In Soul

Life as We Know It

2012-01-29T12:10:00.001+01:00

MY LAPTOP IS BACK! That could be a post in and of itself but let's just say I am a happy camper, since Friday, getting reacquainted with my old friend.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Now, follow me on this bit of meandering through Life as I know it.

The most soulful image I saw all last week was the one niece Lesley took of her mom,
G'ma Ruth (my little sister) reading from Beatrix Potter to Baby James.

Ruth says he sat like this, and in other positions, mesmerized for 15 minutes in chapter one. We will continue on the weekend . . . :-) Thank you. I think he loves British writing, and boats . . . this was The Tale of Little Pig Robinson. :D

Isn't that the most adorable picture of a baby ever, hanging onto every word.
(click to enlarge)

And so that evening, Astrid and I watched the Miss Potter DVD of how Beatrix Potter accomplished her dream of writing books for children about the animals who were her friends. It's a precious story and well worth seeing. I was glad we had the DVD already in our library!

As Wiki says, her books continue to sell throughout the world, in multiple languages. Her stories have been retold in song, film, ballet and animation.

It so happens that 2 days after Baby James was born, one of my high-school classmates died.
Do you realize how often that happens? One comes into the world while another goes out.

From my class of 172 students, 31 of us have died, 7 since 2011.
I know this because we're getting ready for our 50th class reunion in Michigan next year.
We even have our own Facebook site of our 1963 GLHS class and are getting reacquainted!
God willing and the creek don't rise, Astrid and I will be there.

But all I can think is, that's way too young! And who of us will be next?

Then I remember my own brother Bennett who was only 47 when he died in 1996.

My favorite photo of Bennett is from when he played in
the community theater production of Fiddler on the Roof.
You can't see it here but he had carrot-red hair!

And yes, we had just watched that movie a couple weeks ago.
It was my umteenth time and Astrid's first.
Life as they knew it in that day and age...and place...is worth all the musicals in the world.
I'm so glad Bennett got to be a part of it in his own way.

It's still January, and with it has come brother Nelson's 70th birthday.

As the Eldest of our Tribe, the rest of us 8 kids will now follow suit.
My turn (#3) will be in 2015, Ruth's (#8) in 2026.
And Baby James...in 2082.
It boggles the mind.

That precious little baby, my grand nephew, is Nelson's counter bookend right now in our family tree,
70 years removed from each other.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Winter has finally come to the Netherlands, with temps to hang below freezing-point all week. If there's any possibility of canals freezing, the skaters will come out en masse.

And we will drive east over the weekend to meet up with Mart Martorell, the glass blower, to celebrate our 2nd wedding anniversary. More on that later, of course, but time marches on!

This is life as we know it!

Enough Excitement for a Week!

2012-01-23T06:15:00.004+01:00

Before I get started (don't you love that we can start before we start!)...

CONGRATULATIONS are in order for my "little sister" Ruth
becoming a g'ma for the first time this past week:

James Lawrence Robinson was born on his due date, January 18.
Can you see G'ma Ruth's pride in how she took this image less than 24 hours later!
Hopefully Astrid and I will be able to meet him in May when we fly to Michigan.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

In my last post I mentioned that my laptop broke at the hinges and had to be taken to the shop. I had never heard of such a thing but it apparently happens a lot, according to the techie. Lucky for me, I had 4 more days on my 24-month warranty. Lucky also that they will do the annual maintenance gratis. I think they really felt sorry for me...or embarrassed.

So my new learning curve for 2-3 weeks ("I'll tell the Chinaman to rush the parts," the techie said) is to work the internet "like normal" from Astrid's laptop...including her Corel PaintShop for image manipulation. Almost all the images below, the ones in the collages, are from her program. I'm indebted to her, of course!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Winter here in the Netherlands still has not arrived!
Temps for the most part hang around 40-45 F, with lots of rain.

See how full our Merwede river is!
On my daily walk around our citadel city, I say HI to our "sister city" Woudrichem.
I love seeing her main church and windmill waving back from across the river.

In spite of all the rain, once in awhile the sun does shine,
so I enjoy seeing where I live with new eyes.

With my 300mm lens I can zoom in on Sister Woudrichem
to see how she's really doing.

But it's usually my side of the river I want to see, like the Dalempoort.
Some of this you have seen before...but I never tire of it.
And see, there's our water tower in the background.

There's a bridge on the river side of the Dalempoort crossing a wee canal.
I love to see the dog-walkers out there...and the seagulls when someone brings bread.

Same bridge, and if you look up, you see De Hoop windmill.
Same place, same station...but different music.
I love it here!

It so happens it's in this area that our Poort 6 housing authority is building
a huge apartment complex overlooking the river....

See the Grote Kerk in the center image way in the background?
That's the church that's only 2 blocks from where we live,
so that gives you a feel for where this is.

Did I ever tell you how much I love cranes?

Construction cranes, that is!
They've been going at it non-stop for several months now.

When I posted the above collage at my Shutterchance blog,
a friend thought I'd like this YouTube.
OMG! It's hauntingly beautiful!

Over by the Linge Harbor around the corner, I smile every time I see this British canal boat.
I'm not sure what it's doing here but if I ever find out, I'll let you know:

I imagine it swam over from the UK, right?
It looks so different from the wider Dutch canal boats.
Did I ever believe I'd know the difference?

But not to be confused with the myriad barges that go back-n-forth every day....

...not only along the Merwede river, where I started above,
but along our bigger canals passing through our city
where all the drawbridges stand up and salute.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

And yes, we finished another Jan van Haasteren jigsaw puzzle yesterday!
This one is De Storm (The Storm), 1500 pieces (image from JvH's site).
The details, let alone humor, are amazing.
No wonder we're hooked.

Now, until next week, let's see what other excitements are in store....

New Year's Resolution: To Give Back

2012-01-16T06:15:00.002+01:00

Last post I left you hanging about my New Year's resolution to give back to Wiki after all they have given to me:

There she is: my first (and so far only) submission to Wikimedia Commons.
Without going into the beginning, middle, and end of it again,
you can read all about it at my Vision and Verb post today.
(You can also click here to see the submission at Wiki Commons.)

My goal now, going forward, is to start submitting relevant images to pages where there is minimal info, even at Wikipedia. Wikimedia Commons is a repository of free images/videos for anyone to use (albeit with license restrictions). Wikipedia is another option for where to "put" the images, where none exist. Astrid and I often visit small villiages here in the Netherlands where there is no Wiki info or images. Maybe that's where I can also give back! So, wish me luck.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Switch gears, now, back again to my last post when I told you about the famous Dutch jigsaw-puzzle artist, Jan van Haasteren. We are totally addicted!

This past Friday was the 13th, right, so how coincidental that we just happened to finish van Haasteren's Friday the 13th puzzle the same day:

This is very typical...and great fun as a 1500-pc. puzzle.
(image from van Haasteren's site)

Here's what part of the fun is: to find his "signatures" all over the place....
(Thanks to Astrid for all the following images which I processed and "collaged.")

...Like his actual signature and his self-portrait...in every puzzle.

And always, no matter what the puzzle theme, there's a shark's tail, snail, Native American indian with arrows stuck here-n-there, cat, dog, snail, periscope, Sinterklaas and Black Peter, bikes, snake, crazy legs...

...umbrella, Wanted poster, white or black birds...
and stand-alone hands and popping-out eyes in every nook or cranny.

He's wonderfully crazy, with 97 puzzles in his repertoire.
You can understand why we're collecting as many of them as possible
(so far we have 14).

Now, look at this:

It so happens we borrowed the above puzzle from one of Astrid's co-workers.
Remember that I told you van Haasteren will replace a missing piece if he can?
Astrid has contacted him to see if he can replace this one.
If so, it's another way to give back!

Don't ask me why but these are the small pleasures of my life thus far in 2012. We're halfway through the month and I feel like dancing:

I have watched this YouTube over and over again, loving everything about it:
the smiles, passion, swinging hips, gum-chewing, yellow pumps.
Life is Good
(even when your laptop breaks, which mine just has at the lid's hinges,
so we're off to hopefully get it fixed today).

One last reminder to visit my Vision and Verb, if you can take the time....

This, That and the Other

2012-01-08T14:04:00.004+01:00

Is it really possible this much has happened in the first week of the New Year! It's a mish-mash but it all happened.

First, it was watching the clean-up of all the fireworks while out on my daily walk:

Every year the receptacles with openings have to be boarded up or locked
to keep firecrackers from being tossed in by the New Year's revelers.
This one apparently got missed by the lock-down!
Astrid had told me about it but this was the first time I saw it.

During the week, between Sunday to Saturday, we finished another of the Jan van Haasteren jigsaw puzzels we absolutely love:

This is the 1500-pc. puzzle called Neighbours (De Buren).
Actually, this one is a loaner from one of Astrid's co-workers who's also addicted.
The cool thing about Jan and his whole operation is that if you ever lose a piece,
you can get a replacement from him. How cool is that!

This is the time of the year when make-overs and clean-ups seem to be on everyone's mind. I love to see how the Dutch do it:

This particular farmer is cleaning the moss off his thatched roof.
How many ladders does it take to clean moss off your roof?

Good thing I have Astrid nearby to always explain what's happening, things that are old-hat for her!
The Dutch canals have to be dredged every year or so, depending on how big they are.
The silt from the bottom gets siphoned off and dumped on the farmland nearby.
It allows for cleaner water and better water flow, especially when there's lots of rain.

Here's a YouTube to show how it's done:

While they're at it, they also break up the roots of the water plants
to keep the canal cleaner and less impeded:

See the shell on the bottom-left? That's a fresh-water swan mussel the size of a grapefruit.
The muskrats dig them up in the canals and eat them.
Now you know why the canals need continual maintenance!
Too many rats, building their tunnels near the canals, would collapse the farmland.

Talk about getting my education...almost every day!

Besides all that, since our New Year's community party we've had another New Year's party (by the property association) and 2 birthday celebrations, all at our community center. We're feeling partied out!

One last thing, ruminating all week, relates to a New Year's resolution I plan to share next week about Giving Back. I want to "donate" images to Wiki and have begun the process of registration and uploading. It's been a complicated learning curve for me. Tomorrow, 4 days after registration, I'll find out if I'm up and running.

But more on that next week, also with exciting news that Mart Martorell, the glass blower from the Düsseldorf Christmas market, wants me to be the photographer for his new website. In return, he will teach Astrid how to blow glass! But like I said, more on that next week.

If this is how 2012 is starting, don't you wonder what the rest of the year will look like??!!

Now, something fun for those of you who enjoy Dr. Seuss!
This was worth every minute...looking ahead to the rest of this new year.

Happy New Year, again!

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T06:15:00.002+01:00

Is it possible?

(voiceable.org)

Bear with me now as I connect some dots....

Remember the glass blower at the Düsseldorf Christmas market?

He happens to be a dutchman named Mart Martorell with a private shop in Laren (Gelderland), Netherlands. Since he was in Düsseldorf, Germany, on 10 Debember 2011, when we were there, he clearly gets around.

Here's a YouTube I made of my 30+ best images.
Lucky for me, I was able to stand about 6-8 feet away with an unobstructed view.
I just snapped away, from beginning to end, while a crowd watched him work magic.

The finished prize: an angel inside a glass ornament.

Now, connect my dots for you as I wish you all the happiest of new years with your own guardian angel watching over you and yours every step of the way.

The 2nd Christmas Day

2011-12-26T06:30:00.002+01:00

Today is the 2nd Christmas Day here in the Netherlands.
NOT the 2nd day of Christmas and NOT Boxing Day. Just the 2nd Christmas Day
...the 26th, following the 1st Christmas Day yesterday, the 25th.
It's an official holiday...more of which you can read about at my Vision & Verb today.

And because it's still Christmas here where we live, I need not apologize for showing the Düsseldorf Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market) from when we visited a couple weeks ago.

Where to start!

Since we went to see the Christmas market, let's start there.
Make that markets, plural, since there were several near each other.

The huge Christmas tree from Lillehammer, Norway, stood on the main square
in the old town/Altstadt, near the historic town hall.

Just when I wondered if they'd have a huge pyramid
(similar to my days in Hannover)...there she stood.
I was not disappointed.

And yes, I got my chestnuts roasting on the open fire!

And since I'm on the subject...there was food everywhere....

...as well as the ubiquitous glühwein.
Every stand had its own mug you could buy with your drink
(which we did, of course).

Yes, Santa, too, was there....

...in new and old versions, with all his toys.
(click on any image/collage to enlarge)

This is the eye-candy of the Weihnachtsmarkt!
When Astrid saw my image of the wooden tops, she said "Ohhhhh!"
Had she seen them, she would have bought one...memories from her childhood.

