Home from home

I'm at my home away from home, on a ship in a faraway port. Ready to set sail for the white continent tomorrow. All the guests have arrived, they are getting to know each other in the deck house. Still a little unsettled, full of expectation. Some are keen to watch the birds, experience the wildlife, others are looking for the emptiness of the open sea, the landscapes and the light. Others are keen to sail on this ship, and in some ways go back in time. One doesn't know whether he is or isn't hoping for a big storm.

They will probably all get what they are hoping for, and more. The place is amazing, the birds are beautiful, the landscapes take your breath away. And they will get an overdose, because they get almost 24 hours a day of daylight. We will be in the south for the longest day, almost at our southernmost point. It is good to see so much expectation, and so much joy in all these faces.

Tomorrow we will start our voyage sailing on the Beagle Channel. The captain says it will rain, I am hoping he is wrong. Then on to the Drake, where the real sailors will come into their own. And then the stillness. I am looking forward to it all.

Heading for El Fin del Mundo

Sometimes things just work out. After checking out of my hotel at 10 a.m. I went straight down to the airport, and for some reason I was offered an earlier flight south. So instead of waiting round at an airport I am now on my way to Ushuaia. I'll be landing there in about half an hour, round about the time my scheduled flight will depart from Buenos Aires. So I'll have more time to get organised in Ushuaia.

The flight down is quite long, about 4 hours. The plane is half empty, so it is fairly quiet, no crowding. The landscape doesn't change much for the first few hours, You are either above huge stretches of green and brown fields, Patagonia, with just the odd inhabited spot, or you are above the South Atlantic ocean, huge stretches of blue with just the islands of clouds white above it. When I start to see mountains I will know we are almost there. And I might get a glimpse of Europa in port.

To Buenos Aires

To me it remains something of a miracle. You move from one environment to the other, from one extreme to the other.

It all starts at Schiphol, where I had someone to see me off this time, an unexpected bit of company, which was nice. Then you go through customs, and you end up in this sterile environment of the airport. It's all clean, commercial, and the same as at any other airport. You have all these shops, people bored enough to go into them and spend money. I needed to get a battery for my alarm clock, thinking this would be the place to get it, but I was wrong. Not that one.

Then you move on to the gate. Everybody tries to get through first, not sure why. Then it always is a miracle how so many people get to fit into such a relatively small plane. I'm always worried I carry too much hand luggage, but I stop worrying when I see other people get onto the plane. I now have one of those camera rucksacks, and my handluggage weighed just two kilos less than my regular luggage... My excuse is that I'm carrying stuff for the ship and for Lex too.

The first flight was terrible. It was hot in the plane, and stuffy, and several times it all went black before my eyes. If I hadn't been strapped down I would have ended up on the floor. I was glad to arrive at Madrid and get a big bottle of water. That revived me a little.

From that moment on my biological clock went haywire. The flight to Buenos Aires left at about 1.45, then we had dinner, a nice vegetarian pasta. You initially fly over a huge sea of light, it seems like all of Spain is a built-up area.

I went to sleep pretty quickly, and slept through most of the night, fortunately. Then a hurried breakfast, yes, of course pork is vegetarian.... Flying over Uruguay makes you aware that this is a huge empty green space. Not such a sea of light or buildings.

Then you are in Buenos Aires, where it fortunately is not too hot today. Only about 22 C. A difference of over 20 C with the Netherlands, but it could have been a lot more. This is okay, especially when you get the odd breeze. The thing I noticed more than anything is the light. It is so bright, so different from the light in Amsterdam over the past few days, when it was continually dark and grey.

It was good to take a shower this morning, the first thing I did when I arrived here. Then I reorganised myself, grabbed a couple of hours of sleep during the hottest part of the day before heading into town.

I like this city because it feels so alive. So many elegant people, so much movement. On the other hand, wandering round here makes you wonder why Amsterdam thinks she has a problem with air pollution. It doesn't really smell that nice here. I went round to Corrientos and did some shopping at Florida. All sounds pretty exotic.

His Name is Luka

I took AdP to his first ever concert yesterday, he accompanied me to Luka Bloom's concert in Paradiso, and he loved it. He wouldn't let go of my hand throughout really...

I always feel a little stupid at a Luka concert because for most of the time I sit there with this big, inane smile on my face. When he starts certain songs it just starts automatically, there is nothing I can do about it, or would want to do about it for that matter. During some songs I just stay in that mode, but others bring about a different kind of smile, the kind that can very easily change to tears, and that happened a few times too last night.

Over the past few years Lukas has had to adapt his performances to some medical limitations, so he ended up sitting down during the concert and concentrating on the quieter songs with the Spanish guitar. I love some of those, but it was so good to just have him on his feet again last night, to see him pick up Rudy and give the songs all the passion and the power they have and deserve, and to hear the guitar, those melodies. And so the concert last night was the perfect mixture of the slow and tender, the sad, and the joyous, the powerful. Also a perfect mixture of old and new songs.

I heard before the concert that it would be broadcast live on the internet, and quite a few people I know would be watching. That was a nice thought, to think that people far away would be watching in the comfort of their own homes, maybe sitting down on the couch with a beer. There were a lot of people on my mind, maybe because some of the songs immediately brought about the connection. I thought of Yvette during "I'll Walk Beside You", of Maike during "Exploring the Blue", sad reminders in a way.

At every Luka concert there seem to be different songs that suddenly start to mean something. Last night "See You Soon" hit me. And some songs just always have an effect. When I hear the first bar of "You Couldn't Have Come at a Better Time" I always want to jump up and start to dance. And you do start singing the moment he starts the Sunny Sailor Boy.

