exit over and over again, which gave Marjolein and me a bad case of the giggles. “Look, he’s going for it again. He definitely wants to get out of here. And yes… he’s off….”, we whispered live comments.

After about half an hour the coach came and we all could finally leave the plane and get into the coach to be driven to the terminal.
The terminal was one big mess, with big piles of suitcases, some half open with clothes hanging out, scattered all over the place. It didn’t give us much hope and we had to wait a long time for our luggage to arrive on the conveyer belt, but fortunately both my bag and Marjolein’s suitcase were there. Other people from our group were not so lucky, so again we had to wait a long time until all the formalities involved with lost luggage were dealt with.

While we were waiting, I noticed a man standing next to the conveyer belt closest to where Marjolein and I were sitting, obviously waiting for his luggage to appear. And I definitely knéw that man. But wherefrom? “I recognize that guy from somewhere”, I said to Marjolein. “I’m certain I’ve seen him on television, but he’s not an actor. Who ís he?”
Marjolein took a good look. “You’re right. I know him too. Haven’t a clue who he is though.”
”I’m sure it’s a Jan. Jan something.”
”Isn’t it a Piet?”, Marjolein giggled. “He could be a Tom too. He looks like a Tom.”
”No no, I’m sure it’s Jan. He could be one of those experts who appear in the news when something has happened that needs more explanation. I’m sure I know him from television, but he does not make regular appearances.” And we couldn’t for the life of us remember who this man was. Very annoying. But also a good way to make time go a little faster.

Then his suitcases appeared and he got ready to leave the airport. “But we don’t know who he is yet!”, we panicked. And Marjolein did the best thing. She got up, walked towards the man (he was quite a big man, about a head taller than she), positioned herself right in front of him, pointed her finger in his chest and said: “Who áre you?”

I tell you, I was in stitches. I wasn’t able to sit upright anymore, hanging down the chair, tears running down my cheeks, snorting… you get the picture.

I couldn’t overhear their conversation, but finally Marjolein let the guy go on his merry way and returned to our seats.
“Well?”, I sniffed. “Who is it?”
”I think I baffled him”, she giggled.
”Yeah, but did he tell you who he is?”
”You were right! It’s a Jan. It’s Jan Timman!”, deservedly proud to have solved our ‘I know him’ problem.

These clips from a Billy Connolly performance are hilarious. Please take the time to watch them both if you can. Just ignore all the ‘fucks’ if that offends you. The story he tells is really funny and relevant to the story above. And I’m quite sure the story took place at a ChriStmas Dinner.

Okay, so if that made you laugh, here’s the second part…

Oh, I do love Billy Connolly. I’d recognize him instantly. Anywhere!

Here piggy piggy

The couple who owned the stables where my horse lived before we had our own stables ready, had a couple of pigs. These pigs, Nufnuf and Tumtum, lived in a small wooden shelter with a muddy patch in front of it. Occasionally I gave the pigs a little treat, a piece of carrot or apple or whatever else I’d brought with me to spoil my horse, which they always accepted with a soft oink oink noise that clearly expressed their gratefulness. I liked the pigs. Everybody else there, except the owners, ignored them.

Then the couple who owned the stables sold the livery and were not able to take the pigs with them to their new home. Not enough space and too many people around who probably wouldn’t like the distinctive odour pig poo brings to the air. The new owners of the stables didn’t want the pigs. Nobody wanted the pigs.

Tumtum 

So I said to hubs: “we’re getting two pigs.” Hubs said: “what?” and “why?” and “where?” and I said: “they are called Nufnuf and Tumtum” and “because they don’t have anywhere else to go and I don’t want them to end up on someone’s barbecue” and “I thought the big shed at the back of the garden, where we always said we could keep a couple of goats, but the goats turn out to be pigs.”
Hubs sighed.
I said: “have you never even seen the pigs at the stables? (Hubs occasionally went with me to the stables, he didn’t ride, let alone own a horse then.) Next time you come with me, you should take a moment to meet them. They are really cute!”
Hubs mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like “I don’t even want pigs. What’s the fun of having pigs”, but I ignored that.
The next time he went with me to the stables I grabbed him by the elbow and introduced him to Nufnuf and Tumtum. They oinked at hubs and his heart melted and when we got home he started to make the shed pig-ready and the piece of garden I had thought we could build a fence around so they had their own patch of mud, became about twice as big, because: “those pigs need a bigger space!”

Nufnuf

Then Operation Move-That-Pig started. The stable-owner constructed a big crate that should be sturdy enough to hold Tumtum, the biggest of the two. We then had to convince Tumtum to go into that crate, which wasn’t easy at all. Tumtum thought: “what?” and "why?” and “whereto?” and however much we assured him that he was going to a better place, he didn’t believe us at all. “Better place!”, he oinked. “HA! That’s what they told Mummy and Daddy and Auntie Bess too and I never saw them again, but I thought I recognized Auntie Bess’s fat little legs on the BBQ that evening!” 