At one point we walked away from the markets to the nearby Rhine River, on which Düsseldorf sits:

This is one of the most famous promenades of Germany.
If ever you've been on a European river cruise, maybe you've seen it!

We actually saw the promenade from the other side of the Rhine
when we crossed over the bridge.
The Rheinturm steeple is the telecommunications tower.
When you see the tower from a distance, you know you're almost there.

You know me and architecture!

And weathervanes, too.

About this time we were ready to eat!
We already had our latte macchiato and bread-with-chocolate earlier.
And we would have had bratwurst with sauerkraut at a stand...
except that we wanted to sit down somewhere inside.
So we ate wonderful Indonesian food while overlooking a German market!

Then we were off to see one of the things we had come to see for Astrid: the Königsallee shopping street with all its posh stores decorated to the nines this festive season.

Königsalle, on a picturesque canal, is known for its fashion showrooms and luxury retail stores.

Astrid had last seen the window dressings 30 years ago.

It tells you everything you need to know
when you see furs selling for €15.900 - 48.900 ($20,760 - 63,849).
Or even that FURS are being sold in the first place!

It was the menswear window displays Astrid most wanted to see.
(Remember, this is what she trained for all those years ago.)

But we sure enjoyed seeing everything else, too....

...some things more affordable than others,
even though we didn't buy a thing!

It was a day for the eyes...and being "short of them," as the Dutch say.
Christmas was everywhere, whether commercial or not.
We got what we wanted...and parked two blocks away from all the activity!
(Remember that clean-car sticker we got for this Clean City!)

You might recall we also got a surprise.... Remember the glassblower? Maybe I'll show you more about him next week. He totally made the day worthwhile and deserves his own post

Till then...what will YOU be doing this day after Christmas, the 2nd Christmas Day? Check out my Vision & Verb to see what we'll be doing....

The Wonder Week

2011-12-19T15:52:00.001+01:00

From wonder into wonder existence opens. (La0 Tzu)

My intention today was to post about the Christmas market in Düsseldorf, Germany (where we saw this little boy), but I've decided to leave that for our "2nd Christmas Day" a week from now.

Today needs simplicity. It needs wonder. May you have it in abundance all week long. And for those of you who celebrate it....

(from Web Images)

A Clean City and Rummikub

2011-12-12T08:05:00.004+01:00

Do they have anything in common? Nothing more than that they're here in this same post....

First, Rummikub. After our two-hour play on Friday, we had our year-end party to celebrate a year of battling against each other. HA! Well, sometimes that's what it felt like. Old geezers, you know (yes, I'm one of them).

Jouke, our leader, reported the afrekening (= accounting) for the year (left side).
There were 10 of us paying €,50/week, bringing in €226.
A drink each week (koffie, tea, chocomel, or sparkling water) plus year-end prizes...etc.
Money in, money out. He had it all down pat.

Then he explained how the scoring worked.
We played 44 weeks but counted only 31 because of vacations.

The one with the minste punten (least points), took home the trophy.
Not bad for someone who had never heard of the game before coming to the Netherlands!
I felt very honored. Lucky me.

Then we got nice gifts...Dove shower gel and a €10 gift-card....

...and a hand-stitched Christmas card by Jouke's now-deceased wife.
When he saw how intrigued I was by her handiwork,
he ripped off another card to show me the back. It's the kind of minute detail I love.
(click on any image to enlarge)

Next week we'll see each other at our community's annual Christmas dinner.
It's been a good place to live!

Now, a clean city.

A week ago Saturday, Plan A was to drive the 116 miles to Düsseldorf, Germany, to see their Weihnachtsmarkt (= Christmas market). It had been 30 years since Astrid had last visited it to see the window displays for the rich and famous (remember the post on her window-dressing career?). Even though the forecast was for rainy weather, we still wanted to go.

However, the night before, when Astrid was plugging in the address info for Tom-Tom, she discovered Düsseldorf is a clean city. You can't even drive into it, let alone park, without a sticker on your car showing you have a clean car. You can get the sticker through the mail after you've sent in all your car's paperwork, showing what color (red, yellow or green...like the traffic light!) your car is worth.

In other words, clean city means a clean, GREEN car.

So Plan B was to send in for the sticker and get it in time for this past weekend...which was a gloriously clear and sunny day. See, there's always rhyme and reason!

The sticker arrived on Tuesday in pleaty of time for Saturday's drive.
I promised Astrid I'd mark out all the important info, especially our license plate number,
protecting the innocent, of course. But look how proud Granny Towanda is!

That green sticker means we can park anywhere in all of Germany!
A clean GREEN car means a clean city.
(A yellow sticker means you can drive/park in some places throughout the city,
but red means, sorry, your car is not allowed.)

Don't you wonder why this hasn't yet caught on in America?????

As you'd guess, I'm now working on my Düsseldorf images. I'll give you one bite for now, because we had the unexpected surprise of watching a Dutch glass blower making tree ornaments at one of the stands:

Next week I hope to give you the whole enchilada! Till then, stay safe and warm.

Life's Serendipities

2011-12-05T06:15:00.002+01:00

ser·en·dip·i·ty (srn-dp-t) n. pl. ser·en·dip·i·ties

1.The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident.

2. The fact or occurrence of such discoveries.

3. An instance of making such a discovery.

Today in the Netherlands it is Sinterklaasdag, 5 December. It's the traditional day for the Dutch to do their gift-giving for the Christmas season (in spite of American influences seeping in to augment gifts on Christmas day). Think Santa Claus and presents. Today.

Two years ago today (though it was a Saturday then), I moved to the Netherlands from America to begin a new life with the Dutch woman I married two months later. It was totally coincidental that the day I arrived was Sinterklaasdag. We didn't plan it that way. But every year since then, Astrid and I will celebrate this day as our biggest and best gift to each other.

That's serendipity. And, YES, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!

I have always loved serendipitous moments. They may be more rare than "normal," but maybe that's what makes them so "fortunate" and "by accident."

This past September, when we spent a few days in England....

(continued at my Vision and Verb today)

'A' is for Astrid of All Trades

2011-11-28T06:15:00.003+01:00

Did I ever mention that in my past life (the week before Christmas in 1993, to be exact) the condo building in which I lived burned to the ground. I lost almost everything, which is probably why it wasn't hard to part with much when I packed up and moved to the Netherlands 2 years ago.

However, it's precisely because of that fire that I have been determined to preserve as much of Astrid's artwork online as possible. It's only taken me two years to do it but here it is...the best representation of what her mind and hands have accomplished in her adult years.

To begin with, the school system in Europe is not like in America. Kids start specializing much earlier and, at age 16, Astrid was ready to start. She had wanted to be a carpenter since age 10, but no school in Holland at that time allowed girls into their program. An employment agency recommended Window Dressing as her next best option because it required carpentry in its coursework.

So at age 16 Astrid started her economic and technical training at NIMETO in nearby Utrecht for the next 4 years of her life. This was where she did most of the following artwork, during 1971-75, preparing to be a window dresser. (She graduated in June, 1975, and then flew to America in August, where she spent the next year of her life, at age 21. But more on that later.)

Remember poster paint? We're talking about the early 70s, before the internet, when Astrid had to mix all her colors by hand and figure out how light interacts with them.

All 4 of these color palettes are made by hand and took hours of mixing paint.
Dry paint looks different than wet paint, she says, and had to be taken into consideration.

Assignment: Use only two colors, purple and white,
and make a drawing with all the color variations in between.

A simple assignment tells you amazing things about color!
Again, only two colors (blue and yellow) but look how together they make the new color green.

What thrills me about this drawing is that Astrid was on the Dutch national youth softball team when she was 16-17 years old. Later,when she was 23 she was the catcher on a ladies softball team that had an exchange program with the Grand Rapids, MI, team. So Astrid actually played softball in my home state (Grand Rapids, Holland, and Petoskey) long before I knew she existed!
(Astrid did this as extra credit, using the colors white and green.)

It's a small world after all!
Assignment: Design a game. Astrid decided to make wood puzzles of national flags.
She was always interested in America and lived there for a year after she finished school.

Assignment: Come up with a theme and make variations of it.
Astrid loved downhill skiing at that time in her life and chose that theme.

This is a line drawing the teacher gave them.
Assignment: Make it into a block/cube and design anything you want.

So Astrid made up her own horoscope signs!
Not all 12 signs are represented; some are variations of the same symbol.
(click to enlarge and see if you can guess the signs)

Assignment: Pick an object and design something from it.

Pen & ink creations were varied.
Assignment: The shoe drawing was an ad for a magazine.
The bottom-left design was all one line, without lifting the pen from the paper.

Architectural perspective is always a part of drawing, of course.

In perspective, the horizon line is always important.
How you see something from above or below is different.

Remember, this is the 70s. No AutoCAD!
Astrid says it was the tools she loved using for this project more than anything else.
(Sorry for the poor quality, all from photos I took.)

Assignment: Add something to your perspective.
How about colored pencils (they never used felt pens)!

Assignment: Take an Old Masters painting and simplify it.
Include the artist's name in your design.

Assignment: Pick a berry and do something with it.
Astrid first did the pen & ink design from which she created a needlepoint pattern.
She says she was just an "average" student and needed extra credit.
So she also stitched the pattern she created.

Assignment: Try watercolor painting for fun.
Astrid said it was very difficult for her, which is why she didn't finish it.
She didn't have the time then to master it. Maybe when she retires, she says!

Assignment: Make a linoleum cut.
Since it was Christmas time, she even used it for her Christmas cards.

Assignment: Design one animal and use the same characteristics on 3 others,
for a child's room. Aren't they cute! :)

Then came the 1975 final exam, in both designing and drawing:

Assignment: Design the logo and everything needed for a new imaginary shop in town,
Uilenborg = Owl Village.
Wrapping paper, logo, truck signs, even shopping bags!

Assignment: Take a picture from a magazine and use 3 techniques for drawing it.
Then incorporate it into your own design (top design against the flag)
Because Astrid was going to the U.S. 2 months later, she chose the Marlboro Man.

How's that for an education! And all of it to prepare her for Window Dressing, which she did for 14 years, from 1977-1991. Nine of those years she had her own business and worked for herself:

She did it. Her schooling paid off!
Notice that her specialty was men's clothing,
in Amsterdam, Hilversum, Den Haag, Rotterdam, Arnhem, Leidschendam, and Nijmegen.

As if all of that was not enough, hold your horses....there's the rest of her life, of course....

In 1971 (before technical school) she took a Van Gogh postcard and did her first (and only) oil painting.
Try anything once! But for her, it took too long to dry...no patience for it.

She took a silkscreening course while in America from 1975-76.
She was with the Mennonite Church in their exchange program, working as an au pair,
and wanted to do something creative in the evenings.

The family crest on her mother's side intrigued her at age 12, so she drew it.
(In that regard, this belongs up at the top of the page, doesn't it!)
Do you see the 'hart?' We've been connected since the beginning of time!

In spare time, there was always freelance graphic-design advertising to do.
Again, this was long before internet tools. All by hand.

Sometimes she made the props for freelance window displays.

She made logo designs for friends, cards for wedding and baby announcements,
as well as her own year-end greeting cards.

See the two pen and ink designs on the right (above)?
They are part of this book below, printed by a local book dealer in 1984.

Add book illustrator to her repertoire.
(Her married name was Frieling for 27 years.)

Did I mention calligraphy?

I did calligraphy in my day but nothing ever like this!

Who takes a box-making workshop like this just for fun?! (1988)

And just to say she did it, she first knitted slippers
and then a fisherman sweater (1991-2).

All of that was before I met her!

In the 4+ years since we discovered each other on our Shutterchance blogs (August 31, 2007), I have watched her do other accomplished things....

...like tennis, with her son Jeroen and best friend Ingeborg.
And oh, she has her own machine to string rackets for friends. Pocket money!

I watched her make this Pirates of the Caribbean float for their city's 1025th anniversary in 2008.
Her ladies soccer team helped her but basically she built it.
Guess who got to be Cap't Jack Sparrow!
And guess which float won First Place among the 30 that entered!

This was the model she built for the women to reference as they started!

Full circle, back to what she always wanted to do, you've already seen her carpentry skills.
Our apartment is full of her craftiness and creativity.
She can even sew curtains and drapes...as well as grow orchids!

She can also play the clarinet in an orchestra...and sing in a choir!

But what binds us more than anything is her photography, which was our first bridge at Hart & Soul (mine) and Picturit (hers). After Astrid found me in 2007, she then read every post I wrote from here at In Soul since 2005...just to get to know me. And that was with English as her second language!

They say you should continue doing in your marriage what first attracted you to each other.
As long as we can, we will, loving our photo hunts wherever we go, near or far.

Did you ever wonder why I married her? Well...she's just so darn cute! :)

**********

Coincidentally, Astrid is our guest blogger at Vision & Verb today, bragging on her son Jeroen! (Add teacher to the list.) Remember when I wrote about her mom's talents? There's a real apple orchard here!