The nice thing about Luka is that you get to sing a little yourself too. There are some nice refrains, and in some songs audience participation is a requirement. we got our Sunny Sailor Boy yesterday, but I've missed the Fertile Rock for a few years now. Meanwhile Luka seems to have added a few more, and some just invite singing along. AdP doesn't really mind, he liked it all. Didn't really sing along though. Strange chap....

Hallucinations

Someone I know suffers from hallucinations, he often sees things that aren't there. A trick of the eyes, or probably of the brain. It must be very disconcerting to see things that aren't really there.

My own eyes can play tricks on me too, like today, in the swimming pool. I had just gotten out of the water, and was walking along the side, when three women in the water were coming towards me. One woman in front, one to her left, one to her right, just behind her. They were fairly large women, moving slowly but surely through the water. And suddenly I had this vision of three cowboys heading in for a confrontation, I could hear Ennio Morricone's music in the background. It was quite frightening.

Ramses

75 today!

Dinner and Floor Show

I went to a small restaurant on a canal close to my house. I'd seen it before, passing it on my way to the supermarket, but I'd never eaten there. It's a strange mix of Argentine and Italian food, which really means lots of steak, pizza and pasta. It all started pretty well, some guests already there, but not too many. We got the menu quickly enough, and our food. We wanted pizza, and it tasted very well.

We were seated close to the bar, the centre of operations. Three members of staff were there, a man and two girls. I think one of the girls was quite new as she still had to ask many questions on what to do and where to find things. As the evening wore on the restaurant got more quiet and it felt like the three didn't have that much to do anymore. One of them had her own dinner, the other two dealt with orders coming in over the phone. That was quite a challenge, with the supply of Fanta running out while that appeared to be the favourite for the evening. One of the delivery men came back in, looking for a parcel, but found it incomplete. The staff all claimed to have nothing to do with the order.

We got our coffees on time, but had to wait a while for the apple pie. We saw it coming past a few times, being taken from one end of the restaurant to the other, after the manager had explained they had forgotten about that. Intriguing. Well, it tasted pretty good in the end. And it really was quite funny...

I Went to a Marvellous Party

Sometimes things don't go quite as planned, but that needn't make them less fun. Take last night.

It was a good day yesterday, nice and sunny, a lovely day to be outside. And I was going to be outside in the evening, attending a birthday party at the open air theatre in the Amsterdamse Bos. So it all looked pretty good. I made a tzatziki, got some Turkish bread and I was all ready for it. I was due to leave my house at 18.30, but about half an hour before, it got a little grey outside. And then a little greyer. And a little greyer. When I left there was a slight drizzle, but nothing to worry about, and I got to my friend's house more or less dry. Then as we were packing everything for the picknick it started to rain. So we waited a few minutes, until it seemed to be getting dry again. We got our bikes and cycled down to the park. Somewhere along the way it started to rain again, and it was pretty wet when we got to the theatre. And so were we.

We had to wait for some other guests so we took shelter under the trees. That is where we ended up having our picknick, standing around, waiting for the rain to stop. We drank our prossecco, had Turkish bread with cheese, egg salad and tzatziki, and enjoyed the salads. It took a bit of juggling at times, but it all tasted great. The rain didn't stop, but people did turn up for the performance. And some people left again.


Then it was time for the play to start, and it was still raining. I was wearing my weather-proof gear, so I didn't mind all that much. At least it wasn't cold. We had our dessert in the rain, tiramusa and coffee from proper cups. The actors were on stage deciding whether or not to get on with the show. In the end they decided to go ahead, and they started in the rain. At one point they had to stop the show for about ten minutes because it was just too wet. After that it got much better though, and towards the end of the performance it was dry. It was a good production, and I'm glad we got to see all of it. We cycled home around midnight, still a little damp, but not too bothered. Marvellous party really.

Hydra

Seeing Leonard Cohen in concert took me back to a holiday some 12 years ago, when I first got close to the man. More or less. To a moment when I learned something more about him and the way he lived.

I went to Greece for a spring holiday, and it was a mixed trip in many ways. I started off in the north, and went skiing for a day near the Yugoslav border. Then down to Mount Olympus, home of the gods, only to get rained off again. At my next destination, Meteora, the weather was lovely, and I visited the monasteries in the sunshine. Further south I stood in the pouring rain in Delphi, watching Hillary Clintons motorcade drive past. And then it was time for some real sunshine, on a Greek island. Hydra seemed the obvious choice. Not too far from Athens, and Leonard Cohen used to live there.

Once on the island, after finding a place to stay and something to eat, it was time to try and find the Cohen house. I asked a few people but no luck. "Somewhere up there" was as far as I got. So I walked a little way up the mountain, until I met someone who did know and who could point me in the right direction. Close to the house the lady who walked up with us introduced us to the lady looking after the house. I looked at the walls, the trees above, the windows and the wires. It wasn't possible to go inside the house, but the lady said that if we came back the next day we could just have a look in the garden if we wanted to.


The next morning we walked back up to the house, where the old lady was already waiting for us. We went into the garden, which was a lovely, quiet corner with some lemon trees. We got to taste the lemons. The lady ended up changing her mind and she showed us something of the house as well. It was a strange experience to be in that small house. It was light, sparsely furnished and spacious. It still looked lived in, because of all the personal items, the photographs, the books, some children's toys, the old guitar. I saw the room where Marianne was photographed, the drawers of the desk that were full of fan letters. I wouldn't mind living in this house.

After visiting the house the lady invited us to her own house for a drink, and we met her husband and her mother. She was a very kind lady, who seemed to enjoy the interest in her Mr Leonard Cohen, and she was proud to be working for him. It was a special day, and a special meeting.

Little Things

Sometimes it's the little things that make all the difference. I really thought I was getting old. Cycling into work, home or anywhere else for that matter, took such an effort. After about ten minutes pedalling my muscles started to ache, I couldn't really go very fast, I could hardly get up into top gear. It felt weird, I think I am quite fit really, but my cycling was proving me wrong.