So it took five people a whole afternoon to get Tumtum (not the smallest pig in the world) to go into the crate. Then the crate had to be lifted onto our trailer. Take into account that Tumtum weighed about what… 100-150 kilograms? at that time (he has grown bigger since), and the crate was really heavy too, and you can imagine the red faces and the huffing and puffing and groaning and moaning that operation was soundtracked by.

We drove the crate with Tumtum in it to our home, followed by a car with the strongest men we could find, hooked the trailer up to our little tractor and drove him to the back of our garden, where the strong men lifted the crate off the trailer and released Tumtum into his new abode.  I stayed with him to try and calm him down while hubs and the other strong men returned to the stables to get Nufnuf.

It took a long time before the big-guys-club returned with Nufnuf in the crate, because the whole Tumtum-chase and then being left alone had stressed him out completely and he had spent the whole time planning his escape, so as soon as the guys opened the gate to the pig shelter, Nufnuf (who is a smaller pig) slipped through and ran away.
It must have been a fun sight, a potbellied pig at top speed chased by 5 big guys at their top speed, but finally they managed to corner him. They then persuaded him to go into the crate. And while they closed one end of the crate, Nufnuf broke through the other end, 5 out of breath big guys who started to dislike pigs more and more again in close pursuit. Meanwhile the stable-owner repaired the crate using a hideous amount of nails and screws and extra wood, so when the guys had finally cornered Nufnuf again and managed to move him into the crate, the chance of him escaping again had been brought to a minimum.

Fortunately when they returned home with Nufnuf and released him to join Tumtum it didn’t take them long to decide that this new place wasn’t bad at all.

And that, Mr Rhymeswithplague, is how we came about them pigs ;-)

Thursday’s Trifles

Thursday’s Trifles are based on what I’ve read in our local newspaper Dagblad van het Noorden.

Girl power

A 32-year old moron robbed the bag of a 90-year old lady and tried to ran away with it. He didn’t reckon however with her feisty 78-year old sister, who tackled him to the ground and sat on him.

The two sisters had just been to church when the asshole saw his chance. He grabbed the bag out of the hands of the 90-year old woman, but her sister seized the shithead, shoved him to the ground and then sat on him. Unfortunately the guy was too strong, managed to wrestle himself out from under her and fled. Fortunately he got caught by the police.

Go grandma!

You won’t believe this…

I packed a role of duct tape and a lead pipe, put on my black and day-glow orange ‘I VANT TO BE ALONE’ T-shirt with Jinksy’s poem printed on the back, asked Holle if she dared to go with me, which she did, and went on a quest to post a letter (if you haven’t a clue what I’m talking about you’ll have to read the previous post and the comments first). It took some courage, but your ideas and tips on how to avoid talkative lunatics made me brave. I could do this!

It’s about a 20 minutes walk to the nearest mail box. Holle and I took the small track along the fields to the muddy path, followed the muddy path towards the village this time and had a lovely quiet walk to the mail box. Nodded a few times to people who were working in their garden, or, more likely, the garden of their employers, because almost everyone in our village has a man to do their gardening and a woman to do the vacuuming. We don’t. As you know, I have chosen to be my own slave. Anyway, I was walking on the other side of the street, this street has houses on one side only, so I felt safe enough. I posted the letter. Holle had a good sniff around the place and we turned around and followed our own footsteps home again. There we were, minding our own business, happily walking along the silent side of the street, when a little girl, I guess she was about 10 years old, appeared on the driveway of one of the houses on the other side of the street. “What a nice dog!”, she called to me. ”Thank you!”, I called back. ”Can I pet it?”, she yelled. ”If you really want to!” ”I really want to!” ”Oh alright then!”, thinking a ten year old girl wouldn’t be likely to yap me to death. Well… What do I know about ten year old girls. Not much. They turn out to be champion-talkers. She crossed the street and walked towards us. She petted Holle, who loved the attention. “We have a dog too”, she said. ”What kind of dog do you have?”, I asked. ”A Flatcoated Retriever”, she said. “It has an ear infection. And the vet, well, in fact my best friends father, Otto, he happens to be a vet , he looked at it and he said it is an infection and he gave us tablets that we have to give the dog and tonight we will give the last tablet and then Otto will look at it again and see if it’s okay, and then….” Okay, so clearly this child was related to the mad woman with the bicycle. “Keep calm”, I told myself, slowly getting the lead pipe out of my bag. (No not really of course. I wouldn’t club a child. Not even a yapping one.) ”……and I have two sisters and a brother and my brother lives in … and my sister, the oldest has just bought a house in … and my other sister lives in a rented place, but she’s going to buy a house too… yadayadayada (so I was thinking, since this child is only ten or so and her siblings are much older, most likely her parents are divorced and her mom has remarried an older man who already had children, whilst politely pretending to listen to all the yapping, forgetting about the wonderful ideas you all gave me to get rid of lunatics like this, however small and innocent looking)… and my parents are divorced (see!) and I live with my mother and my father who isn’t really my father (I’d guessed that already dear)… and my sisters and my brother are my dad’s, who isn’t really my dad, children and they are all coming over today… and… I took a deep breath and quickly said: ”Well, that’s nice, but I have to go now. Bye!”, and took off at great speed, dragging Holle with me, leaving slightly baffled girl standing there. Phew! I’d finally managed to escape this one.