Thanks Giving

2011-11-21T06:15:00.002+01:00

To be honest, this is the hardest week for me to be away from family in America.

I miss the Thanksgiving holiday. There's nothing like it here...the smells, tastes, sights, and sounds of what the family camaraderie, football, and big meal are all about. No gifts showered on any one person. Just being together and eating the good food that's become our traditon. And being thankful, of course.

So, while I picture you there around your tables of plenty, surrounded by family, I will concentrate on something else. One thing for which I'm thankful, over and above which is everything else I cherish here and count dear. One thing I'm picking this holiday to draw attention to and simply say "Thank You:"

Last week I read this from Jimmy Wales, Wiki founder:

Google might have close to a million servers. Yahoo has something like 13,000 staff. We have 400 servers and 95 staff.
Wikipedia is the #5 site on the web and serves 454 million different people every month – with billions of page views.
Commerce is fine. Advertising is not evil. But it doesn't belong here. Not in Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park. It is like a temple for the mind. It is a place we can all go to think, to learn, to share our knowledge with others.
When I founded Wikipedia, I could have made it into a for-profit company with advertising banners, but I decided to do something different. We’ve worked hard over the years to keep it lean and tight. We fulfill our mission, and leave waste to others.
If everyone reading this donated $20, we would only have to fundraise for one day a year. But not everyone can or will donate. And that's fine. Each year just enough people decide to give.
This year, please consider making a donation of $5, $20, $50 or whatever you can to protect and sustain Wikipedia.

And without blinking an eye, right on the spot, I donated to Wikipedia. Do you know why? Because I use it almost every day of my life, sometimes more than once. I couldn't do a lot of what I do without them.

So, here's one huge THANK YOU to Wikipedia, without which many of us would still be in the dark.

And THANK YOU to you, too...each and every one of you...without whom this blog would also be in the dark.

HAPPY THANKS GIVING!

On Top of Our World

2011-11-14T06:15:00.005+01:00

First up (yup), is my Vision and Verb post today about School Spirit. Actually, it's more about arch rivalries. You know, like MICHIGAN against Michigan State (sorry Ruth), or against those dang inedible ~~Buckeyes~~ horse chestnuts you want to chew up and spit out of your mouth!

[Sadly, the recently reported sex scandal at another of America's great universities was disclosed after I had drafted my piece. It could have happened anywhere, of course. Please know I grieve with all the victims who are part of this very sad story.]

But now, today, how many times have I shown you something about our Grote Kerk just two blocks down the street from us here in Gorinchen, Netherlands! Inside or out, it's as much a part of our lives here than just about anything.

Does it surprise you, then, that it took us almost TWO years to finally climb it's majestic (and crooked) tower! It so happens that every second Saturday in September, in all of Holland, is Open Monument Day. Over 4,000 historical buildings and sites are open to the public free of charge in order to encourage interest in them. It's one of those times when you'd be stupid not to take advantage of the day, whether in your own city or elsewhere.

We had always planned to climb "our" tower, at €2 pp. It didn't matter how much it cost. But we never got a "round tuit," as we say. This was our chance to finally just do it!

Notice the short tower entrance door. Match that with the tall-tall Dutchman!

True to all the church towers I have climbed in Europe, we spiraled our way up to the first level.
It's good "management" to have those resting spots on the way up.

On that first level, our tour guide opened a floor trap so we could look down to the ground entrance. THAT was worth the entire day because of seeing the prayer vials I had seen the previous year.

Also on that first level is a rooftop-level viewing platform outside the tower.
It was fun to spot all the landmarks so recognizable to us by now:
the two windmils, Dalem Port, the water tower, Merwede River, Rehoboth Church,
sister-city Woudrichem across the river, Loevestein Castle, etc., etc.

At the second level, we found the clock and bell contraptions!
How things work has always been a total fascination for me.

Did I mention we had as many kids on the tour as adults?
And several of them had their own cameras, taking pictures just like the rest of us.
I loved how the kids were part of this education, seeing how things work!

That second and top level, just above the tower's clock, gave us another POV (point of view).
New landmarks included the Merwede Bridge, our firehouse (bottom center),
and even where I went to school last year (image above the firehouse).

Then I zoomed in on our street.
The top-right image gives a ground's-eye view of where we live at our senior-living complex.
Pay attention to the church a block away, to which I'll return in a minute.
See also the hanging paint can, one of my favorite art objects in the city (bottom right).

BTW, while we're up there, have you ever had a voyeuristic eye like mine?
The rooftops of Gorinchem and how some people live!

Once down on ground level, we were on to another open monument, but stopped first to chat with some friends passing by in the market square (where the Grote Kerk stands!):

The top friends are from where we live. I play Rummikub every Friday with the gentleman.
The bottom lady with Astrid is the mother of Astrid's best friend (my wedding witness).
It's a small world after all!

Across from where we met our friends is our favorite flower shop,
standing next to the Gasthuispoortje (Guest House Port) from 1391.
See how short they were back then! Even I duck by instinct.
It's also known as the Hugo de Groot port, where Hugo escaped from the Loevestein castle jail
in a bookcase. Long story, I guess. But that's the fun of some history.

In between the Grote Kerk and where we live two blocks away....

...is the Waterstaatkerk from 1836,
the Roman Catholic church that is now an apartment building.

Because of Open Monument Day, we were able to go inside without a key,
something we've wanted to do since living nearby.
So that's what a church looks like once renovated for apartments!
At least it's not a prison.

There you have it. Our city where we live, from the top of our world! Did I mention that I love where we live?

And now, another reminder about my School Spirit post at Vision and Verb....

The England Trip: BATH

2011-11-07T08:32:00.006+01:00

Last but not least, this is the end of our September long weekend, the day before we returned back to the Netherlands.

We started and ended the day at the top of the hill overlooking this quaint city known for so much...a World Heritage Site since 1987. What follows is basically in the order in which it happened. Latch your seatbelt and hang onto your hat!

Chris is still our host, remember, from Bath.
He celebrated his 63rd birthday while we were there.
His childhood friend, Chad, celebrates his 63rd 6 months later.
So it was appropriate for the 4 of us to spend our last day on their stomping ground.

Right off the bat, Chris took us to The Richmond pub where he grew up.
His grandfather became landlord there in 1908 until his death in 1952,
after which Chris' dad took over till his retirement in 1970.
I can just imagine what Chris was feeling as he peeked in.

A hop, skip, and a jump away was St. Stephen's Primary School
where Chris and Chad met each other early on and have been friends ever since.

And then, a stone's throw away, the St. Stephen's Church
where Chris was baptized at age 1.
(Pay attention to that steeple, which you'll see later in the day/post!)

It was special to see Chris getting back in touch with his roots...

...while I grabbed my shots.

It's quite the landmark church, isn't it! Built between 1840-45.

Did you notice the iconic red phone booth at the corner of the church?

A little Bristish humor! Chris, Astrid and Chad are all inside,
including the open umbrella.

Then Astrid and I "played around."
Chris said a lady stopped her car to look!
As Astrid would say, she almost drove off the dijk.

Then followed two sets of crescent houses, the second row of which is the famous Royal Crescent of 30 houses, built between 1767 and 1774, and among the best examples of Georgian architecture in the UK.
A moment of serendipity: see the heart and the windmill side by side, in Bath no less?

I was intrigued by the plaques outside some of the homes, giving history to the place:

Thomas Linley lived here and
from this house his daughter
Elizabeth eloped with Richard
Brinsley Sheridan on the
evening of the 18th March 1772

...And the fire insurance "medallions" that hung above several doors.
Chad said the fire engines would go to those houses first!

In between the two crescents, we happened upon this contemporary Bath sculptor, Ben Dearnley, doing his thing for the 2012Summer Olympics. This piece is being carved from Bath stone.
It became another serendipity moment for us all, because he LOVED telling us everything.

Twenty minutes later, we were standing in front of Chad's boyhood home....

...after which we all needed a potty break and decided to also stop for coffee/tea.
Chad gave me a lesson on how to stick out my pinky...not easy to do!

An hour later, as we neared Bath's city center, we ate lunch.
We needed fuel for what was to come...the part of Bath I had seen previously in 2007.
I knew exactly what I wanted Astrid to see and could hardly wait.

First, the Roman Baths...

...just a hint this time, without the tour...

...followed by the Bath Abbey next door.
See Jacob's Ladder on both sides of this west front?

Imagine seeing this in the same courtyard as the Roman Baths!

In 2007 I didn't get to see inside, so this was a treat for me...

...all the more special because of the stained-glass window
donated by one of Chad Doveton's distant relatives!
In Memory of Maria Ann Doveton: Chad's great-great aunt.

Once back outside, we crossed over the River Avon and saw the Abbey from the opposite side...

...while on the way to the Pulteney Bridge, completed in 1773.
See the steeple on the top right? That's St. Stephen's Church through my 300mm lens.

I could hardly wait to cross the bridge with Astrid, alongside all the shops,
and then walk down the embankment to show her the back side.
Talk about the "other side of the tracks!"

It was starting to get late...and we still had to meet another Shutterchancer, Mike/Blackdog, for a drink and supper.

Our eyes were still wide open....

...and just before dark, at this well, I saw the following inscription:

Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

I grew up on that John 4:13-14 passage, but without argoyle faces staring back at me!

Then we met Mike, first at The Star pub for a beer and then for supper at a nearby restaurant.
Look at how tall he is!
('A' means Astrid took the picture.)

While at the pub, I learned about a new game: Shove ha'penny.

We said Good-Bye to Mike and began our long walk back to the car on top of the hill...where I started this post (so long ago!). It was all I could do to climb back up...one tired puppy...

...but realizing again how much we had seen
and how "short of eyes" we had been yet another day.

It was the perfect day to end our 2011 trip to England, with photobloggers who have become dear to us, like brothers. Chris, remember, is the one who calls Astrid his little sister. And he's already planning what we'll do when we visit next year!

The next morning, it rained cats and dogs. We stayed put at the farmhouse till leaving for the Bristol airport to fly back home. THAT was the perfect day to end our 2011 trip to England!

Back to England: WINCHESTER

2011-10-31T06:15:00.002+01:00

Now that we're back from Atlanta, I want to finish the trip we made to England in early September. There were two more days when we were "short of eyes," in both Winchester and Bath.

First, Winchester, the former captital city of England, dating back to pre-Roman times.

Host Chris kept each day's whereabouts a total secret from us till we got there and needed to know. The "got there" part began at the Hospital of St. Cross where we drank tea until our two mystery guests arrived.

Ellie (bottom left with Chris) and Alan were our mystery guests, both from Shutterchance!
Ellie's real name is Joy but I didn't know that till last year. She was one of the very first persons who welcomed me to SC when I started there 5 years ago, so it's been a real treat to see her now 2 years in a row.
Chris must have known. And also that we'd want to meet Alan.

Of all the cities and places to visit, we couldn't have chosen better!
The Hospital of Saint Cross is "England's oldest and most perfect almshouse" of noble poverty.
It's not a hospital per se but a place of hospitality for providing food and shelter
to the Brethren of St. Cross for over 850 years.
If you know, you can ask for the Wayfarer's Dole...beer and a morsel of bread.
What a gorgeous day for visiting!

We made our way through the inner courtyard to the Norman Church from 1135.
(If you click to enlarge, you might see the graffiti in cement from 1770, bottom right above.)

Chris knew we'd be enthralled. And we were!
Ellie says the parrot lectern is the only one of its kind in the world.

Stained-glass windows were even in the nooks and crannies, everywhere.

Then we walked over to the Brethren's Hall where the Brothers gathered to eat for centuries.
The buckets are there for in case of a fire! Notice Chris guarding the brew in the cellar.

Following the Brethren's Hall, we strolled through the nearby gardens.
We could have spent the rest of the day there!

(Click here to see a YouTube of this magnificent place.)

While the above Hospital of St. Cross was our main attraction of the day, and since we were only a 20-minute walk away from Winchester's city center, we headed off to see as much of the city as possible.

You know me. I love these signs....

...plus the varied architecture and trivia that makes England so English!
Novelist Jane Austen died in Winchester on 18 July 1817 and is buried in the cathedral below.

And as we headed to city center, there she stood.
Winchester Cathedral, one of England's largest,
with the longest nave of any Gothic cathedral in Europe, begun in 1079.
Alas, alack. It was not the day we would go inside. Another time, perhaps.

Lunch was fun, especially with Thatcher's Gold Somerset Cider.
Did I mention that Astrid and I are SOLD on hard ciders everywhere we go. :)
But notice how even in England, with 3 tap choices, Holland's Amstel was very THERE.
(click on all collages to enlarge)

Then it was the City Cross...or High Cross or Buttercross. Take your pick.
In the High Street, from the early 15th century...