Then there was a plan to make a cycle tour of some 90 kilometres, and I didn't quite know what to do about that. I mean, if 20 minutes to work was a problem, how was I going to do that? I had noticed, however, that the seat of my bike was a little low, and so were the handlebars. When I was cycling I couldn't quite stretch my legs, but I could just about make my knees touch my nose. So I thought the least I could do was get the seat and the handlebars adjusted. And I did.

And now suddenly, I find myself going at full speed again, I can cycle in top gear, and I can reach my office without aching muscles. I even managed my long cycle tour without any major problems. It was the bike all along, nothing to do with me. And it took me about four months to come up with that idea.

23 July 1911

During the Terra Nova expedition to the Antarctic, Edward Wilson travelled with his two companions Apsley Cherry Garrard and Birdie Bowers to a distant Emperor Penguin Colony to collect eggs. It was winter in the Antarctic, it was dark throughout the day and night, and the weather was atrocious. The journey became known as "The Worst Journey in the World". On 23 July Wilson celebrated his 39th and last birthday, he died with Scott and Bowers at the end of March the following year on his way back from the South Pole.

From Wilson's diary:

"Sixth Sunday after Trinity and quite the funniest birthday I have ever spent. The wind was terrific. It blew almost continuously with storm force - there were slight lulls occasionally followed by squalls of very great violence, and at about noon the canvas roof of the hut carried away and we were left lying exposed in our sleeping bags without a tent or a roof. The storm continued all day with unabated vigour. There was no choice for us now - we had decided this before in the event of our roof being blown off - we had to remain lying there in our bags till the blizzard stopped. We had had two days of it, but here at Cape Crozier Royds in 1902 was laid up with his party for 5 days - and I with mine for 8 days out of 11. So we could only hope that this was not going to continue quite so long. If it did our best chance was to allow the snow drift to cover us up, which it was doing already, in order that we might at any rate keep warm. We could always eat biscuit and cold pemmican in our bags and we all had biscuits in our pockets.

When the roof went Birdie and I were both out of our bags, for we were trying to stop the flap and the chafe of the canvas which began when the snow blocks were blown off the roof. The weakest spot was where the door came, but we had anchored it with very large stones. These stones the wind acting on the canvas joggled about like so much gravel and they gradually shifted out of place. We did all we could to jam them tight, but to no purpose, for while we were still at it the canvas ripped out all along the lee end of the hut with a noise lika a battery of guns going off. In a second the canvas was ripped in about 10 places and it flapped to bits from end to end in a few minutes - leaving a ragged, flapping end attached to the weather wall which then went on bang, bang, banging for hours till the wind eventually dropped. The noise was most distressing, and we hardly noticed the rocks that fell in, or that the sledge was at once flapped off and fell in also across our three bags. We were at once in a perfect smother of drift when the canvas carried away, and Birdie and I bolted our bags taking an enormous amount of snow in with our clothes to thaw out at leisure. We were not really so much disturbed as we might have thought, and we had time to think out a plan for getting home again now without our tent - in case we couldn't find it - and without the canvas roof of the hut which had gone down wind in shreds the size of a pocket handkerchief. We still had the floor cloth of the tent, and this we were lying on so it couldn't blow away. We could build a snow hut each night on the way home and put this over the top; or we could always dig a burrow in the Barrier big enough for the 3 of us, and make a very good roof with canvas flush with the surface - if there was wind it couldn't then be blown away. We had no doubts about getting back so long as this blizzard didn't last till we were all stiffened with the cold in our bags. The storm continued all day and on until midnight unabated."

Cohen Revisited

After the concert in Bruges last Thursday I wasn't too sure about the Amsterdam concert, I guess. I mean, Bruges was a lovely concert, would the second time be as good, or would it be a little disappointing? Well, it was different and the same, and I probably enjoyed this one even more.

The venue was the Westerpark. I never attended a concert there before, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect, how big the venue was, how big the stage. It was a little bigger than Bruges, and a little less intimate. The stage was bigger and higher, and there were no trees lining the area where the audience stood. It was altogether a little bigger and more open.

Getting in was different too, not quite as easy going as it was among the Belgians. No orderly queue, but a row of entrances, which meant a little pushing and shoving. I arrived at the venue early though, so I was in fairly quickly. And I managed to get a little closer to the stage than I was in Bruges. Combined with the stage being a little higher I got to see a little more. There are times I wish I was about 15 cm taller though...

The mood among the crowd was good from the start. Being so far to the front means being among the real fans. A lady close to me was virtually jumping up and down like a schoolgirl. And screaming like one. I mean, I know the man is extremely charming, but still...

No opening act this time, so Leonard started just after 19.30, when it was still completely light, and this meant it didn't get dark until virtually the end of the concert. It was a little cloudy at times, but the sun came out a few times to light up the audience. The only rain we got was when Leonard sang "So Long, Marianne", and it seemed to fit the lines: "And just when I climbed this whole mountainside,
to wash my eyelids in the rain!"

The set was the same as in Bruges, it sounded even more familiar now. The jokes sounded new, and sincere. Mr. Cohen is a wonderful performer and he made the audience feel special. He seemed a little more cheerful than he was in Belgium, smiling a little more. Being a little more aware of what to expect made me more attentive and gave me a chance to listen a little better than in Bruges. I was amazed at one point to find it was time for the interval when I thought the concert had just started. The voice, the songs and the person of Leonard Cohen just kept the attention and made time fly. He was as gracious as he was on Thursday, towards the audience and towards his band. And he was gracious enough to share the meaning of life with his Amsterdam audience too. And I think he really has found it.