But I have thought of a solution now. We clearly have the wrong dogs. Labradors are just too friendly looking. The farrier said it last time he was here to pedicure the horses. He said that if a guy wants to place a personal ad to find a woman, he has to put in it that he has a Labrador. Because owning a Labrador indicates that you are a friendly and trustworthy person. Néver put in a personal ad that you own a Pitbull. Not good for your chances in the women-finding-market. Our farrier is a fountain of knowledge. We will have to get Pitbull costumes for Holle and the other dogs. Or perhaps we could paint them to look scary. Not like this dog in China that still looks cute.

photo taken from here

And on my next walk (if I can ever build up the courage again to go on one) I will be singing and talking out loud, gesturing wildly, wearing the ‘I VANT TO BE ALONE’ shirt whilst signing ‘I’m deaf’ and looking very angry. It takes some effort to be able to enjoy a nice and relaxing walk.

Too friendly

 If you click on the photo, you’ll go to the website that sells ‘fun’ T-shirts.

This is a long story, but please bear with me. I usually try to keep things as short as possible, to give you the chance to visit other bloggers and read their stuff too without having to sit in front of your computer all night long, all night. All night lohong, all night… Oops, Lionel Richie popped into my head and distracted me. Sorry. I just wanted to share a personal problem with you. So here it goes….

My problem is that I have too friendly a face. I have one of those faces that invites people to pour their hearts out. Absolute strangers tell me their life’s story. Although I’ve never asked them to do that. I don’t even want them to tell me everything that’s wrong or right with their lives, or the lives of their children, acquaintances or neighbours, but still I have to listen to total strangers telling me all sorts of things I really don’t want to know. WHY? I ask you in despair, WHY OH WHY?

For instance; I once watched a friend of mine having a horse riding lesson. I had never been to the place where this happened, nor did I know any of the people there, except for my friend. There were a couple of other people watching their friends or family members happily trotting along. They obviously all knew each other, so I was a stranger amongst them. I nodded friendly to show them I meant no harm. You never know with strangers, so I wanted to make that clear to them.
HUGE MISTAKE!
The woman who stood closest to me, shuffled sideways to get within hearing distance. “Hello”, she said. “Are you new here?” “I’m just here to support my friend over there”, I said, nodding towards that friend. “Ah! That is my daughter”, she nodded towards her daughter just riding past us. “Hmm”, I smiled. And then she started telling me all sorts of things about her daughter, her daughter’s horse, her daughter’s boyfriend, her daughter’s work, the horses of their neighbours (why on earth would I want to know anything about the horses of neighbours of people who(m?) I don’t even know?). And so forth. An hour later she was still talking to me. So help me Elvis, I wanted to hit her over the head with a lead pipe just to shut her up. I didn’t. It would have made things a little bit difficult for my friend who really liked riding there I think. And I couldn’t find a lead pipe. So I counted to 1,000,000,000 and smiled.

Another example. I love to walk the dogs in the woods. Alone. Just me and the dogs. Contemplating life, thinking about the Higgs-boson particle and if we will get sucked into a black hole if they get the Hadron Collider to work properly, will Scotty ever be able to beam us up, you know, just stuff your mind can get lost in sometimes (okay, now I’m just pretending. My mind is usually blank.).

The house we lived in before was the best base-camp for that sort of long walks. I could walk for hours without ever seeing another human being. Pure bliss!
The house we live in now is situated ideally for long walks with the dogs too, woods and fields on all sides. But every time I go walking I encounter people who want to talk to me. Neighbours, people I vaguely know, people I don’t know at all. Everybody wants to talk to me. But I don’t want to talk. I want to be left alone! I need a T-shirt with an appropriate text printed on it. A text that will explain to people that just a simple ‘hello’ will do. Suggestions for appropriate texts are welcome. I could wear such a T-shirt on my desperately needed walks.

I don’t go walking anymore. I’m too scared. You see, one evening I took one of the dogs for a long walk in the woods opposite our house. There is a small track along some fields that starts right opposite our house and ends up on a very muddy path that leads to the woods. Holle (the dog) and I followed the track to the muddy path and I saw that quite a long way away from me one of our neighbours was coming towards me. I decided to take a detour and walk in the opposite direction from her. Just didn’t want to get engaged in any conversation. She’s nice enough, but she’s so terribly uninteresting. Not that I’m that interesting, but you can choose to read what I write. If I’d be speaking to you, it would be much harder for you to shut me up politely. Now you can just press the little white cross in the top of this screen and off I am. None the wiser and not offended. Just wondering why you didn’t leave a comment to tell how incredibly fun it was to read this post. Having sleepless nights, because you obviously didn’t visit me and why not… So if you want to be kind to me, just skip to the comments-thingy below and pretend you’ve read the entire post and leave me a nice comment. Thén click on the white cross. Everybody happy!