...with King Alfred the Great keeping an eye out nearby!
Alfred was King of Wessex from 871 to 899 and is known as the king
who defended southern England against the Vikings...a long time ago!

By now it was late afternoon and we had one last mission...to see Wolvesey Castle. But along the way, we stopped and clicked our cameras at every little thing...you know me.

That's the Guildhall from 1791 in the top-right above.

A couple of you will notice the play on images in the collage above: Boots and me. :)
(For the uninformed, my family nickname has been Boots since my first month of birth in 1945.)

Last but not least, we stopped by Wolvesey Castle just before it closed.
The Old Bishop's Palace dates back to the 12th century.
"The last great occasion here was on 25 July 1554, when Queen Mary and Philip of Spain held their wedding breakfast in the East Hall."

And with that, we bid our adieus to Alan and Ellie and headed back with Chris in his delightful Fiat 500 to the farmhouse in Bath.

It was a fabulous day out on the town and doesn't get much better than that...until you see our next and last full day, in Bath itself.

See why we say it would be a sin for us not to go back to England every year!

We're In Atlanta Still!

2011-10-24T12:31:00.003+02:00

But not for long. Tomorrow we head back to the other side of the Big Pond, arriving home in the Netherlands Wednesday morning.

However, till then....

It's my turn again at Vision and Verb. Trick or Treat???
That's always what I think when I think about chestnuts!

After last week's post, we spent Monday to Friday with Bob and Pegg y south of Atlanta and had plenty to keep us busy.

First, we went to the nearby Monastery of the Holy Spirit, part of the same Trappists near us in the Netherlands....

...and under the rule of Saint Benedict: peace, prayer and work.
Peggy and I had visited there a few years back so I was glad to share it with Astrid.

Asceticism: The practice of self-denial as a spiritual discipline.
An ascetic is someone, like a monk, who follows this way of life.

They even have their own water tower: Holy Water!

Monastic values are human values: Prayer, Work, Silence, Solitude, Community

I fell in love with him and his hands!

Then one day we went to both the Fox Theatre and the Atlanta Botanical Garden....

Atlanta's Fabulous Fox Theatre is one of the jewels in their crown.
I'd need the fingers and toes of several people to count how many times I have been there, for concerts and plays. But this was my first time to tour behind the scenes. Notice the Moorish designs. That's because it was originally planned to be a Shriner's temple.

It was well worth every minute...and a gift from Bob and Peggy.
Thank you!

The Atlanta Botanical Garden is another gem in Atlanta's crown:

What I love about it is the Midtown skyline in the background...

...and the whimsy, depending on the time of the year.
This time it was Scarecrows in the Garden.

And the flowers, of course!

Nothing topped any of that better than our one-on-one time with Bob and Peggy at their wonderful home in the boondocks.

They both love to cook and Bob also makes his own beer.
We were the lucky queens for several days in a row.

Any place where you can totally relax and be yourself is a home away from home.
(Plus 2 more water towers and a weathervane!)
Thank you, Bob and Peggy!

After we rejoined the kids on Friday, it was time for the north Georgia mountains! Our third year in a row, Astrid's second. It's one of those traditions we never want to end.

Everything you'd want for R&R:
Nature, napping, good food (thanks to Amy and Dennis who did the cooking),
walking, puzzle-making, hot-tubbing, Spades (cards), pool, and something new this year:
Facebook's Words With Friends app, similar to Scrabble.
I'm still trying to beat my kids!

Nicholas had his own "pursuits" this year that put him into his own world.
He was on vacation, too, and got to play his computer games as much as he wanted.
Still, he went on a walk with Astrid and me...always a highlight of my time here.

But Astrid did most of the walking, several times a day. We just don't get weather like this in the Netherlands, day after day. She was in heaven:

All of the above images are from Astrid from her first morning.
The foggy start to each day in the mountains is part of the magic of this place.

Thank you, Amy and Dennis, for once again inviting us to this heaven in the mountains!

All good things come to an end, as they say, so we're now in the packing stage for our flight back over the Big Pond tomorrow, arriving on Wednesday morning. Thankfully, Astrid has the rest of the week off from work. We'll get to relax back into our normal routines....

...while you prepare for Halloween a week from now! Which reminds me of my Vision and Verb post again: Trick or Treat!

We're In Atlanta Now!

2011-10-17T14:44:00.001+02:00

Just to prove we really did fly over the Big Pond, here are a few images to prime the pump on our arrival since Thursday evening.

We really hit the road running! By the time we got to daughter Amy's house, around 5 p.m., we turned right around in the car to take grandson Nicholas (age 11, 6th grade) to the county fair. The same fair he hasn't missed since he was 2! If we didn't do it that night, we'd miss it altogether this year, which wasn't gonna happen.

Because it was supper time, we ate first!
The standby is roasted corn-on-the-cob AND a gigantic turkey leg.
The turkey leg got gobbled up so fast I didn't even take a picture of it.
The other standyby is homemade strawberry ice cream, which we ate at the end before leaving.

Then off we went to the Indian Village, one of our favorite "shows."
As Nicholas said, we needed to let our food settle before the rides.
I love the autumn/October flare that takes into account this time of the year.

Before leaving at 9:30 p.m., we had time for 3 rides, one of which included our favorite skylift.
But even Nicholas was satisfied. Half a fair is better than no fair at all!

By the time we dropped into bed that first night, it was 4:30 a.m. Dutch time. We had been up for almost 24 hours straight! That's what second wind is all about.

On Friday I had an appointment with my financial advisor, after which we met up for lunch with Bob and Marc, our dear friends. Very nice.

We have to teach everyone the left-right-left Dutch kisses on the cheeks, of course.
Thanks to Bob and his iPhone for these pics!

We ate at Jason's Deli, where you get unlimited soft-serve ice cream...a treat for us all kids.
Again, thanks to Bob and his iPhone...but no pics of him. Arrgh.

On Saturday I swore myself blue in the face watching Michigan State beat Michigan in football. DON'T EVEN GO THERE, Ruth! But afterwards Amy, Astrid and I went to see the new movie, The Help, which eased the pain. Totally worth seeing, if you ask us.

Yesterday we had the chance to meet up with Jerry and Josh for lunch, a former boss of mine and his son, before they move to Orlando, FL, in a couple weeks:

Isn't it wonderful how we can stay up on each other over the years!
Jerry "came out" shortly after I did in 1990, so we have been there for each other over the years.

Then for dinner last evening, we continued our annual tradition of treating everyone to Outback Steakhouse for all the birthdays we missed since last year.

While we waited for our food, Nichoals played with Mommie's iPhone.
Man! That Steve Jobs sure knew what he was doing!

Even son Mark was there. Fine eating, if not dining.
Happy campers all around.
[Remember that the 'A' means Astrid took the picture.]

Speaking of Mark, when we got back to Amy's, he, Amy, Astrid and I played 2 games of Scrabble before going to bed. He soundly beat us all...twice.

Now it's Monday and I'm off for my annual dermatology appointment, after which Peggy (from our Bob and Peggy friends, remember?) will pick us up and take us to their home for our stint with them till Friday. Then back to be with the kids in the Georgia mountains at the cabin next weekend. By now you know the drill!

These are the rituals and traditions that are now seeping deeply into our family psyche. And all of this thus far in 3+ days. Still kicking and going strong. We love it....

TEXEL: Heaven on Earth 2

2011-10-10T06:15:00.002+02:00

So, to continue the story from my last post, you really had to be there. I was one of the lucky ones!

Texel Island, just 15 minutes by ferry from Den Helder, is 9km wide by 25km long. Easy breezy if you know it like the back of your hand, which Astrid does, after 29 years. All 8 of its little hamlets can be seen in one day, as well as the lighthouse at the northernmost tip. But to have 3+ full, lazy days to take our time was just what the doctor ordered.

(Click map to enlarge. And yes, they even have an airport.)

Before the lighthouse(s) and windmills and seashells, the bikes, the kite and koffie met appeltaart, we first drove south to nearby Den Hoorn and walked through its sleepy little burgh of approximately 500 residents.

I fell in love with their church and its slanted clock tower.
It was a great start to the long weekend.

While driving from here to there, I started seeing these little barn-like structures out in the middle of the fields.
They supposedly exist only on Texel Island and are called schapenboeten = sheep sheds.
They store hay but the flat side protects sheep from the southwest wind off the North Sea.

Look at what wasn't protected!

But as houses on Texel go, there are some beauties.
Even the one in the bottom right corner is still being lived in...with dilapidated thatch.
Astrid says it's been that way for years!

I knew the Texel lighthouse would be a highlight of the island stay, so we went there twice, to the tippy-top-north of the island:

It was built in 1864 with 8 stories.
We were allowed to climb to the 6th floor observation deck where we saw the bullet holes from WWII.
It's a long story but the Germans occupied the lighthouse when the Georgians from Russia fought to rescue it at the end of the war....

...so, of course, we had to stop by 1 of 2 war memorials in honor of the Russians.
165 Russians were killed trying to protect the Netherlands while on Texel Island.
The Georgian uprising on Texel against the Germans at the end WWII, April-May 1945,
has been described as Europe's last battlefield.

Our spirits were lifted when we drove south again to the commercial fishing harbor in Oudeschild.

On Saturday and Sunday, the boats are in harbor for repair and rest.
If we had gone on Monday, all of them would have been out to sea.

My guess is there is work for anyone who wants/needs it!
Even fishing boats need to be cleaned, inside and out.

Besides climbing the lighthouse tower, and getting the lay of the land, we had the chance to climb the church tower in Den Burg, Texel's largest town of 6K+ inhabitants...the size of the town where I grew up in Michigan. Almost half of Texel's population lives there.

I love these old Dutch Reformed churches. This one is from 1400....

...but its tower is from 1604!
I love seeing the world from this perspective.
See the church in the middle right image? That's the one from Den Hoorn above.

And see that windmill in the middle left image? That's Het Noorden in Oosterend, north of Den Burg, built in 1878:

This is a polder mill, which means it's used for pumping out water.
That large "drill bit" is a vijzel/waterschroef, which pulls the water up out of the ground.

See what Granny Towanda learns by looking and listening!

We got our education, too, when we asked what this gentleman was doing next door to the mill.
He was drying beans for winter storage...which would later be hydrated and cooked.
So THAT'S how we get our dried beans!

We saw so many things on Texel. As Astrid says, we were short of eyes!

You already know from last post we ate some of these.
Astrid has made jam out of the two middle berries in her past life.

All kinds of fungus among us...except for the red ones with white spots.
Astrid wanted so much for me to see the red ones...but none were to be found this time.

But we did see highland cows and llamas, horses and belted cows,
and enough sheep and rabbits to shake a stick at...

...edible chestnuts (left image), acorns, and honey clover...but NO STORKS.
Just minutes after asking Astrid if the island had storks, we saw the fake ones (above).

I saw 5 churches in all and was mesmerized by the blue clock faces...

...and everything else that is just so Dutch!

When it was time to leave the island and go back home, we took time for one last bit of sightseeing in Den Helder, after getting off the ferry...

...to see the water tower from 1908,
and the Lange Jaap lighthouse from 1878.

Now you know why I did this trip in 2 posts...and why I'll now go back to England's trip to finish 2 more posts from there. The thing is, we don't want to forget or have the memories relegated to the archives somewhere.

And all this while preparing for our annual trek to Atlanta to see the kids on Thursday for almost 2 weeks. And I thought retirement was supposed to be...relaxing!

TEXEL: Heaven on Earth

2011-10-03T06:15:00.003+02:00

Astrid has told me about Texel Island for 4 years now. It's her heaven-on-earth (parallel to my family cottage in Michigan) where she's been going back-n-forth since 1982. Finally I had a chance to see it with my own eyes a week ago. It was even better than what I had pictured it to be.

Here's a map of the Netherlands (click to enlarge), where we live and where you can see Texel to the north of us. It's a 15-minute ferry ride from Den Helder, the northern mainland city, to the island...

So let's begin there...after I first mention that it's my turn at Vision and Verb again, where I talk about our art and how, when we enjoy it and do it well, it's like heaven on earth...just like a place called Texel.

I love boats, period! I've been on all kinds and varieties, as you know.
This one, as ferries go, is HUGE. Which says something about Texel and how much it is loved.
And not just by the Dutch! Astrid says 40% of the island is owned by the Germans.

When Astrid met Jaap in 1982, she married into the bungalow owned by his family in one of the many bungalow parks around the island.

What a charming little heaven on earth.

And all that much more so because of it's proximity to the North Sea....

...over sand-dune hill and dale, approximately 20 minutes walking.

Right after cresting the last dune and seeing the sea, I saw all the bikes.

This is so Dutch!
And if you don't have your own bike, not to worry. You can rent one.
We walked because Astrid wanted me to "feel" the sand dunes!