The audience was different from the Belgian audience, even though it turned out after the concert I had been standing almost next to two Belgian women who came to Amsterdam because Bruges was sold out. It was quite an international audience, I was close to a woman from Austria and her daughter, to an Italian couple and some
Scandinavians. Plenty of Dutch there too, talking and singing along. The man next to me was a fan of many years, with a loud voice who obviously enjoyed singing along. He couldn't quite carry a tune though, and he didn't know all the lyrics. Another man kept the home front informed, holding his phone above his head during several songs. Again, lots of cameras and phones. This time people were actually talking on the phone during the concert. And so close to the stage.

Towards the end Cohen picked up a single red rose that had been thrown onto the stage, and then went on to pick up an indefinable blue soft toy, which obviously amused him as he kept looking at it. It was a lovely moment on a lovely evening.

The Man is Here

I was in Bruges to see Leonard Cohen in concert. I'm still trying to recover from the experience, I was more impressed than I had expected. The man played for about three hours, sang many favourites, and was in good voice. He is 73 now, but he didn't seem to get tired at all, he stayed on his feet the whole time.

A while ago I checked his website, something I don't do all that often, but it then turned out tickets for a concert tour would be going on sale shortly after. I couldn't believe my eyes, I hadn't expected him to start touring again. And when I read about the concert there was a little doubt too. I have been listening to the man's music for a while now, and it might be hard to live up to expectations. Reading the first reviews in June, hearing and seeing songs through the net I had a feeling I wouldn't be disappointed though.

So I travelled down to Bruges, where he was to play in the park at the Lake of Love, the Minnewaterpark. The kind of venue he seems to belong. I got there round about the time the gates were due to open, but we had to wait a little while to get in. We didn't get bored though, a few nice rain showers to keep us occupied. It did dry up though, and it was quite nice by the time we all got in. During Martha Wainwright's performance there was one more shower, but it all ended with a lovely rainbow, and that was the end of the rain for the evening.

It was a nicely mixed audience, a lot of long time fans and a lot of young people. For a while I was standing quite close to a drunk fan who decided to attract a little attention, by shouting lines from the songs. Cohen took it all in his stride, and when the fan ended Cohens spoken introduction to Anthem by adding the last line, "that's how the light gets in", Cohen responded with perfect timing "precisely".

The stage was positioned near the edge of the park, quite close to a few houses. People living there enjoyed the concert from the comfort of their own home. Must be a nice way. Then again, you don't get to chose what music is played in your backyard. The windows remained open though, and people were there, so they must have enjoyed this one. And the wonderful thing about an outdoor concert in the summer is that you can see the Swifts circling high above the stage and the audience, and here you could see bats flying past the side of the stage.

I stood for three hours watching this man and his band, but it didn't seem half as long. Cohen sang many of his well-known songs, with his deep, moving voice, was very graceful in every respect. He is a professional, he knows how to give the audience what they want. There is some light humour, great gentleness and presence, commitment, and a great deal of charm. His eyes are hidden under his hat for much of the concert, but he does take the hat off so his eyes catch the light.

The concert was an important one, because Cohen discovered the meaning of life, and he graciously shared this knowledge with us. And I guess, maybe, in the end, life really is very simple....

The best news of all, I am about to get my things together to go and see him again tonight, right here in my home town!

Deception

Sometimes your eyes really do deceive you. I was in a meeting at work, and there were some small bottles of soft drinks on the table. From the corner of my eye I could see one of my colleagues pick up a bottle of coke. He started to shake it and then opened it. I was waiting for the coke to come streaming out, without really thinking, but there was nothing. He had picked up a bottle of orange juice that had been standing just behind the other bottle. So you can't really trust your own eyes after all.

Marlies

I like the designs of Marlies Dekkers. Her designs are simple, no frills, no bows or little flowers, they are strong and stylish. They also seem to have the right fit and they are nice to wear. It feels like they were made with great care and that shows somehow.

She has been in the business for 15 years now, and so she was given an exhibition at the Kunsthal in Rotterdam. It wasn't just about her designs, but also about the art that provided and provide her with the inspiration for her designs. Pieces by Mondriaan, Egon Schiele, Yves Klein and John de Andrea. The exhibition is nicely balanced. Lots of colour in some places, a lot of black in others. And it has a touch of the bizarre. Like Marlies' work. It gave a good impression of all her work.

I'm still not sure this work really belongs in a place like the Art Hall, but then again, you see all kinds of things in there. The Rijksmuseum bought the dress she became famous with, and this is very much design of our time. So I guess it's worth seeing as well as wearing....

Famous Last Words

Well, no more orange in the streets, it's all over.... I blame that supermarket that ran out of little orange lion cubs to give away just before this last game.

The Orange Epidemic

Just before a major international football tournament there is a certain atmosphere in the country. A small part of the population has absolute faith in "our boys" and starts to decorate house and street until all is completely orange. Weeks in advance the decorating starts and plans are made. Big screens out in the street, barrels of beer, the party is planned. Then you get the cynics, the ones who are sure that we'll be out first round, not a hope of winning anything. And they will not get carried away, they make an effort of ignoring the orange around them, they are way above such madness. And then there is the small group who is genuinely not interested, who really don't know when the games are, have no idea which other teams take part.

Then there is the commercial side, all the orange goodies that are given away for free by supermarkets, certain brands of beer, and other shops and companies. One supermarket gives out a kind of subbuteo dolls of all the players, yes, you can collect the whole side. The national lottery hands out cards of all the players. Another supermarket hands out plastic lion cubs with orange manes. It means that I had to avoid spending over 15 Euros there, for fear of ending up with one. I hear they've run out now. Another shop sells great roaring lion shirts, orange, of course. And this is a great time for ships selling big screen televisions. It is quite amazing to think about, really. Grown men and women must start thinking all this up way in advance. They need to decide what to do, get designers in to do the drawing, order everything from China. Lots of men in suits discussing little plastic toys to give away.