Ah, I see you are still here. That’s nice. Where was I. Oh yes, managed to escape the friendly neighbour with the boring stories. So Holle and I enjoyed our walk through the woods. There was a woman holding a bike trying to get her little dog back that had escaped into the woods. We could see the little dog and it didn’t show any intention of returning towards the woman with the bike.
I stopped walking towards the woman and called Holle to come to me. I didn’t want the little dog to follow us, because I was walking towards the fringe of the woods, where I could follow the cycle path next to the sometimes very busy road towards home.

The woman understood why Holle and I had come to a standstill and gestured that it was alright for us to walk on. So we did. When we approached the woman with the bicycle, she thanked us for being so considerate, but that it wasn’t necessary, because the dog would eventually come to her. The dog had issues, because it was a rescue dog that came all the way from friends of them in the USA who took in rescue dogs to re-home them and yap yap yap… She didn’t shut up anymore. I mean, I didn’t mind her telling me about the little dog. It was a cute little dog and I think people who take in animals in need, have the potential to be nice people (I might add that we have rescued two pigs ourselves and I almost always like us). But then she started telling me about the American friends and how they met them and how many dogs they had and where they lived and what the house looked like and that she had just been to her horse, that she kept in the field over there (with directions how to get there) and why she had been to her horse and…. It slowly dawned on me that this woman would never stop talking. Meanwhile, the little dog had befriended Holle, so the woman was able to pick it up and put it in the basket on her bike. Which was my cue to wish her a nice evening and get the hell away from there.
No such luck. She started walking with me. Still holding the bike.
So I quickly thought of another route to get home. The cycle path wasn’t an option anymore. Far too convenient for the yapping woman.
“Which way are you going?”, she asked when we neared the busy road.
I thought I had a clever idea, assuming she wanted to cycle home, and said: “I’m going to take the path through the fields” (which would mean we would be struggling through knee deep mud tracks, but I’d do anything to get away from her and she wouldn’t be mad enough to wrestle her bike through the mud).

She obviously was mad enough, because she said: “Oh, that’s okay, I will walk with you.”
And she yapped and yapped and yapped some more. And then she asked where I lived. But I didn’t want to tell her, so I nodded sort of sideways towards the road where our house is. We had almost reached the track the leads from the muddy path towards our house and I really, really wanted to take that track. Because she had already told me, of course, where she lived. Somewhere on the other side of the village, so she wouldn’t be following me along the little track. I desperately hoped she wouldn’t.

“Oh?”, she said. “Then you must know (and she mentioned a name I can’t remember, so we’ll say it was Dotty) Dotty, because she lives there too.”
”I don’t know Dotty”, I said truthfully.
”She lives in the house with the yap yap yap and the yap yap yap.”
I knew the house, but I still didn’t know Dotty.
”If you ask me”, she said, “Dotty has some serious mental health issues!”, and she started explaining how she had come to that conclusion. Point of the story was that Dotty didn’t want to have anything to do with yapping woman anymore. Which to me proves that Dotty is totally sane.

I stayed polite and said “bye” and almost ran with Holle down the track towards our home. And at the end of the track stood the boring neighbour who said: “I thought it was you I saw when I was walking the dog. but you went the other way. We should go walking together. I don’t like walking alone in the woods. You never know. It could be dangerous.”

Yeah, next time I’ll bring a roll of duct tape. Or a lead pipe and hit everyone who says more than ‘hello’ over the head. Very dangerous indeed!

Thursday’s Trifles

Thursday’s Trifles are based on what I’ve read in our local newspaper Dagblad van het Noorden.

No sliding pole for firemen due to Dutch Working Conditions Act

The new fire station in Leeuwarden will not be equipped with a sliding pole. Apparently lots of accidents happen when firemen slide down the pole and aren’t away quick enough (before the next one slides down) or they hit the ground too hard on landing. The DvhN saw an opportunity to interview a fireman about this groundbreaking news story.

“Are you no longer allowed a fireman’s pole because of the reputation pole dancing has?”
”Ah! You’ve given me an idea for the opening act of our new fire station!”
……….
”So, you are not allowed a sliding pole because of the Working Conditions Act, but you have to enter buildings that are on fire?”
”We do have a slightly heroic profession, but we should not go looking for risks to take.”
……….
”It sort of resembles fierljeppen.” (Fierljeppen, or far-leaping, is a Dutch/Friesian sport. Competitors sprint to a pole of about 10 meters long, grab it, climb to the top of the pole while that starts to fall down over a body of water and (hopefully) land on the other side of the water on a bed of sand.)
”With fierljeppen people often land in the water. Perhaps that is what we should do too.”
……….
”Is there a sliding pole in the other fire station in Leeuwarden?”
”That station belongs to the volunteer fire department. They arrive straight from home and don’t go running upstairs first just to uphold a tradition.”