Astrid flew a kite....

...while I took macros of the seashells.
I was amazed at how "anthropomorphized" they seemed so up close and personal.

While out-n-about elsewhere, I fell in love with the buoys not in the sea but scattered around the island like collector's items:

HA! One more thing to collect!

Speaking of which, I really was in heaven. Wherever we went around the island, by foot or bike or car, I was constantly adding to my arsenal....

Weathervanes, of course.

And gevelstenen (= gable stones).

See, we actually did ride bikes...the ones that live at the bungalow.

And we enjoyed the fruit of the land....

I made two carafes of rose-hip herbal tea, appropriately called the beach rose.
They, along with black raspberries, were everywhere, free for the picking.

Which makes a good segue to the special eating-out times we had....

Koffie met appeltaart while on the beach!

A very Dutch uitsmijter for lunch one day,
and wonderful smoked pepper-salmon another, with Texel beer.

And homemade ijs (= ice cream) before supper, because life is short.

Next post I will show you the two windmills on the island, the lighthouse there and in Den Helder, a couple photogenic churches, plus some other goodies down at one of the harbors. There really was no way I could process all the pictures in one week!

But here's an appetizer....

The Texel lighthouse right outside our café window!

It really IS a heaven-on-earth place...and that's my Vision and Verb for today....

ENGLAND: Lacock, Avebury & Castle Combe

2011-09-26T06:15:00.003+02:00

In-between those two scrumptious meals on Chris' 63rd birthday (last post), we drove to 3 of England's most charming places...off the beaten track and possibly places unknown to most of the world. I had never heard of any of them.

1. LACOCK, Wiltshire, England.

You may have never heard of this village but surely you've heard of Pride and Prejudice (BBC), Harry Potter (briefly in the Philosopher's Stone and the Half-Blood Prince), and Cranford (BBC), all of which had sets filmed here.

It was like stepping back in time.

As part of England's National Trust, the village capitalizes on preserving its past.

"This is so English!" A phrase that often rose to my lips.

We even got to see the Great War exhibition.
Do you know which World War was called Great? I wasn't sure till I checked.

Now. Look at this! Totally unbenownst to Chris, the day we were there, his birthday, happened to be the day for this car road show:

As you see, most of the cars are 3-wheelers.
I had to keep picking my chin up off the ground. Seriously!

This was one of my favorites. My kind of color .

I'm sure it's a society they're all part of, so they really looked out after each other.
I think some were getting directions to their next village because...yup...we found them later!

2. AVEBURY, Wiltshire, England.

Surely you've heard of Stonehenge. But what about Avebury?! It contains Europe's largest stone circle, a Neolithic henge monument from around 2600 BCE. It, too, is owned by England's National Trust.

Back in March of 2007, Donica and I visited Stonehenge, as seen here.
It's more famous than Avebury but there you are no longer allowed to walk amongst the stones except only on special occasions. So you can imagine how different it felt to walk in and around the stones (and sheep!) in this place only 24 miles from Stonehenge.

We took our time amongst the stones before climbing up to the rim of the outer circle.

You know me...not always far behind!

I really enjoyed watching Chris and Jackie take in everything, side by side.

It wasn't just the stones either.
So English!

Remember how I said those cars from Lacock followed us? When we went back to the parking lot to drive on, there they all were!

Chris is standing by his Fiat 500 white car.
Lined up next to him is a row of Fiats from earlier years. Four in a row!

3. CASTLE COMBE, Wiltshire, England.

Last but not least, we ended the day at what is often referred to as the "Prettiest Village in England." We all agreed that we thought Lacock deserved that title more, but still, one wouldn't want to quibble over it.

Upon entering the village, you immediately come to the 14th c. market cross.
It makes a great gathering point.

Again, so English!

A stone's throw away is the village bridge over a brook.
Another fine gathering place!

So many things to see, not enough time!
As Astrid would say, we were "short of eyes!"

All in a day's drive on a birthday...between a full English breakfast and a Thanksgiving-like dinner!

The Farmstead in England

2011-09-19T06:15:00.002+02:00

As we all know, it's not just the destination that's important but the journey that gets you there...and, might I add, where you stay along the way!

When Astrid and I were in England recently, our Shutterchance friend Chris was our host, who had us stay at the family farmhouse of his longtime partner, Jackie.

Lucky, lucky us. It was like living in a B&B for 6 days and 5 nights!

It's a long story but Jackie still uses the family farm for grooming horses
and teaching children how to ride them.
It's full-time work for her, so she's at the farm every day,
going back home to their nearby house each evening/night.

About half of every week a family friend is also at the farm with her dog Cally,
helping to keep watch on everything, including the horses.

If you swore you'd never love poodles, you'd have to backtrack on your words.
How could you not be in heaven in that kind of playground,
and how could you not steal the show!

Talk about the Queen of Sheba!

As farmsteads go, this would rank up there with the best of them.
So many nooks and crannies and out-buildings, half of which I didn't snap
...like the chicken coop. Did I mention fresh eggs every day?!

Chris would come over every morning and boil them up...and toast the bread.
And that's whether we had just eaten muesli or not!

Speaking of Chris...

...here he is.
While we were there, he celebrated his 63rd birthday.
Astrid had just celebrated her 57th, so it made sense that Chris called her his Little Sister.
They both have the same kind of humor and fit with each other like hand and glove.
It's very gratifying for me to watch them together, truth be known.

Chris had something scheduled for us every day along the back roads of southern England, branching out in different directions from Bath. We guesstimated close to 500 miles of driving. I'll get to those places later, but while we were at the farm, Chris cooked up a storm...and on his birthday in particular!

First, he wanted us to experience a real English breakfast.
Wouldn't that be fun maybe once a week...on the weekend!

After that breakfast, we headed out for the day, just the 4 of us, and stopped first at a friend's farm to pick the beans for supper....

Later Jackie showed us how she julienned them.
I had never seen such a French-cut gadget in my life. Magic!

Magic is the operative word for the entire meal, actually.
It was like a Thanksgiving feast with such a huge chicken, including stuffing.
It FELT like Thanksgiving, especially since they don't celebrate it here in Holland.
I needed that and didn't realize how much.

When we weren't out-n-about, the farm was our rest and inspiration. Can you tell?

Jackie set the example by knowing when to rest.
I loved watching her because she calmed me down.

Speaking of which, Chris said he slept better those nights after our full days
than any other time he could remember.
See that window? That was our bedroom and we, too, slept well.

A room with a view. A farm with a view.

Chris is already planning what we will do when we return next year...God willing and the creek don't rise. Imagine that. But then, what Big Brother wouldn't want his Little Sister to come back to see him on the farm at least once a year. And bring her lucky wife with her. HA!

Collaboration

2011-09-12T10:29:00.008+02:00

It's my turn at Vision and Verb again today and because of a series of incredible adventures in England recently, I've decided to start off with Meet-Ups!

Forget the fact that YOU don't have a clue who they are!
They're all fellow Shutterchancers and 4 of them are new from when we were in England a year ago.
The man in the center with Astrd and me is Chris, our host for the six days there.

Chris was the one who finagled with everyone to meet up at Dudley's Black Country Living Museum a week ago Sunday, 4 September. Many have become like family to both Astrid and me. We have The Three Stooges. We have The Three Muskateers, of which we are two, plus Tracy, top level, third from the left.

The extra-special treat was having CherryPie show up, from Vision and Verb.
She visits me at SC and makes the second V&V blogger I've now met.
This is what I mean by Collaboration!

So, on Sunday a week ago we went to Dudley...

...but stopped first at Bill's to meet his family and swap cars and drivers.
Bill and Chris are two of The Three Stooges. See how fun it is to collaborate?
And how lucky for us to meet Ange (Bill's wife) and two daughters, plus cat.

The meet-up at the Black Country Living Museum (BCLM) reminded me of Oslo's outdoor Folk Museum last April, remember? Except that this one is all about what the Black means: think industrial SOOT. Anything that made a city black back in its day is what this living museum is all about.

Not that everything was black, mind you...

...but there were certain dead give-aways if you paid attention.

Like the blacksmith's shop, for instance. Hot and "black." Poor guy.

The glass-etcher's corner of the world was brighter and cheerier.

They even had a delightful little chapel right in the center of things.
In an age of Black, that seemed appropriate.

There came a point at which we all had to eat and everyone knew exactly where....

Chris had been telling us this place offered the most authentic Fish-n-Chips he's ever eaten.
It's the beef drippings, you see. Enough cholesteral for the rest of the year, right?!

While waiting in line, we watched fellow SCer, Richard, start a conversation with these two gentlemen, who became excited about becoming famous. So many photographers wanting to take their picture!
We're still not sure about the story behind them....

Once we all found a place to sit and eat, Penny whipped out a cake she baked that morning for Chis,
whose 63rd birthday was the day before.
One ingredient at a time, she soon had the toppings ready for our dessert.
The birthday boy was delighted to no end...and couldn't stop talking about it.

By then it was definitely time for another walk!
I'm used to canal boats here in the Netherlands...but these are so narrow.

I especially loved watching Astrid and Bill getting the lay of the land.
What a great venue for seeing industrial Britain's past!

By then, almost everyone went on their way for the day.
A few of us remained behind to view some last-minute displays....

...and then said Good-Bye to a fabulous outing together.

I guess you had to be there but this is what Collaboration is all about when it comes to the WWW. It still amazes me that we can actually meet each other...if we're lucky!

That's how I feel about CherryPie, too, over at my Vision and Verb today....

**********
ADDENDUM (Wed. 9/14): I just made my first YouTube! HA!
It's all people shots from the day for posterity (and to see if I could do it!).

Heaven on Earth

2011-09-05T06:30:00.000+02:00

As we speak, Astrid and I are in England with fellow Shutterchancers, celebrating our 4th anniversary of meeting...on Shutterchance, of course. For you in America, happy holiday weekend! More on all of that next week.

In the meantime...a week ago this past Thursday, I walked over to a dijk near one of our shopping malls outside our citadel. I hardly ever walk in that area but Astrid told me "the shepherd" was going to be there with his sheep for at least a week to...guess what..."mow" the grass on both sides of the grassy dijk.

This was the second year he came to do his eco-friendly, green thing. It was such a hit last year because, for one thing, it was quiet. The shops were on one side of the dijk but homes were on the other. And besides, it was quite a spectacle for any and all who wanted to see the farm up close and personal.

Lucky for me, I made it on a sunny day which, unbenownst to me, was his last day for this year. After these images below, that's all she wrote.

Coming from home, I approached the dijk from the opposite end of the sheep and loved seeing them come more and more into view. This particular dijk, btw, is for pedestrians and cyclists only.

I could have dropped dead right then and there. I was in heaven.

But...there were 3 sheepdogs who also kept me entertained!
I wouldn't have missed them for anything. The way they chased after the sheep whenever they started getting too close to the street or walkway was a riot. Talk about doing what they were made for.
The thing was, they looked like they were in heaven!

At one point I walked down the dijk to get the whole thing from a different point of view.

Talk about doing what he was made for!

I wasn't the only one who stopped by to talk to him.

But watching this mother and child took the cake.
She, too, was in heaven. I knew exactly how/what she was feeling.

When the sheep got to the end of the dijk, from where I had entered, they were ready to cross over to the other side. But first, the shepherd moved in amongst them and started looking for one in particular. He told me there was a "bad" sheep that always went out into the car traffic on the other side and had to be tied up.
This was when his crook came in handy.
And this was when I remembered (from past sermons) how the shepherd knows his sheep!

Baaaa-d, Baaa-d, Baaa-d sheep!

All the others got to cross over to the other side.
It's always greener there, of course.

It really was greener....

...and this time they were in heaven.

It was the perfect time to wave Good-Bye and go home to eat my own lunch.
They really made me hungry!

Talk about soulful! My hand instinctively covered my heart every time I walked past the shepherd, letting him know how it all affected mijn hart en ziel (my heart and soul). I'll never forget it. It really was heaven on earth.

For Bob and Peggy

2011-08-29T11:34:00.011+02:00

In my last post I mentioned we had just had our first overnight guests ever to our apartment here in Gorinchem, Netherlands. For 5 days and 4 nights, we had the pleasure of their company!

Peggy goes back to my assisted-living days, when she was our Executive Director. Lucky for me, and I might add with some surprise, after we both retired we kept in touch, meeting for lunch once a month. Somewhere in there, she, who had been widowed, married Bob, who had been single for years after his divorce, with two grown children. I had the good fortune of attending their wedding 7 years ago and ever since, it's been a delightful acquaintance. Peggy often was my confidant when I needed a listening ear and both have been there for Astrid and me from the get-go, supporting us and waving us on to victory, sometimes before anyone else was able.

So it's appropriate they were our first guests! This post is for them.