If you believe what you see on the news and television commercials the whole country is dressed in orange now and we have all decorated our houses. If you go out on the streets, at least here in Amsterdam, it isn't quite like that yet.

As the tournament progresses, if things go well, however, the party faction gains support and momentum. The cynics slowly get into the party mood, they start watching the games. Suddenly they also talk about "our boys". And the sea of orange gradually spreads across the country. Where last week you saw just a few orange flags outside the cafes, you already see a little more now. And as the tournament progresses that will increase. If the team keeps winning, of course.



The Dutch team won the European championship in 1988, and the whole country went mad. The team's reception in Amsterdam, and their tour around the canals meant a lot of damaged houseboats, some even sank. The best commercial I've seen about the championship so far is one where you see a couple sitting on their couch watching Holland win the final. You can see the fear in their eyes, as the camera slowly moves back and shows them through the window of their houseboat.

The Age of Satire Isn't Dead

In 1729 century the Irish writer Jonathan Swift published "A Modest Proposal". It was his simple and straightforward solution to the poverty and hunger in his country and the great surplus of children.

Supposedly written by a cattle breeder, the piece advocates the rearing of young children until the age of one, when they can be sold for food to the rich of the country. The writer can see only advantages to the scheme, good food for the rich, income for the poor, and no growing up in misery for the children. Reading it it almost makes sense. If you just stop thinking for a minute it all sounds logical. The piece is so well-written, it talks about the wrongs and injustices, but makes those an excuse for this modest proposal. The poor are miserable enough anyway, no hope of improvement, so why not? That is the reasoning behind the proposal.

The theme is picked up again, brilliantly, by the Yes Men. They are a small group whose mission it is to debunk some of the attitudes alive in the world today in the same way Swift did. They simply take these ideas and attitudes to their logical conclusion, describe them in different words, making good use of today's veiled business language, and, for example, advocate a modern variation on slavery.

The Yes Men don't disguise themselves as cattle breeders, but they put on a nice suit and become businessmen, representing major organisations and companies. They seem to have very little trouble getting themselves invited to a conference as representatives of the World Trade Organisation. They then come up with a presentation that takes global business views to the extreme. They know the form and the language, and they seem to get away with it.

I watched a documentary on their work the other night, and was both surprised and not surprised. Their so obviously ridiculous suggestions were taken seriously, and no other participant questioned their words or motives. When one of the Yes Man came up with the idea of enforced labour in third world countries, as in people working long hours for very little money under atrocious circumstances with the rich countries not taking any responsibility for what is happening. And if you leave them in their own countries you can put the children to work too. It is better and cheaper than importing slave labour.

The only audience that did come up with questions and that did point out the immorality of it all was an audience of students. Then again, the story told to this audience, the recycling of hamburgers to feed the third world really was too gross.

Sometimes there is a very thin line with what we have come to regard as normal, and what is so obviously wrong and unethical. We are slow learners.

Chairman Humph

I'm a great fan of English radio comedy, I think I've mentioned this before. One of the shows that can really make me laugh is "I'm Sorry I haven't a Clue". It is a weird mixture of the absurd, the obscene, and the silly. It is a panel game, but the rules are impossible, if there are any at all, and seem to change all the time. It can make me cringe and it can make me laugh out loud when I'm on my own. There also is a warmth about the programme, because at heart it has the feel of a group of friends getting together to have fun. More or less the same team created the programme for over 35 years, and managed to keep it funny and fresh.

Chairman Humph died a little while ago and I've been listening to the tributes people paid him. He played the part of the grumpy chairman, reading out his lines in a serious voice, pretending he wished he was somewhere else. He was in his eighties, but he sounded wonderful, full of humour, and very gentle. Listening to the tribute programmes means I now know a little more about him, and that has only made me like him more. I can't quite imagine the programme without him. Who else could possible explain the rules to "One song to the tune of another", quite so clearly and succinctly. Or be able to make the contestants stick to the rules of Mornington
Crescent so rigourously. And you have to admire a man, a very good professional musician, who can sit through Jeremy Hardy's singing week after week....

(Un)Easy Neighbours

I've been listening to the brother Cadfael stories on BBC 7 and to the stories of Father Baldi. All related to the monastic life. And then suddenly last weekend I found myself at an abbey, run by Norbertines. Walking through the grounds I almost recognized it all, and the place reminded me very much of Cadfael. I can imagine what it would be like to be here on a quiet day, and I can imagine what the place must have been like once.



At the same time this was a strange place, though. I was there on a Sunday, and found the Abbey shop open for business. You could buy bread there, cheese and medicinal herbs. The abbey is located in a very nice area in Belgium close to the Dutch border so on Sunday a lot of people from Belgium and the Netherlands drive down there for a walk. And where people go for a walk you need to provide refreshments and food. So just across the road from the abbey there is a small collection of the more traditional fast food stands, Belgian "frietkotten" (chip shops). A strange mixture.

Alpha

I am a proper Alpha person, as in into languages and the arts, not so much into science. I know about Shakespeare and Dickens, about Millais and Rossetti, but not much about the Palaeozoic. I'm trying to put that right, so now I'm reading about rocks, fossils and other ancients. I find it can be pretty hard going at times. Yes, I like history, but I've always read about the bits with people in, not about rocks, little animals and tiny plants. Or big plates sliding across the surface of the earth, moving all of us about at the speed of a fingernail growing. It is fascinating though, and as I read more about it, I understand it just a little better and I enjoy finding out more. It can be hard going though, because this requires a different way of thinking, really. You need to understand, and know how it all works. I had to read up on plate tectonics in various sources to get the idea, and I have the same with the formation of rocks. So many details and so much to remember. I'll get there, though, in the end. And we are definitely talking different time scales here....