I love the surreal idea of fire fighters running into the station and up the stairs, so they can slide down the pole to get to the fire engines.

 

Be careful what you wish for

A 50 year old man has been lying dead in his room for four years, while his two brothers and two sisters lived in the same house in a village in the Netherlands.

His brothers (61 and 67) and sisters (44 and 71) said that the last time they had seen their brother was in the Spring of 2006. He didn’t feel well and went to his bedroom, telling the others not to disturb him. They respected what turned out to be his last wish and left him in peace.

The house needed some work and the landlord notified them they could expect some building inspectors. One of the brothers decided therefore to go to his brother’s bedroom, although he had promised to leave him alone four years ago, to tell him he could expect visitors and found his brother lying on the bed. He probably died in the Spring of 2006, not long after he went up to his room.

The police say that the brothers and sisters of the man just hadn’t thought of the possibility that their brother had died. The body was completely dehydrated and his room had been closed for four years.

They did not have any contact with their neighbours, so nobody noticed someone was missing.

Oh, I do hope these people are the last in their gene pool.

 

Men just háve to look at beautiful women

They can’t help themselves. Researchers of the VU (University) in Amsterdam have concluded that men just can’t help looking at attractive women, because they are ‘programmed’ by evolution. Attractive women often are young and healthy and can therefore produce a lot of offspring.

Women however, are far more interested in ambitious and important men. Women don’t care as much about how a man looks, whether they are bald or red haired, whether the only six-pack they have is the one in the fridge. As long as these men are filthy rich can provide for their children, the sexy women are quite happy.

Now, where is the news in that? We all knew this didn’t we? No expensive research needed. Duh!

in fact, about 20 years ago i was waiting for the elevator in the office block I worked in, when a couple of my male colleagues joined me. one of them was new to the company. he introduced himself, looked at me and said: “you look like you can produce some great children.”
now, had he been a red haired or bald guy with a six-pack in the fridge I'd have immediately taken him up on his offer. unfortunately for him he had an ungroomed black beard and i had the feeling he would not have a great career.

Pondlife

All sorts of creatures live in our pond:

Lots of… uhm… interestingly coloured fish…

…at least one yellow bellied salamander of which I have no photo (yet), about 50 frogs in all sorts of shapes and sizes…

(for Frog’s sake, don’t these creatures know how to use a napkin?)

 

 

He’s behind you!

 

I’m right behind you…hehehe

 

…and of course a dog. Or two. Or three. Well, they don’t actually live in the pond, but they do spend a lot of time in it.

Yesterday two of our dogs went for a swim and a frog jumped in too. It swam underneath Phoebe and surfaced just in front of Holle. It continued to swim and bumped it’s nose against Holle’s side. Like a mime-player it stretched out it’s front legs (or should we call them arms?) to feel what it had bumped into; fingers spread wide, slowly feeling from in front of it’s nose to the left and the right. So cute. It looked a bit puzzled when it felt all that fur and then decided that it was probably best to do a quick disappearing trick.

Time for a rant

It’s that time of the year again. People can’t wait to leave their every day lives to take a well-earned vacation. The only problem is: what do we do with our pet(s) if we can’t take them with us. We have all heard the horrible stories of morons who just leave their pets at home uncared for, or drop them in the woods somewhere. Just because apparently we all HAVE to go on holiday. The idea that you stay at home to look after your dogs, cats, horses, pigs and chickens for most people is unthinkable and even kind of weird. I’m talking from personal experience now. This is the time of year that people ask us where we will be going and if we tell them we don’t go because of our animals, they look at us as if we are in dire need of therapy.

Sure, we’d like to get away from our daily rut too sometimes, but who will take care of our animals when we are not here? The only people I trust to do that don’t go on holiday themselves, because they have the same problem. Who will take care of their pets when they are away? Can you see why they are the only ones I’d trust taking care of ours? We have chosen to keep all these animals and therefore we don’t have holidays. There are worse things in life. To us it is perfectly acceptable.

When people visit us in summer, they usually say something like: “Oh, well, if I’d live here, I wouldn’t need to go on holiday either.” Words easily uttered when sitting on our vine-shaded patio with a glass of something nice to drink and feeling totally relaxed because hubs and I are taking care of dinner and drinks and so on. I mean, we like to entertain our friends, but… - you know the kind of people who go to… let’s say… Italy for a couple of weeks every year and then decide that their ultimate goal in life is to live in Italy, with the relaxed lifestyle and nice food and wine and whatever else makes holidays in Italy so nice, forgetting that actually living there means that you won’t be on holiday – …if they say that they are forgetting that we actually live here and have lots and lots of work to keep the place looking acceptable and well…have to do all those things they can’t wait to get away from on their holidays. Oh well, you know what I mean. I hope.