Our apartment is a one-bedroom apartment with no sofabed, so it's lucky for us that our complex here has 2 guest bedrooms available directly across our courtyard.

Every day we could watch them come-n-go...
(click any image/collage to enlarge)

...for breakfast, first, and then for whatever else was on the agenda after power naps!

That Wednesday when we picked them up at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport (first collage above), we scheduled nothing but a walk around half of our citadel to give them the lay of our land.

I've already taken you on this walk, remember?

See how we celebrated afterwards?! Italian ijs.

That was Wednesday. After a good night's sleep and a good breakfast, we spent Thursday in nearby Culemborg, Wijk bij Duurstede, and Buren, all cities we've visited and wanted them to see.

In Culemborg we wanted them to see the gate and city hall as you can see here from 2010.
As it was, we spent more time at the gate and only peeked at the city hall (seen through the gate in the bottom left-hand corner above).

The biggest thrill for me, however, was seeing this De Hoop windmill from 1854 being painted outside the city gate. It was a first for me.

Then we continued on to Wijk bij Duurstede, our main destination of the day. We just had to show them the world's only drive-through windmill, which we saw in April of 2010.

Yup, Bob and Peggy are in our car (Granny Towanda). They drove through!

Then, on to the Duurstede castle a short walk away...

...where a wedding was actually taking place!
We had read that this castle was often used for weddings, so we were delighted to see it.
(BTW, if an image is Astrid's, I'm adding an 'A' to identify it in my collages now.)

We decided to make one more city stop on our way home and made it Buren from our time there in March of 2010. Some places nearby really impressed us that much, to show them off.

But the surprise of the day was when we walked to De Prins van Oranje windmill....

...and found it was open for us to tour, on a Thursday!
Talk about a gift for Bob who loves to see how things work! It closed right after we left.
(I won't mention that Peggy is afraid of heights and didn't walk up to the top with us.)

We had had a long day....

...but still stopped at our Gorinchem second-hand store before supper that evening.
We are often surprised by little goodies that are vintage and Dutch!

That was Thursday. On Friday, we had a 2 p.m. tour scheduled at the nearby Trappist brewery, but first Astrid headed us to a new city for me, Heusden:

To be honest, it's like a sweet little tourist town! And it's a citadel city, like Gorinchem.

Full of gevelstenen, too! I was in heaven.

But it was the harbor and the windmills to die for.
First, the Nr. 1 windmill from 1971....

...and Nr. II behind it, from 1973. What creative names, right?!

All that before our brewery tour at the Abdij Koningshoeven near Tilburg! Remember when we were there this past February? This time we took the tour because Bob just happens to be a beer connoiseur and even makes his own beer!

Before the tour started, Bob and Peggy sampled the beer.

Then the tour...only 6 of us plus the guide, speaking English...

...followed by another beer that came with the package! No, we're not drunk yet.

And then another beer with our meal. Still not drunk!

Maybe it was the monks sitting outside. Maybe it's just good beer!

You'll be glad to hear that we basically did nothing on Saturday instead of what we had originally planned. We took it easy and finished the remainder of the citadel walk we had already started on Wednesday.

Enough photo-ops to last a lifetime.
And this time Bob treated us to a refreshing drink on our market square,
not far from the ice-cream cones we had had on Wednesday. Full circle.

Astrid propped up her camera and did the timer thing. I love it!

That evening we celebrated our "last supper" at our favorite pannenkoeken place.

And then on Sunday we drove them back to Amsterdam for their Viking River Cruise to Basel, which they just finished yesterday before flying back to Atlanta:

They said their time with us was a good appetizer. It was Peggy's first time in Europe.
And guess what WE now want to do, as soon as we are able! HA!
That Viking boat really looked nice. Only 200 passengers.

Talk about a great visit, chock-full of the things we love best! Thank you, Bob and Peggy, for coming. We still can't believe the time came and went so fast. Here's till the next time!

And to our next visitors. Who will it be?

Guilty Pleasures

2011-08-22T06:35:00.003+02:00

It's my turn at Vision and Verb again today,
talking about those guilty pleasures that are good for our heart and well-being. Enjoy!

In the meantime, we've just come off a fabulous week with Bob and Peggy from Atlanta, our first houseguests here in the Netherlands. We picked them up at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport on Wednesday morning and dropped them off at their Viking River Boat yesterday in Amsterdam for their 8-day river cruise to Basel. How fun is that! Too bad we couldn't have stayed on board with them.

Instead, I'll now spend a week processing the many images from our delightful time together out-n-about where we live here in Gorinchem. It was special looking at everything through their eyes, as you can imagine.

Change gears now and go back to a week ago Sunday when our summer festival was ending here in the city. We had the chance to see a stained-glass exhibition held inside our Grote Kerk just two blocks down the street from us.

Yes, this church with the tilting tower....

...and full of light during the afternoon hour. I saw it all in a new way.
See how the pulpit banner, stitched, picked up on the stained-glass theme.

All the stained-glass pieces were set up on displays around the inside of the sanctuary.

Our eyes were everywhere,
even on the things that had nothing to do with stained glass....

...like the offering ~~baskets~~ bags.
They fascinate me because they're not like what I grew up with.

In fact, almost nothing in the church reminds me of what I grew up with!

And yes, it was a free exhibition.

The minute we walked out of the church, a concert was ending on the market square,
featuring Carel Kraayenhof, a famous Dutch bandoneon player (like an accordian).
In 2002 he played at the wedding of the Queen's son, Prince Alexander,
who married a woman from Argentina where the bandoeon is well-known.
He's been famous ever since!

Remember this fella? Yup, our fellow Lindeborger friend, Dries!
He's one of our city's newspaper photographers, always in on the action.

I love it. Small and guilty pleasures are all around us everywhere...and life is too short to miss them! More on that at Vision and Verb today....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to sister Ruth today.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY to wife Astrid on Wednesday!

Out-n-About Again

2011-08-15T06:35:00.005+02:00

This week, Wednesday - Sunday, we have friends Bob and Peggy coming from Atlanta to stay as our very first houseguests. Astrid is working today but will take the rest of the week off so that we can give the big tour, packing as much in as possible to show where we live.

So, after our Apeldoorn trip 3 Saturdays ago, we've basically stayed put these last two weekends, except for backyard trips near home...like our favorite pannenkoeken restaurant out in the polder, 15km away...to see things through their eyes. It's been fun to plan each day.

Many of the canals right now have a carpet of kroos (= duckweed) growing on top.
Parents have to make sure small children/dogs don't accidently walk in!
But the ducks are in heaven because it's highly nutritious for them.
As Astrid says, they just open their mouths and vacuum it up!

If it's not kroos, it's wonderful sections of lily pads. This is that time of year!

Every once in awhile we see llamas...just like we do in America.
But look at the buck teeth on the right-hand fella! A face only Mama could love. HA.
I'm guessing they've learned not to walk into the kroos.

I love the polder. What is it about all that gorgeous space away from the city?!
Actually, some of the wealthiest homesteads are there....

...along with their weathervanes, of course.
This is the second windmill vane we've seen since I've been here.

Bob and Peggy will be intrigued by all the war bunkers around the area.
Some like this one are national heritage sites and cannot be torn down. They're Dutch reminders of both world wars and are called groepsschuilplaatsen (= group hiding/safe houses).
The steel hooks strengthen the concrete and held camouflage nets.

The Leerdam water tower from 1929 is down the street from the above war bunker.
I took its picture over a year ago but this time I was up close and personal.

All of that was two Saturdays ago...15km away from our back door.

This past week there was every bit as much to see within walking distance here within our city! You really do just have to get out and look, right?!

I wonder if this is the same fella from a couple posts back?
Can you imagine carrying your house on your back every time you go out-n-about?

I love the hollyhocks in bloom everywhere.
They grow wild here and are called stokrozen = stick roses.

I'm still trying to figure out my macro lens. Lots of experimentation!

It so happens this past week was the last week of summer vacation before the kids start school today here in the Netherlands (grandson Nicholas started 6th grade last week in Atlanta!). In many cities, the last week of summer vacation is day camp, as it was here in Gorinchem where we live. And that meant TIMMERDORP (= Hammer Village).

Ik hout van Holland on the above banner is a play on words.
Hout = wood. Houd = love. Both pronounced the same: "I love/wood Holland."

Besides all the water activities, the kids get to build houses out of wood supplied by lumberyards (like where Astrid worked last job). Every child brings their own hammer from home and helps build their fort,
often with a loft, supervised by adult leaders.
I didn't take pictures of the forts because I had the wrong lens (macro), but here's a video.

By Thursday, the kids were "over" their forts anyway, having too much fun with everything else.

All this took place at Buiten de Waterpoort (= outside the waterport) on the Merwede River.
It's where the war memorial stands...remembering those who never came back from the wars.

It's also where the water taxis come to ferry people from here to there.

Lots of nice benches to wait on till the right taxi comes!

Right there, over the shoulders of the family eating lunch, is the gate that enters the Lingehaven harbor into Gorinchem from the Merwede River (the same entrance for Sinterklaas on 5 December each year). Remember, this is a citadel city. Again, I watched through Bob and Peggy's eyes as a boat entered from the outside (top row of images below)....

...and then came through into the harbor (bottom row above).
There's a holding place big enough for 2-3 boats while one gate is closed and the other is opened.
And you can stand on top and watch the whole thing!

Talk about the life of Riley!
(click any image to enlarge, of course)

And then I came back home to almost as much excitement...a week of repairs to our sidewalks here inside our Lindeborg courtyard. See, sometimes you don't even need to leave home!

I told a British blogger the other day that all our brick/cobblestone walks/roads are "cemented" with sand.
It means they can always be pulled up very easily and repaired.
I love to see how things work here. Bob and Peggy will, too!

One last thing: did you notice that I tweaked my template a little bit? I decided to to give my Shutterfly photo book some shameless exposure on my sidebar. The only way I could get it to fit properly was to widen the sidebar.

So....there you have it. Enough out-n-about till another week!

Apeldoorn and Vicinity, Netherlands

2011-08-08T06:15:00.006+02:00

As I mentioned last post, it was a week ago that we went to Apeldoorn, 60 miles NE of us here in the Netherlands, for our first photo-hunt in over a month.

Guess what images I processed before anything else:

Yup. Weathervanes. I'm enamored of them.
All of these, except the one of the 2 gold horses, are outside of Apeldoorn.

Which is another way of saying it's the journey and not just the destination! Even though Apeldoorn was our 'hunt' of the day, we sure saw a lot before we got there...like these two water towers:

The one on the left is in Woudenberg, from 1937.
The one on the right is in Radio Kootwijk, from 1922.

In Woudenberg, our first stop, someone needed a potty break (not to mention any names), so since we always come prepared (when nothing else is available), how can you beat this:

I stayed behind with my camera, loving the Klompenpaden sign.
Klompen are wooden shoes, of course = wooden shoe paths.
Leave it to the Dutch!

Once back in the car, Astrid directed TomTom to Kootwijk, 15 km west of Appeldoorn, where we stopped for our prerequisite koffie met apeltaart. It's one of our coziest times of the day when we go out-n-about. Kootwijk was a typical medieval settlement for the 6th-11th centuries, so it was fun to walk around in the immediate vicinty to see something of the area....

...like this Dutch Reformed church from the 17th century.
Kootwijk means "sheepfold area," so the sheep sculpture makes wonderful sense.

Kootwijk is a farming community, with a nearby campground for summer vacationers.
Besides a group of kids biking through the village, we watched horseriders stop for koffie.
Gotta love the architecture, especially with the thatched roofs!

Then it was Radio Kootwijk, 5 km east of Kootwijk, with approx. 120 inhabitants. It was known as the "center of the world" for the Dutch in the 1920s because of its shortwave transmitter which connected them to their colony in the Dutch East Indies.

On a cloudy, overcast day, the main building appeared ominous and foreboding.
It was designed by a Dutch architect, Julius Maria Luthmann,
and was called 'Building A,' 'The Cathedral,' or sometimes 'The Sphynx.'
And yes, as you'd imagine, it was taken over by the Germans in WWII.

It's a perfect building for apocalyptic processing, don't you think?!

All of that before reaching our destination of Apeldoorn! Did I mention that my brother Jim married Wilma, whose parents came from Apeldoorn before moving to America in the 1940s. Wilma even has a sister buried in Apeldoorn, so I felt more connected to the city than usual.

We parked acrossed the street from the 1892 Grote Kerk, "one of the most important neo-Renaissance churches in the country, if not the most important."

It so happens that Apeldoorn is the city of one of Holland's royal palaces, which I'll get to in a minute.
The Grote Kerk serves as the "royal church," so it's not surprising that Queen Wilhelmina stands outside.
She was the Queen of the Netherlands from 1890 - 1948, longer than any other Dutch monarch.
"Outside the Netherlands she is primarily remembered for her role in World War II,
in which she proved to be a great inspiration to the Dutch resistance."