A Change of Perspective

Somebody somewhere has decided that my backyard needs work, so it has been made almost inaccessible from the street where I live. I'm sure there is a reason for making a big city park difficult to enter for a whole summer, I just don't like it very much. I wanted to go on a picknick in the park with some friends last night, but considering the logistical difficulties we decided to go and have dinner up on the roof instead.



The roof on my house is lovely and flat, well-suited to a picknick really. Nice and quiet. From up there you get a different view of the city. You see the top of the trees in the park, the Zuidas in the distance, the city centre to the other side. If you walk on a little you get a different perspective of your own house and your own street.




I like being up on my roof...

A Grand Day Out

It was a lovely day today, maybe a little grey, but lovely and warm, perfect for cycling. So I cycled out of the city, to the south, to have a look round the polders there. More people had the idea to go cycling, and I ended up in some big flocks of cyclists at various stretches. There was a special tour around the villages in the area.

I ended up at the Waverhoek, a small new nature reserve. You can walk round it in about half an hour, I took a lot longer, as usual, just wandering round checking out all the birds. Some of my favourites there, the Avocets, the Lapwings and the Godwits. Avocets are some of the most graceful birds I know, very stylish in black and white. long legs, and the upturned bill. I also got to see some birds I hadn't seen for quite a while, Black Terns. Their nesting sites are near this area, and they were foraging. Terns are such graceful birds always, fast flyers, very beautiful.

Days like these always remind me of the fact that I need to get out more.

More Moore

I went to see the great man again when he played in Amsterdam. He was back in the Carré theatre, the same venue he played last year. This time I had a seat quite close to the stage, right in the middle of row 6. So a good view of the man and of Declan. He was in good voice, and sang some of his most beautiful songs again. "Bright Blue Rose" got to me this time, and Declan singing "I Will". Christy sang "Joxer", one of those funny story songs you can hear over and over again. I guess to a Dutch audience not all the reference will be all that familiar, but I love the images, and they do work.

There were some technical problems, men walking to and fro carrying guitars on and off the stage, which didn't really help. I think it made Christy a little uncomfortable, and you could feel that throughout the concert, he never seemed to feel completely at ease. He promised a jukebox early on in the concert, but he never quite got round to that. He did pick up the Bodhran at some point, to play "Well Below the Valley", something he doesn't always do either.

I was a little distracted by the audience at times. To my right were a couple of real fans, singing along to every song, swaying on their seats. And right in front of me a lady spent a lot of time taking pictures, both with her camera and with her mobile phone, sending the pictures to friends straightaway. The little lights and beeps were a little distracting. I wonder if she really enjoyed the concert....

Development

For a while I worked on a project developing a new residential area to the east of the city. When I started on the project it was all still water apart from a small experimental island. The island at the time was home to a colony of Gulls and Terns, my kind of island really. Then slowly, other things started to appear. More land, bigger islands, bridges, roads, houses, a popular city beach, schools, restaurants, shops. I was back there the other day, cycling around, and I was surprised. The area has become a real city, a place where I could find a bottle of rose to bring along to the friend I was about to have dinner with. The big square I just knew from all the drawings and designs was suddenly there, children playing in the playground. And it looked really nice.

Then I went on to the park next to the development, now a good place to go cycling or walking. And I cycled across the new bridge, built especially for cyclists. It is a beautiful bridge, it looks lovely and light, and it is easy to cycle across. But it still is strange to think that some ten years ago this was all still water...

Ophelia Was Here

Years ago I went to see her in London, I travelled to the great Tate to see her, and was impressed. This mythical lady, Hamlet's beloved, sent to a nunnery and drowned. I went back to see her several times, and when last year her creator was granted an exhibition at that same Tate I went back again. It turned out to be a long walk from where I was at the time, but I went to see her. And discovered and rediscovered some of Millais' other great paintings. I met Louise Jopling. And I got to see Mariana again, standing at the window in this stunning blue dress. Only when you see the painting do you realise just how blue it is.

They all came to my city, and I got to see Ophelia, Mariana and Louise again here. It was nice of them to come and see me for a change...

Mysteries and the Limitations of the Web

It sometimes feels as if you can find just about everything through the internet. You just type in the right word or phrase and there it is. And sometimes it does work. You find the things you least expect to find in more detail than you thought was possible. I am forever reading and learning about the Antarctic, and I cannot keep up with the material I find.

But then sometimes you think you must be able to find the information you want, and it just isn't there. You get so used to being able to find out about everything, that you get surprised if you type your next query, and there is nothing. Or nothing that actually gives you the information you want. Suddenly you have to go back to a book, to a real library, and if you don't live in the right place you may have to wait for a while to be able to find out what you want to know. I'll have to wait a little to be able to pursue my quests. Or can somebody out there tell me about Black Patie and the women in his life?

Logic and Philosphy

I was watching this programme where police chase drivers who drive dangerously or much too fast. One man who was stopped had the following to say:

Policeman: "What is the reason you are speeding?"
Car driver: "I need to get to a petrol station, my tank is almost empty."

Now, I have a colleague, and this might have been his reasoning. His philosopy is, that the slower you ride your bicycle, the longer the distance you have to cover. We get on very well. We both understand that if you get to work a little late you can leave early...

Patterns

I was out cycling in the countryside to the north of Amsterdam today, wearing my sandals. I used sunblock on my arms and face, but not on my feet, so they now have a lovely new pattern.

Acrobatic Swifts

They were foraging outside my office window again today. I'm a little higher than most of the buildings in the area so I get a good view of the sky over the city. There were three Swifts close to my office again, like there were last year, apparently chasing each other, but really chasing insects. They fly at great speed and are just so incredibly agile, it's hard not to keep getting distracted by all of this going on just outside my window.