This is my daily rut.

For hubs things are different. He’s away during the day and if he’s at home he spends a lot of time in his office. He loves to muck out the stables in the weekends because it makes a change from his daily routine.

Mind you, I’m not complaining at all. I like living here too. We are quite privileged compared to lots of other people. So let that be clear please.

Our neighbours have the perfect solution for their pets when they go on their holidays. They just ask hubs and me to take care of their cat, chickens and rabbits. Or actually, they just ask if we want to take care of the cat. They usually forget that the other furry and feathery creatures need water and food too. Their dog goes with them to their holiday destination. The first couple of years we lived here, they asked us if we wanted to take care of their pets when they were away a good couple of weeks before they actually went. At first hubs and I would take turns, but after a couple of years I said to hubs: “I’m sorry, I don’t know about you, but I’m no longer willing to take care of people’s animals because they so desperately need their vacation. I have enough animals to take care of myself.” Hubs said that for him it wasn’t a problem and that he didn’t mind looking after the cat and the chickens and the rabbits. So when they asked us the following year, I told them they’d have to ask hubs. Which they did. And hubs went to their house every morning and every evening to feed, water and cuddle the cat and the rabbits and the chickens, although I suspect he didn’t cuddle them, but I’m not at all sure. And the year after that, same story.

Last year, one of the other neighbours (for whom hubs always keeps an eye on the place when they are on holiday, they don’t have pets anymore) rang the doorbell and said: “We are going away tomorrow and will be back in about three weeks. Here is the key of our house and this one is of our neighbours’ house (the cat, chickens, rabbits ones). They are already away and will be back in about two weeks. The catfood is in the cupboard above the litter tray. Bye!” So this time they hadn’t even bothered asking us before they went. At that point I think hubs thought that it would be the last year he’d take care of the poor ‘home alone cat’.

So yesterday the doorbell rang. And there was cat-neighbour. In a honey toned voice: “Hi, how are you? Gosh we haven’t seen each other for a long time. I have been so busy busy busy working. Oh I dó need to get away from the rut. We are going away for three weeks tomorrow. I wanted to ask if you could take care of the cat. I do só need to get away from the rut. We are taking the dog with us. And I’m so fed up with only having three weeks of vacation (she works only 2 days a week). I’m used to having four weeks vacation with my former employer. Oh, I’m so looking forward to get away from the rut.

Now, mentioning that to me (of all people, who néver gets away from the daily routine) three times, really pissed me off. Add to that all the cropped up frustration about her complaining to me every Fall that she has sooooo many leaves to rake up. They have two trees and a small garden. We have about two-thousand and a large garden. Normally I count to 10 and say nothing, but now I said: “You know, I’d like to get away for a little while too, get away from the rut as you put it, but I can’t! So please don’t complain to me!” She smiled mildly, looked down, and said: “Oh, but Carolina, if you really want to go away you can of course always find a way to do so.” Now I nearly exploded. “Oh? And who will take care of our animals? Hubs is always there to take care of yours.” ”You can always find someone who wants to take care of them”, she said, still smiling. “L… from next door loves horses. If you plan it so that she’s at home when you are away….” “L….?!?!”, my eyes shot fire. “She’s 12. You can’t expect a 12 year old girl to bring three big horses to the meadow and back to the stables again. We can barely manage that ourselves sometimes.” (Stupid woman!, but I didn’t say that out loud. I think. I hope. Oh, I wish I had. And I know for a fact that she herself is too scared to hold my horse Naloma, because Naloma can be quite jumpy sometimes. And Naloma used to belong to her husband. I’m just saying…!) ”Oh, I don’t see why not. We used to have horses ourselves. We just left them in the meadow and my parents gave them water.” ”That’s nice, but we don’t have a meadow that’s large enough to keep them in day and night. It will be a muddy mess within a couple of days. So that’s not a good plan. And you’ll have to ask hubs if he wants to take care of your animals, because I won’t. As you know.” She turned to hubs, who had just joined us. “Hi, we are going away on our holiday tomorrow. If all goes well we’ll be away for about three weeks. Can you look after our cat? If you don’t have time, it’s no problem. I’ll ask someone else.” So hubs said: “I’d rather you ask someone else. We have enough to do here.” She looked surprised. “Oh? But you only have to let him out in the morning and feed him. And let him in in the evening again.” ”Still, I’d rather you ask someone else. We have very little free time as it is. And you also have chickens and rabbits, don’t you?” ”Yes, but they don’t need much looking after. But it’s no problem. I’ll ask my parents in law.”

We chatted a bit, wished them a nice time and off she went. I suspect she won’t ask us again. She also mentioned that if their cat died, they wouldn’t get another cat. Such a hassle to organize cat-sitters when they wanted to go away for a couple of days. Yeah. Nów it’s a hassle. Now we have turned them down at their last minute request. Uhuh!