So when you walk into the "royal" church, you see the royal box!
It's at the back of the church (where you enter) and faces the altar.

As a Dutch Reformed church, it's wonderfully open and bright,
in stark contrast to the Roman Catholic churches we see.
Notice the chairs set up in front of the altar....

...look at how they are kept in order!
This is so typical of Dutch ingenuity. Ho-hum for Astrid.

And look at that high pulpit!
I wonder if it's used every Sunday, as well as the low pulpit?

We climbed upstairs behind the altar to find the organist who was playing from 2-4 p.m.
His tongue helped him play, of course, and was out more than in. :)

From the church we walked to city center to visit City Hall and the Saturday market, one of the biggest we've ever seen.

On the way, we passed a memorial to all the Canadians who helped liberate Apeldoorn
from the Germans during WWII. This is for you, Sham!

In the top-left image you see a corner of the very modern new city hall.
The old city hall is the typical backdrop to Saturday markets everywhere in Holland.

These are two different ladies in their klederdrachten = national costumes.
The top lady took off her jacket so I could take her picture. She was so proud.
This was the first time I have seen ladies in their klederdrachten at market!

From city center, we walked back to the car...with all shoes on...

...not seeing nearly as much as we wanted but enough to get a taste.

We had one more landmark to visit, before calling it a day...the Dutch royal Het Loo Palace ("The Woods Palace") which was the residence of Queen Wilhelmina till her death in 1962. Now it's a state museum. Queen Wilelmina is the grandmother of Holland's current Queen Beatrix.

Astrid stayed in the car while I took a few pictures of these Royal Stables.
That's all we saw of the much bigger palace site but at least we could say we had been there!
One day maybe we'll go back to see more?!

How's that for a way to end the day...in the parking lot of the Royal Stables.
It somehow seemed appropriate. And Granny Towanda did not mind!

More New Tricks

2011-08-01T06:25:00.006+02:00

Did you just happen to notice that I didn't have a Vision and Verb post last week? If, so, you're very observant. It so happens we have expanded to not only a new site, thanks to administrator Marcie, but to enough new collaborators to make every third Monday my new posting schedule. This is that third Monday.

My V&V post today is on Lady Justice in today's world. She holds scales in her left hand, carries a double-edged sword, and is blindfolded. Why? And why is she a lady? If we had more of her in today's world, would there be a difference? I sure would like to think so.

Now, on a different note, Astrid and I took our first photo-hunt car trip on Saturday in over a month. Boy, did that ever feel good. We went to Apeldoorn, approximately 60 miles NE of us. That's what I'll be working on for next week's post.

Today, here's some more finagling with my macro lens from walks around the citadel last week. It's getting easier to figure things out but I still have much to learn. Those of you who can give me tips, please do!

My guess is the macro lens is used more for flowers and insects than any other thing.

In the case of this clover, I was especially happy to get that little red spider (?) bug in the bottom image.
He was running all around the floret and wouldn't stand still. At one point I just closed my eyes and shot.
HA! Gotcha, you bugger!

Thankfully, I do not have arachnophobia!
But do they really look like that up close and personal?

Truth be told, these slugs creep me out more!
I literally lay down on the walkway to take some of these images...and didn't care if I'd ever get back up.
The things we photographers are willing to do, right?
BTW, Astrid says these slugs are called naaktslakken = naked snails.
Snails without houses. Makes sense to me!

Speaking of which, I found another snail (with house) that's like the seashell from my last post but the garden variety, stuck to the side of a wall. It stared right back!
The upper-left squiggly ball is ~~the casing of a chestnut-in-progress~~ I'm not sure what.
Hmmm. I'll have to do some more research on that.
Addendum: it's from a platan or plane tree!
Dew drops in the images below are like diamonds in the rough.

And so it goes. My macro lens is light enough to carry on my citadel walks going forward, which I'll surely do...just in case something catches my eye. It's definitely a whole new way of seeing things and good for this 'old dog.'

Now, to the Apeldoorn pics for next week, but in the meantime, don't forget Lady Justice over at Vision and Verb. Thanks.

An Old Dog's New Tricks

2011-07-25T06:25:00.003+02:00

Before anything else, Prayers for Norway! My heart goes out to our old and new friends there....

Ironically, this is the image I had queued for my Shutterchance blog today before last Friday's tragic attacks occurred. I ponder such things in my heart. This is the Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, Norway.
God have mercy on us all!

**********

It's been like an albatross around my neck for over a year now, after purchasing my 100mm macro lens in Novemeber of 2009, just before moving across the Big Pond.

So, at the beginning of this year, 2011, I made the commitment: learn to use it "or else" by the end of this year!

Now that half the year is over, I'm finally starting the learning curve on all the settings:

Full vs. .5m vs. .3-.5m?
Auto Focus vs. Manual Focus?
Aperture Priority vs. what?
High vs. low aperture?
Single vs. multi-focus points?
Tripod vs. hand-held?
Etc., etc.

I started off a week ago and every day learned something new. Oh, and Victoria over at A Photography Addict's Showcase gave me inspiration and tips. THANK YOU, Victoria.

This was my first attempt, here inside our apartment.
NO WIND! Very important.
I started out with a tripod and a single-point focus on that one left 'eye'.
I was feeling cross-eyed after multiple attempts.
As Victoria said, I need to know what effect I want!

One sunny day on my walk, I decided to try hand-held shots outside, in spite of our almost constant wind. I was not gonna let this thing control me. I wanted to control IT!

I was excited to think I had found a bumble bee.
WRONG! Victoria told me it's a hoverfly...another learning curve.

At least this one didn't fly away!

Then on Saturday morning Astrid and I were invited for koffie over at Thelma and Siem's. Thelma is an Indonesian woman living here in The Netherlands since 1960. Dutch Siem met her in 1964, they fell in love and have been married now for 46 years! Astrid and Thelma used to play tennis together and have remained in contact.

Lucky for me, they have a HUGE garden with every kind of flower and bush imaginable. Talk about a macro-lens paradise. EXCEPT FOR THE WIND. I LOVE the wind here in this country but when it come to outdoor macro shots, it's my enemy. Still, after 304 images, I was able to narrow them down to 30 okay/decent shots...for my learning curve, that is. Here are some of them:

Even after the link from Victoria about hoverflies vs. bees, I still don't know if this was a bee.
It sure seemed different from all the hoverflies I saw, but...who knows!

But these for sure are hoverflies. Hundreds of them everywhere.

And one dragonfly to end the day.
[click on any image to enlarge]

Hanging on for dear life midst all the wind!

I was such a happy camper in Thelma and Siem's garden!
And the good news is that we will go back again and again, just as we've done before.

In the meantime, I'll keep practicing to figure out what it is I want with macro shots. That may be as much of the learning curve as anything else?!

**********

Now that the Tour de France is done and over with for another year, HURRAH to Cadel Evans from Australia for pulling the whole thing off. HURRAH also to the Schleck brothers from Luxemburg who came in 2nd and 3rd. It was a 'first' for Australia and a 'first' for two brothers! Pretty exciting stuff...and yes, true to form, I cried like a baby at the end. (sigh)

Our Gorinchem Citadel Walk

2011-07-18T12:25:00.007+02:00

We had intended to be out-n-about this past weekend for a new photo hunt, but after a week of heavy rain, and more forecast, we stayed home and relaxed.

That's when I decided to take you on my citadel walk where we live in Gorinchem, Netherlands! It's been something in the wings for a long time, so here it is, with pics from the last 1-1/2 years.

Gorinchem's city center is surrounded by water and walls, making it a perfect, fortified city center. There is even a tour you can take around the citadel, explaining all about the walls, which you can see here. We have yet to take it but "most of the town walls from 1600 are in more or less original shape."

See that big red dot near top center? That represents where we live here at De Lindeborg, inside the citadel. At least 4 days a week I walk around one half or the other, cutting back through city center: 40 minutes to the left, 30 minutes to the right. If I walk the entire loop at a brisk pace, without my camera, it takes 45 minutes. Sometimes Astrid and I do that together, as we did yesterday.

And what a walk it is! I still pinch myself because of what is here at our fingertips.

First of all, there are 4 main landmarks, all of which I have shown from previous posts, but here they are as seen from the citadel walk: two windmills, the Grote Kerk, and the water tower.

First off, and only a block away from our back door, is the Nooit Volmaakt (Never Forget/Never Perfect) windmill, from 1718. That top-left image is my laptop's wallpaper, so soulful with a light dusting of snow.

Today, let's turn to the right towards the windmill and follow the citadel wall clockwise.

On the backside of the windmill is a staircase that takes you down to the canal that runs through city center and where all the old-timey houseboat barges are. I almost feel like I'm trespassing because I'm in their front yard as I pass by. Then I climb another set of stairs to cross the bridge before continuing on along the wall.

Then I pass Old Sannie on the left, sitting on his own little island in the Paardwater.
(See how this comes together from past posts?!)

Then starts some of my favorite views along the city wall.
See the ice skaters? They were there my first year here, early 2010.

This is the part of the walk where you can find the little "munchkins" from the artist Erik Buijs. All these fellas sit on poles at eye level, at regular intervals along the walk.
Each one is about 7 inches tall.

About this same time, off to the right, is when you see the water tower from 1886, now an apartment building.

It's at this point, on my short walk, that I turn into the city center to go back home, with the second windmill straight ahead. I don't pass it on the short walk, but I see it and that's enough.

Now, since it's too much like craziness to continue clockwise around the citadel (isn't it strange how our brains work!), please go back to the big red dot on the map and go left with me counterclockwise to finally meet up where we last left off and complete the loop.

I always think of last December's Santa Run (remember?) when I start off on this longer of the two walks. This was where we went then, through the huge, over-arching trees.

This is also where I start seeing the cannons because the huge Merwede River is before me, with freighters passing daily back-n-forth to Rotterdam. Remember, this is a citadel and the cannons remain as reminders of a rich history of defense.

And there she is, the Merwede River and bridge in the background, with Gorinchem's outside harbor (outside the citadel wall, that is) in the foreground.
See the walkway? That's what the whole walk is on...like asphalt.
And see how raised it is? That's the city wall, on which we're walking.

It's in this neck of the woods, looking inside the city, that you see some of the best views of the Grote Kerk.
It's only two blocks down the street from where we live (with its tilted tower).

Then, within minutes after the boat harbor, you come down off the wall to the Merwede River where the water taxis are ready to take students, workers, and visitors from one city to the next.
Sometimes cheaper than owning a car!
There's also a huge grassy area for all kinds of activities and festivals throughout the year.
A great meet-up place. Even a beach for swimming.

See the gigantic "munchkin" on the pole there at the waterpoort?
Yup, it's done by the same artist, Erik Buijs, as along the earlier walk.

Right after you turn left at the waterpoort, and then follow past the restaurant (top-left image of the collage before last), you turn right....

...and cross over the Linge Harbor to the left...the city's inside harbor, as in inside the citadel wall. It's the harbor where Sinterklaas enters the city on 5 December every year from the Merwede River.
No boat can enter until the sluice is opened, so it's totally protected.
It's also fun to stand there and watch the boats come through. In fact, if the sluice is open on the walk,
you can't cross over til it's closed to continue!

After passing the inside harbor, with city center there on the left, you climb stairs up to the wall again and see the Merwede River continuing on the right.
Across the river is where you can see the church and windmill of our sister city, Woudrichem.
And also, in the distance, the Loevestein castle (all with my 300mm lens).

This is also the stretch where I see the most dogs running around.
I actually see them all along the citadel wall. What a great place for exercise!
It was on this walk when I first met Ernie and his beautiful dog, Laika.

And then you see her, De Hoop (The Hope) windmill from 1764.
Magnificent. Majestic. There for the world to see not far inland from the Merwede River.

You actually pass the Dalempoort first, before you pass the windmill, continuing the walk.
See the water tower behind in the top-left image? Everything is really that close.

One of Gorinchem's most famous scuptures sits there at the Dalempoort: the salmon fisher.
It's a reminder that years ago the Merwede was full of salmon. Sadly, no longer.

Often in the area of the Dalempoort and De hoop windmill there will be an art symposium.
Art displays come and go throughout the year. But other pieces around the citadel are permanent, as testament to a rich culture full of surprise and intrigue.

And there you have it!
I head back home into the city center, having seen a little bit of everything.
In the center image above, way back at the end of the road is De Lindeborg's back door.
Home Sweet Home after a nice walk to die for.

When YOU come to visit us, this is one of the first things we'll do: go for a walk! There are plenty of benches all along the loop. No hurry. No rush. We can take as long as you'd like.