And then when I was on my way home they were way overhead, high in the bright blue sky. No clouds, just blue and those silhouettes.

Girl from New Jersey

Last week I went to see Nicole Atkins in concert. I didn't really know her very well, I heard her new, and first, album on the Luisterpaal. Great website for people like me who don't often listen to the radio but who are interested in discovering new music. Without the Luisterpaal I probably wouldn't have discovered Bright Eyes, Eleni Mandell or Mondo Leone, three firm favourites now.

Anyway, Nicole played with her band in a small venue quite close to Amsterdam Central Station. Just a small hall, bar in the corner, balcony, table at the side to sell t-shirts and cds after the concert. The stage was just big enough for Nicole and her five musicians. The band did not just consist of base, guitar and drums, but also included violin and keyboard.

I got there quite early, so I had a good view of the stage, I was about one step away from it. The only person in front of me was a lady photographer, who was quite small. Standing so close to the stage I also ended up right next to one of the speakers, which meant that once the music started I could not only hear it, but I could feel it. The base sound was literally thrilling, and it affected my legs as much as my ears. The legs of my jeans were moving about, so to speak.

Nicole is a singer from New Jersey and she has managed to create her own sound and style while reminding you very much of the music of the sixties, especially of the girl groups. If you check her out on YouTube you will find her singing some original girl groups songs. And she does very well. But she generally writes her own songs, and they are good. They stick in your head and keep popping up. It's phrases, both words and music that seem to keep coming back.

Someone in the audience made some short videos and put them on Youtube:
Together We're Both Alone
The Way It Is

And there are two more. They don't quite catch the strength of the live show, but they give some idea. She's coming back to Amsterdam in July, so I have another concert to look forward to.

After the Party

To my utter amazement I managed to cycle to work and back today without getting a puncture. Considering all the broken glass in the streets and in the park after all the festivities that can be called a minor miracle.

Happy Shopping

I was out shopping at my local supermarket earlier today and for some strange reason I suddenly felt blissfully happy. I can think of no real idea why. There were no special sales I was interested in, they were out of rice and cream crackers, the shop was very busy, so there was absolutely no reason. Or maybe it all started earlier, when I saw the flag in the street, out to celebrate Liberation Day. Or those cheerful flags on the tram. Or maybe it was just the sunshine and all the bright summer clothes everywhere. Or maybe it was the man I saw in his summer shorts there, who looked very happy, that might have been contagious.

And then I turned into observer mode, always an easy thing to do in a supermarket. It's a place where you need to go even though it is not a place you want to be. At the check out, just as I had finished putting my shopping up, ready to be taken to the cashier, a man stood behind me who was probably in a hurry and he needed to put all his shopping up there too. Straightaway. There wasn't much room, but he did make a start, pushing me aside in the process. The people just in front of me took a long time organising their change, using their debit card, so we had to wait a while, and this man behind me was very carefully stacking as much as he could on what little space there was, reorganising it all to fit more on. And of course, after a few minutes all my stuff started to move, and there was a lot of space, more than he could possibly need. And we all had to wait anyway, so I was wondering what the point of the rush and the stacking was. All part of modern life, I guess.

After my exciting trip to the supermarket I treated myself to a short visit to a second-hand bookshop just round the corner, one of the few here in Amsterdam I had never visited before. It was one of those shops that isn't really a shop, doesn't feel or like a shop, but where they do sell books. An elderly man was carrying some boxes outside, then took a seat in the sun with his newspaper to recover from this strenuous work. He was explaining to an acquaintance that he would be working on the shop sometime, to try and organise the stock, but today he just intended to enjoy the sunshine. When I walked into the shop my fingers started to itch. Piles, boxes of books, all in complete disarray, just screaming out to be organised, and a lot of empty and half empty shelves. And one of my life's passions, my therapy, is organising books on shelves. I had to muster all my self-restraint not to start organising there and then. I found a big pile of National Geographic Magazines in the corner, which I went through, trying to complete my Antarctic collection, and I ended up buying two. And I left them all nicely organised on three small shelves. They looked very nice like that. No cash register in the shop, of course, so I just paid the old man sitting outside in the sun. Just for a moment I was tempted to volunteer my services, but then I remembered my own bookcases. And I can't deprive that nice old man of the joy of reorganising his own bookshelves, that would be too cruel.

Antarctic Attitudes

I fall for it every time. I read a book written by one of the Antarctic explorers, and then they mention seals and penguins, and their joy at encountering the animals. I know how that feels, I think, because I've felt that joy. I know what it is like to land on Aitcho Island and be welcomed by a huge crowd or Gentoo and Chinstrap Penguins carelessly ignoring you and going about their own business, raising their young. I've sailed into the Lemaire Channel, with the Mate navigating through the ice, full of Leopard Seals, and half the people on the ship standing on deck filming or taking pictures. I've enjoyed the sight of seeing Skuas and Giant Petrels flying high above my head, inspecting the penguin colonies. I mean, what can you do apart from just stand there and be amazed by the sight.

Well, you can do what Scott, Amundsen, Shackleton and all the others did. They may have enjoyed the sight of a Weddell Seal coming out of a hole in the ice, or the sight of Emperor Penguins heading for their colony, but what they saw was meat. What they did was kill the animals, so they would have the food they needed to survive and not to succumb to scurvy. When I was reading Shackleton's "South" it took me a while to catch on to this, being a vegetarian this is a totally foreign way of thinking to me. It is a bit like my always explaining to people how to get to my house on foot, by bike or by public transport, and not by car. I don't have a car and I wouldn't know how to get around this city in one. But that is something else again.