I know this wasn’t my best piece of writing, but I feel very relieved now. And that’s worth something too ;-) Hopefully the next post will be more interesting. You can never be sure though. It all depends on which lunatics cross my path or on what the paper writes about. Or on the weather. That has been foul the last couple of days. It has been warm here, about 30 – 35 degrees Celsius, and that usually ends with a big fat thunderstorm. Of which we had one in the night from Saturday-Sunday, and another very loud one last night and just this afternoon we had the third really big thunderstorm. Trains don’t ride anymore because of trees falling on the rails, somewhere the roof of a train station has collapsed, drains couldn’t cope with the amount of rain in a short period of time. It’s a bit of a mess in some parts of this country now. And I’m afraid of thunder and lightning. So you can imagine the state I’m in, hehe (nervous laugh), and the bags under my eyes. Anyway, I’ll do my best to write a better piece next time.

And the photo at the top? Taken from here, where you can find all sorts of free images.

Thursday’s Trifles

Thursday’s Trifles are based on what I’ve read in our local newspaper Dagblad van het Noorden.

Dust to dust… Would you like to be diluted or freeze-dried?

For some reason Death seems to feature a lot in the Thursday’s Trifles. I’m sure it’s not an omen and I’m not morbid. I read an interesting story in, you’ll never guess, the Dagblad van het Noorden, about how you can be environmentally friendly, even after your death. Of course you’ll have to be taken to the place of your choice by bicycle (not by motorcycle, see the previous Thursday’s Trifles) to diminish your carbon footprint even more. But hey, that’s not what this article was about. It was about the following, and I’m telling this in my own words, so don’t get angry at the DvhN for being disrespectful or whatever.

so, Would you like to be diluted or freeze-dried?

Resomation and Cryomation are more environmentally friendly ways of removing your body from the Earth (perhaps I should add ‘after your death’ just to be clear) than cremation (they didn’t take burial into the equation, not sure if that would be more or less ‘green’. Sorry that I can’t enlighten you on that point. You’ll have to take a guess.)

Resomating a body means that it is placed in a bath of water and alkaline fluid, which is brought to a temperature of 180 degrees Celsius. A chemical reaction dehydrates the body and it decomposes in about three hours. Remains the skeleton and that is grinded to a fine dust. Voila.

Resomation produces significantly less CO2 than cremation and it uses less energy. Another benefit is that mercury and other harmful contaminants will not get into the atmosphere. (Mercury already is up there, isn’t it? Somewhere between the Sun and Venus?) Also the powder remaining after the resomation process is much finer and whiter than that what’s left after cremation, but if it was me, I’m sure there would be a big grey, or even worse – brown, blob in the pure white powder. I’ve never been able to keep white white. And I don’t think there are any coke-sniffers among my family and friends, one can never be sure though, so I’ll probably be safe and not end up in someone’s nose. The things one worries about…. Vacuum cleaners for instance.

(Which reminds me; one of our friends was home alone one evening and saw a huge, great big, elephant sized spider in a corner of the room. With no one around to rescue her, she grabbed the vacuum cleaner and sucked up the creepy crawly. Next evening, home alone again, she saw the same enormous spider in another corner of the room. She got the vacuum cleaner out and sucked up the spider again. Third evening, not home alone, there it was again! So her hubs came to the rescue, picked up the spider and put it outside. After which we came to the conclusion that spiders go ‘WHOOHOOOO!’ when they get sucked up and yell ‘AGAIN!’ when they get out. Vacuum cleaners are a spider’s roller coaster ride.)

Back to what this was about, being diluted or freeze-dried. Another option is Cryomation. Also fun! A lot colder though. Your body will be kept for 10 days at minus 18 degrees Celsius. After that it is immersed in Liquid Nitrogen until it’s brittle. A light shake and all that’s left of you is a little pile of powder. I hope no one sneezes. Cryomation is the greenest method of disposal. No CO2, mercury or dioxin emissions at all. And, according to www.cryomation.co.uk you get all the person back. ‘With traditional cremation techniques, approx 2.5% of the body is returned in the form of crushed calcified bone (ash), with Cryomation you get all the person back (less the moisture of course) in powder form and ready to be planted or interred.’

Now, that’s a relief! I’d like to be planted and let another one of me grow from my cryomated remains. How green can you get?

My parents live quite close to a crematorium. My father often mentions that he hopes the wind direction will be good, so that he will be home in time for dinner when he’s cremated.

Kululaugh airlines

You might have heard about the BIG trouble some Dutch girls in orange dresses, who were sponsored by a brewery that isn’t an official sponsor of the FIFA World Cup Football (or Soccer) in South Africa, got into with the FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association). The sponsor’s name, Bavaria (a Dutch brewery, hence the orange dresses) was barely visible on their dresses, but two Dutch girls got arrested because the official sponsor of the World Cup is Budweiser. Guerrilla marketing this is called.

