Survival

Walking along the canals it is good to see all the weeds coming up through the stones. It sometimes amazes me to see how confidently plants will always grow back, using every opportunity, every tiny bit of open soil within cracks in the concrete or between rocks and stones. It is encouraging to know that we cannot control all of this. We try to create nature to compensate for all the stone and concrete we put down everywhere, but nature itself does a much better job, turning up unexpectedly and surprising us time and time again. In this country we try to control and plan everything. We make up our little pigeon holes, houses there, industrial sites there, nature there, and very few places are just left to themselves. When you fly over this country you will always know where you are. The country of straight lines, all neat and tidy.

Today I also saw about ten Swifts flying high above the Skinny Bridge. I watched them for a bit. They are about to head south again for the winter, which is a shame. I love to hear the sound of Swifts in town or at home outside my window. They are only here for about 100 days a year though, and to me they are the sound of summer.

Birthday Trip

We spent our weekend in the east of the country. Cycling, enjoying the countryside, watching birds. We stayed at a small camp site, which has its own vegetarian restaurant. A lovely meal, four courses, all tasty and unusual. You can find vegetartian meals almost everywhere nowadays, but the menu often is predictable. You end up having a pizza or a curry, for example. And often you don’t really get to choose.

There was a wonderful moment on Friday when we cycled towards some trees and suddenly noticed a huge shower. It was like cycling towards a wall of rain. I had never seen the edge of a shower so clearly. We stopped to have a look at this, and not to cycle into it, but we didn’t have to. The wall quickly moved towards us, and we ran to take shelter in a barn on a farm yard. We watched the shower move across the fields, and it looked stunning.

As for the birds. Highlights were a hoard of young Housemartins stuck just under the roof of a farm we passed. Over 40 nests with young about to leave the nest. And at the camp site a couple of Spotted Flycatchers who were not bothered by people staring at them for a long time. Then there were the Woodpeckers that could be heard throughout the weekend, but could not actually be seen.

Cycling out there for me was also a strange mixture of history and literature. I’ve been reading Dutch historical novels set partly in this area, and seeing all the small castles and monumental houses brought those books to life for me.

Building

From my desk at work I can see the building activities going on in the next building. I am up on the sixth floor, and I can see this building across the road. Actually, I can see right through it, because the outside is nearly all glass now. A few months’ ago they started stripping the place, and you could see huge skips lifted up to the top floors, sticking out of the building. Now I can see huge men in brightly coloured shirts up on the roof rebuilding the place. The funny thing is that the department I work for will move into that building at the end of next year.

I finished the McGrath book, and enjoyed it very much. I’m back to reading one of my favourite Dutch authors, Hella Haasse. She writes historical novels, but there always is such a lot of psychological insight in what she writes. That is what makes it most interesting for me. She also manages to create a sense of history that I enjoy. The book I am reading now is about Dutch history, but it feels quite foreign to me. I recently read a book she wrote about Greece
during and just after the second world war, creating a real web, with a great many strands all falling into place at the end. And she created a wonderful set of characters, writing from various points of view, leaving and picking up the story several times.

Clothes and Books

Yesterday I went shopping for clothes, something I do not like at all. I am not very good at finding things, I don’t know how other people manage that. Also, you have to change in and out of everything all the time, I usually end up pretty depressed. Yesterday was not that bad, though I still can think of nicer ways to spend a day off. At least I got a result, I bought 6 tops. I also wanted shoes and jeans, but still, I managed to find something. I always end up going
for the same colours though, I always buy red, white, blue and black. I started off buying three red tops, and then had to force myself not to go for the red corner in all the other shops. But I didn’t like all the green and yellow things.

Of course, I started and ended in a bookshop, trust me. I got a book on personality disorders, which I managed to read yesterday after I got back. It is fascinating reading. I also got Patrick McGrath’s “Port Mungo”. There are a few writers I will buy any book of, and McGrath is one of them. He hasn’t written that many books, but they are fascinating. I started reading this one yesterday, and couldn’t put it down. It reminds me somewhat of Siri Hustvedt’s “What I Loved”, which is a haunting book for me. Another one of those authors.

Interior Design

My house seems to be a pretty organic place, really. Items move in, become part of the setting, other items move out again. It always seems like a whole though, it just changes all the time. I am no good at throwing things out, and I am good at collecting. Yes, I have a lot of books, and yes, I have read most of them. I couldn’t live without them. But they seem well-contained in their bookcases in my room. It is the knick-knacks that are everywhere. Souvenirs from various trips, like my little wooden woodpecker from the Czech Republic. Gifts from other people, like the toy bird attached to my computer screen, which I got from a colleague a few years’ ago. Things I bought because I like them or collect them, like the old Flanders and Swann programme and my statuettes of the Little Prince. And the things left to me by people who have died, like Alie’s picture frames and her hat. It is a strange collection of weird and wonderful things.

Until last week we had our last guinea pig in two big cages in the room too, but he died. So now there is this empty space where there used to be a very cuddly little animal. There is a gap there. It is amazing how quickly the gap is filled though, with a tea tray and a bowl we inherited from our adopted granny. It's as if it's always been like that.

Changes

Sometimes it seems as if life just goes on, one day after another, and then suddenly everything seems to change at once. This is a time of change.

Today I went to my second funeral in 10 days, which is so weird. Last week we had to say goodbye to our adopted granny, an 89-year old lady, who had suffered a stroke. Today I went to the ceremony for the father of my closest co-worker, who was only 60 years old. My adopted granny seemed ready and reconciled to her death, my colleague’s father wasn’t. He was still so young, three daughters in their early thirties, two grandsons under two years’ old. It always seems such a waste.