Home Sweet Home

2011-07-11T06:15:00.003+02:00

There and back again!
No, this isn't the family cottage in Michigan. It happens to be one of my favorite houses near where we live here in The Netherlands. Daughter Amy says coming home is always the best part of going away. She's right. But there's more...which is what my post is about today at Vision and Verb.

In the meantime, here's a bit of a visual from the Michigan cottage, a total of 1750 miles driving to and fro. My disclaimer is that I took only my 100mm macro lens with me and had no intention of documenting the family time. Therefore, it shouldn't surprise you, let alone me, that I took no pics of my own kids! (What was I thinking???) But in the end, they wanted to see what I did take.

In the early hours of Friday when the rest of the family had not yet arrived,
the few of us there found ways to use our time.

That's the fun of vacation time. You get to play, few or many!

And then everyone arrives and more fun happens.

Our family cottage is on Horseshoe Lake, big enough for speedboats
but small enough and more cozy for pontoon and fishing boats.

All our fishing, however, is off the dock.
You should have seen the bass that got away! Don't you love how the kids are part of it.

Inside the cottage has its own joys and thrills, of course.
Like Asher watching Aunt Susan (my sister) making her deviled eggs...a family tradition.

Or Eli helping Dad out with breakfast.

Of course, there's lots of sitting-around time, watching and listening...

...Dad time around the laptop...

...and G'ma time with Wilma, the Mother of all Grandmas!
They were all on or next to her much of the time.

Uncle Jeff joined the family on May 14 when he married Katy,
the daughter of my sister's daughter...yup, 3 generations. Is that possible?

Let's just say he's a big hit....and a match for Aden.

There's always at least one children's movie.
Don't you love how the boys and girls (the cousins) 'segregate' themselves!

Saving the best for last...my 5 sibs of 7 who were there: Nelson, Susan, Nancy, Jim and Ruth. In chronological age, I follow Susan. Bennett, who follows Nancy, walks around the Universe somewhere. John, who follows Jim, was not present. (Lest you be confused, I have two pictures of each except for Susan.) The spread from top to bottom is 14 years. Nelson is the one who turns 70 in January...after which the rest of us follow suit. Sigh.

I told you I took my macro lens, right?
Next time I'll also take my tripod. It's much trickier than I thought!

So, we drove back to Atlanta, my kids and I, after a delightful 3 days reunioning with the family. During my stint of night driving, an adult deer crossed over the interstate so close in front of me I couldn't see its legs. My heart stopped. The kids woke up. A second later, it would have been a sobering story. It's when we once again thanked the Universe for protecting us all along the way.

Once back in Atlanta for a few days, I had a chance to make phone calls to friends as well as to meet up with Bob and his partner Marc for lunch.

Bob reminded me we have known each other for 19 years!
He even joined me on my MARTA ride to the airport and bid me adieu.
And do you recognize grandson Nicholas?? He turns 11 tomorrow and is ready to start 6th grade.
When did that happen???

You can imagine the joy we felt, Astrid and I both, when we rendezvoused at the Amsterdam airport Friday morning. Talk about Home Sweet Home. For supper that evening, Astrid made her macaroni specialty dish and a small appeltaart, to celebrate.

Coming home really IS the best part of going away. Home Sweet Home. (And another reminder of my Vision and Verb post today.)

One last thing: Remember the Shutterfly book I was working on before I left for Atlanta? It arrived while I was there. Here it is (click on Full Screen to see it better):

A Stitch in Time

2011-06-27T06:15:00.003+02:00

A stitch in time saves nine.

That's what my post at Vision and Verb is about today, just two days before I fly from Amsterdam to Atlanta. It's a long story but it's spontaneous and alone, without Astrid. The short version is that my kids became free for the July 4th holiday and decided to drive from Atlanta to our Michigan family cottage, just like we always did.
And I wanted to be with them.

The rest of the story you can read at V&V....

In the meantime, I'm finishing a Shutterfly photo book that I've worked on non-stop for a week. I received a gift certificate from TripAdvisor after writing a review for them but it expires tomorrow. No way do I want to lose it. I'm titling it "Holland: Through My Lens" (101 pages, the limit) unless one of you comes up with something a bit more exciting. Remember helping us name our Granny Towanda car?!

I return to Holland (and Astrid!) on Friday morning, 8 July, and plan to post again here the following Monday. Till then, enjoy your 4th of July holiday if you celebrate it!

LET FREEDOM RING!

BELGIUM: Dendermonde, Mechelen and Lier

2011-06-20T06:15:00.002+02:00

Before I finish off the BBB (Belgium Birthday Bash), here's a bit of trivia:

The flag of The Netherlands is to France as the flag of Germany is to Belgium.
See how the colors are the same but the stripes are horizonital as opposed to vertical.
Actually, the order of the colors is also different for BEL and GER, but you catch my drift.

Anyway, after our wonderful B&B in Berlare (last post), we were ready to drive back home s-l-o-w-l-y. There were 3 main cities we wanted to hit: Dendermonde, Mechelen, and Lier.

1. Dendermonde (pop. 43K in 2006)

We almost always tell Granny Towanda to take us directly to city center.
That's usually where all the action is.

It was Saturday morning and, lucky for us, the city hall was open.
No weddings were happening but we saw some pretty cool stuff.

The St. Peter and Paul Basilica was also open, founded in 1901.
We didn't stay long. It wasn't a huge cathedral.

2. Mechelen (pop. 80K in 2006)

As soon as we entered this city, we knew we'd spend more time there.
Whenever you see a tourist boat on the river/canal, you know there's something to see.

This time there was a wedding at city hall.
With the 3 in Ghent, that made 4 weddings in 2 days!

But it was St. Rumbold's Cathedral we wanted to see across the square, started around 1200, with the tower added in the final phase between 1452-1520.

Astrid and I hardly ever go into museums. Maybe you've noticed?
We've decided that the churches and cathedrals of Europe are our museums. We go into them NOT as places of worship but as places full of art and architecture. We often say to each other that most do nothing for us spiritually. Many are cold and dark. Some are light and cozy but are the exception.
So for us, these are our museums!

One could spend a lifetime studying the stained-glass windows alone!

Or the pulpits!
This one was built by Michiel Vervoort in 1721-23.
See Astrid in the top-left image? Talk about scale!
The only sad thing was the film of dust over all of it.

Father Damien was a prominent sculpture in this church. We had seen him in one shape or form both days but here, he was cast in porcelain. He was a priest from Begium who worked with lepers in Hawaai and eventually contracted the disease himself and died from it in 1889.

3. Lier (pop. 33K in 2006)

It's weird to me that beyond a niche and the bread vending machine from last post,
there was nothing else I took pictures of in Lier except these architectural shots above...
and the church below...before heading home. We were ready.

The church, St. Gummarus Church from 1378, is in its 3rd phase of restoration at a cost of €1.8m.

Do all these churches start running together for you, I wonder, like sometimes they do for us?
But there's always something we find...some little treasure that feels unique.
In this case, seeing the IHS Christogram surrounded by the extension cord reminded me of Jesus' parable in Luke 5:37 about not putting new wine into old wineskins. The symbolism of this, as well as the dust everywhere, was not lost on me!

In this church, it was St. John of Nepomuk who was featured.
His is a most interesting story...drowned because he wouldn't divulge the secrets of the confessional, and thus a martyr of the faith.
He is since known as the Protector from Floods.

If I took pictures of all the statues we see in these churches, my posts would be 10 miles long!
Sometimes I take a few and discover later they are the "famous" ones.
But I also miss others altogether. It boggles the mind.

It was time to go home after a lovely two-day birthday celebration. We had caught several glimpses of steeples along the way...

...and would have loved to see the treasures in each.
All "museums" in their own right, I'm sure.

It was a total of 409 km (254 miles) in two days. To Astrid, that's a lot. To me, it's nothing, especially as I anticipate driving from Atlanta to the family cottage in Michigan in 2 week's time with the kids! But that's next week's post....

Happy loooong Birthday to me. And thanks to Astrid.

It was wonderful in every way!

A Pentecost Birthday

2011-06-13T06:35:00.004+02:00

How many times do you get to celebrate your birthday on a holiday, especially if it isn't Christmas, New Year's, or 4th of July! Lucky for me, today is one of 3 holidays in The Netherlands that is officially celebrated for 2 days each: Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. So when you're talking about the holiday, you have to be specific about what day you mean. The 2nd Christmas day would be 26 December, for instance. Today is the 2nd Pentecost day, which is always Monday...not Sunday.

AND today is my birthday. #66 to be exact. Because it's a holiday, Astrid is off work, so it really IS a holiday birthday for me. And for her.

A Pentecost Birthday.
That's what my Vision & Verb post is about today.
[Image from the Hammerfest Church, Norway.]

Now you have a hint why we celebrated my birthday in Belgium two weeks ago instead of now. The Dutch go crazy on the highways over holidays. There was no way we would be part of that.

Last week I posted about the lovely Belgium city of Ghent. Next week I'll post about the next day driving home through Dendermonde, Mechelen, and Lier. Today I'll post about our B&B stay in Berlare, outside Ghent. But first, some birthday shenanigans....

TWO (count them!) tarts! First an appeltaart, eaten 3 days in a row (with Astrid's son Jeroen joining us today) and a spinach tart for Sunday (yesterday) and today, the two days of Pentecost. And both made by Astrid!

This part blows me away!
The Dutch don't use measuring cups for their recipes. They WEIGH their ingredients, like sugar and flour. A cup of sugar does not weigh the same as a cup of flour. So, as Astrid says, she gets very confused by my measuring cups. She knows that volume does not equal weight! I guess American recipes take all that into account.
These scales from Germany are over 50 years old, inherited from Astrid's mom. They operate on a counter weight, up to 10 kilos (22 lbs.). Modern scales, of course, are now digitalized.

The dough was supposed to be rolled out with a rolling pin but the butter was a different brand than Astrid was used to and ended up crumbing better than rolling. Did I care? She tossed the apples in cinnamon, added in a few raisins, and then more dough on top. Kinda like an appel crumble, but not really.

Then, into the oven for an hour at 180 C (356 F). This contraption that looks like a microwave IS, but it's also an oven, a broiler, and a convection oven...all wrapped into one. If you have a kitchen here without a built-in oven, this is usually what most people buy because of space. And believe it or not, I have learned to not only use it but to like it!

So, an hour later....

In case you can't tell, that's a springform pan. I love it!

Astrid used to make this appeltaart 5-6 times a year in her past life.
Am I lucky or what to have it for my birthday this year! A labor of love...in my own house.

That was Saturday. On Sunday, yesterday, she made the spinach tart! Enough to last for two days:

The dough is croissant dough and comes in squares that Astrid fit into another springform pan.
The mixture is cooked spinach, corn (both drained), with cheese and beaten eggs. Halfway through a layer of sliced hard-boiled eggs is added, with the remaining mixture on top.
Then the entire top is covered with the remaining dough and baked for 45 minutes at 220 C (428 F).

And just like that, Voilà!
One quarter is a vegetarian meal for one person. To die for!

DID I MENTION THAT I FEEL VERY LOVED ON MY BIRTHDAY!

**********

OK. Now, back to Belgium and the B&B in Berlare. THAT was the main birthday gift from Astrid, spending the night so we didn't have to do Belgium all in one day.

Berlare is a town of only 14K people. We've discovered you can sometimes get a better B&B price if you're willing to go outside the 'cig bity,' which we often do. We were delighted by this sweet little B&B Hagewinde. Our hostess, Monique, was perfect in every way.
We LOVE B&Bs and have never yet been disappointed.

After getting settled, and while it was still light and not too late, we went off to see two churches:

The first church was St. Martinuskerk near the city center, built in 1910.
And locked.

But the second, Bareldonk Chapel from 1302, stole our hearts.
On the property was a path that looped around 7 stations of the cross. In fact, as we were leaving, a group of parishioners was being led around the loop for Vespers recitation.

Midway through the 'stations' is this life-size monument of the sick and wounded coming to the Cross. I grew up being told the difference between Protestants and Catholics was whether or not the crucified Christ was still on the Cross. For Protestants, because we believed in a risen Christ, Jesus was no longer on the Cross.
Today I no longer split those hairs.

This chapel was open!
It's not a huge cathedral. It's not a protestant church.
But it's the kind of cozy church I would be drawn to for worship, truth be known.

Next week I'll take you to 3 more Belgium cities with BIG churches, all Roman Catholic. Till then, here are some more....

...niches...

...gevelstenen (gable stones).
Well, the last one (sheep) may be a stretch.

Two more water towers, with a bridge thrown in for good measure.

Make that 3 more water towers.

Some more weathervanes (my first moose!)....

...and last but not least, a vending machine for loaves of fresh bread!
This is the first time I've seen this anywhere, period.

That's it for now and my Happy Birthday! More like my Happy BirthMONTH which continues next week. In the meantime, please don't forget my Vision & Verb for today on the sexy number 66!