Well, they were not the only ones who had difficulties with the FIFA over an advertising campaign.
South African price fighting airline Kulula.com is not an official sponsor of the FIFA World Cup and is therefore not allowed to use the words ‘World Cup’ in it’s ads. Instead Kulula used ‘that thing we dare not mention’ and ‘you know what’.

(I hope the picture will enlarge if you click on it. I’ve taken them off a certain Nick Burcher’s site.)

FIFA objected to this advertising campaign and Kulula withdrew the ads. Instead they offered Sepp Blatter, FIFA’s President, free flights.

Sepp Blatter, the homo sapiens, did not react to the offer.

 

Sepp Blatter the Boston Terrier did:

And Kulula, who definitely have a sense of humour, offered the free flights to Sepp the Dog and he, in return, poses for their advertisements. Kulula’s planes are painted in all sorts of different and very original ways. You’ll have to see the photos on this blog (no honestly, for instance: they’ve painted ‘Mile High Club initiation chamber’ on the outside of plane where the loo is situated. And lots of other fun remarks, at least I think it’s funny and you should follow the link. So there!).

Okay, so this is all very funny. But not as funny as the live recording of one of the Kulula pilots doing his ‘Welcome aboard’ speech that you can find somewhere on this page. You’ll have to scroll down, past the funny remarks etc. until you get to the video. Enjoy and book your next flight with Kulula.com if possible. If the plane goes down at an unexpected and unplanned moment, at least you’ll die laughing.

Thursday’s Trifles

DIY coffin

An entrepreneur from the Netherlands has thought of a new concept (new to the Netherlands anyway); a Do-It-Yourself coffin. And our local newspaper interviewed the man. A small piece of the interview:

“Can someone with two left hands put this coffin together?”
”It’s very easy.”
”So the old widow can do it too?”
”Perhaps a tad slower, but she can put the coffin together too.”
”Will I be spotting your flat packs sticking out of car windows or on top of car roofs, just like the IKEA flat packs?”
”Could be…………………”
”Assemble your own coffin?”
”It sounds sinister. But there are many possibilities to give your own turn to your funeral. On YouTube you can see someone who has been embalmed and put on a motorcycle.”
“IKEA gives you a hex-key with their flat packs.”
”We supply one screwdriver. That’s all you need.”
”Are you not afraid that people will use your DIY coffin for other purposes? A rabbit-cage for instance?”
”I think 350 Euros for a rabbit-cage will be slightly expensive. And you’ll need a piece of wire-mesh too.”
”Will you supply that too?”
”No, we will not supply that.”

Are you tempted to search for that video on YouTube?

 

No lure-Jews

Because of the increasing anti-Semitism and violence against Jews in Amsterdam, the use of ‘lure-Jews’ (police officers dressed as Jews to catch anti-Semites red-handed) was suggested by a Dutch political party.
But the police in Amsterdam has no intention to use ‘lure-Jews’ in their fight against anti-Semitism. Although they have in the past used: lure-cars, lure-bicycles, lure-houses and lure-grandmothers. They have also used a lure-homosexual once.

 

Hard praying at the World Championship Football/Soccer

Wesley Sneijder, a Dutch football (soccer) player currently playing for the national team, turned Catholic because of his upcoming wedding to Yolanthe Cabau van Kasbergen, who already was a devout one. Dutch media informed us that Yolanthe and Wesley call each other every day to pray the Rosary together. An internet-entrepreneur saw an opportunity to get some publicity too and told our local newspaper, Dagblad van het Noorden, that he had sent Wesley a Roman Catholic Starter Kit.

“What is in this Roman Catholic Starter Kit?”
”A Prayer ring for your little finger. It has 10 beads for 10 Hail Marys. And a bottle of wine, because Catholics enjoy a good wine. And a car magnet.”
”A car magnet?”
”For in the ‘Wesley-Wheels’. With a picture of Saint Christopher, patron of safe travel. And the book Catholicism For Dummies.”
”Does Wesley play better football now?”
”He scored a goal against Slovakia.”
”And that was God’s foot?”
”That is not my place to say.”
”Did Jesus play football?”
”I think football was invented much later.”
”Would He have been a Winger? Or a Goalkeeper?”
”Perhaps a good Midfielder?”
”Is there an SC/FC Vatican?”
”There is a Priest’s tournament for the Clergy Cup.”
”Lots of red cards?”
”And yellow and green ones. If you get a green one, you have to pray Hail Marys for two minutes at the side of the field.”
”Hopefully the Vatican doesn’t have a pupils team.”
”I knew that would come up in the conversation.”
”So now Wesley has turned religious, do we have a better chance of becoming Champions?”
”And talent is a factor. The opponents can pray hard too. Brazil is a very Catholic opponent.”
”Do the Brazilians have an advantage?”
”Kaká once said he wanted to be a priest.”
”So whatever happens, God will be the winner?”
”That sounds rather evangelical. You won’t hear that from me.”