It is impossible to go back to that way of thinking from where we are now, even though all this happened just around 100 years ago. Nowadays the Antarctic is seen and treated differently from 100 years ago, and none of the people on the ship think of food when they see the animals. Then again, I do get asked about the taste of penguin meat and penguin eggs...

Amundsen was evidently a great fan. I've been reading his diaries of the Belgica expedition, and at the moment they contain little else than descriptions of seals and penguins spotted, killed and eaten. And he talks about the weather a lot. I guess you would do under those circumstances. There just are very few personal thoughts or ideas, and relatively little about other people. This is a man who knows what he wants to achieve, who knows where he wants to go, and who will not be distracted. I've nearly finished this one, and then I will read Frederick Cook's book on the same expedition, and I wonder what idea of the expedition I will get from that.

4 May

It is always spring when we commemorate our dead. When people dressed in black gather in many places in this city and this country to remember those who were killed during the second world war and the wars after there is silence. And that silence is always broken by the birds, singing at the top of their voices in the early evening. It is never this quiet, and you can never hear them better. And somehow they never sound more joyful.

When I visited Auschwitz I was overwhelmed by the atmosphere, knowing about all of the history, but obviously never sensing it so clearly. Looking out over the huge area that was once Birkenau, you feel the complete emptiness and desolation, the enormity of it all. you cannot really even begin to imagine what happened there. The sight renders you speechless and almost numb. Here the Redstarts inhabit one of the pavillions where women used to live, and it was their sound I heard. Again, it was the only sound.

Separate Lives

I've been back from the Antarctic for about two months now, but that feels a little odd. On the one hand it feels like I was there only yesterday, on the other hand it feels like a lifetime ago. And now it looks like I might start preparing for another trip, another season.

Antarctica, and life on board the ship, are always a part of me somehow. In my house there are all the physical reminders, my knitted penguin from Tristan da Cunha, my bottle-opener penguin from Port Lockroy, a Penguin postcard from Vernadsky Base. But it's a way of thinking almost that you don't seem able to leave behind. The views, the openness, the cold. There still is much out there you cannot control, and that you simply have to accept. The weather can still be so bad, that it isn't simply a matter of the wrong kind of clothes, you can be stuck on the ship, unable to land as you might have planned.

It just seems so strange to be in the middle of a big city, surrounded by a lot of stone, where you can't seen further than a few dozen metres most of the time, enjoying the sunshine, and with so many people all around. Sometimes I miss the emptiness, the views, the quiet, the close community on the ship, but here it is nice to have the freedom to go out, see different people, go for a really long walk, go to a museum or even to go shopping. You always have a choice. And I guess that makes life rich, but sometimes it is nice to have the simplicity of no choice.

I feel at home here, this is where I live, but at the same time I know that when I go back on board the ship within a day that will feel like home again. I know the ship, I know many of the people, I know the routines. After four seasons on board that is hardly surprising, but it remains strange to lead two, almost entirely separate, lives.

Welsh Pilgrimage

At University I wrote a paper about Welsh poet R.S. Thomas. He always seemed to be one of those angry old men, a man with a mind of his own, and with little, visible, sense of humour. But if you Google for pictures of him the first few you get are ones of him smiling, and people who knew him well have described him as "warm and humorous". He lived and worked as a priest in Wales, and in some ways had a tough life. He was a man of strong convictions. His poetry is fascinating, a mixture of the lyric and the down to earth, a celebration of natural beauty and a representation of the darkness of everyday life in the Welsh countryside. He wrote some of the most beautiful poems I know, and some keep coming back into my head over and over again.

A few years ago I visited Wales, quite some time after writing the paper, and, even though I still read Thomas and have some of his poems in my mind at odd moments, I didn't initially make the connection about visiting his homeland. Then, at one of my first stops, I met an American priest out on a journey to take pictures of the places related to Thomas. He told me that the church Thomas worked in from 1954 to 1967 was just down the road from the Bed & Breakfast we were staying in. The next morning, on my way to my next destination, I made a short detour to see the church, St Michael's at Eglwysfach. It was a small church right by the roadside, not a very quiet place. It was raining when I was there, and it didn't feel very cheerful. It did suit the man and his work somehow.



From then on the trip became partly about R.S. Thomas though. I moved on to Snowdonia, and from there to Angelsey. I camped at a site near Aberdaron, where Thomas was the vicar from 1967 to 1978, when he retired. He preached at the local church, St Hywyn.



He also preached at a small church two miles down the road, St Maelrhys' Church at Llanfaelrhys. This is a small church built in the middle of nowhere, where Thomas came for quiet meditation too. He found inspiration for one of his most beautiful poems here, he wrote "The View From the Window". Standing inside that church I knew why he would come here.



THE VIEW FROM THE WINDOW

Like a painting it is set before one,
But less brittle, ageless; these colours
Are renewed daily with variations
Of light and distance that no painter
Achieves or suggests. Then there is movement,
Change, as slowly the cloud bruises
Are healed by sunlight, or snow caps
A black mood; but gold at evening
To cheer the heart. All through history
The great brush has not rested,
Nor the paint dried; yet what eye,
Looking coolly, or, as we now,
Through the tears' lenses, ever saw
This work and it was not finished?



Thomas was a birdwatcher too, and he spent a lot of time at the bird observation centre on Bardsey Island. just a short boatride from Aberdaron. Visiting there was a real pleasure too, both because of the birds and because of Thomas. It's the kind of island where I wouldn't mind spending some time, even though it is very small. What I didn't know at the time, but have learned since, is that it is a breeding ground for Manx Shearwaters, who have their burrows in the hills on the island. Sometimes everything just comes together.

Summer, It's Official

Well, today I saw them high in the sky above my house. The Swifts are back, so it is officially summer. The Jays seem to have taken their cue from the Swifts, they are building a nest in the tree opposite my house. They've been busy flying to and fro all morning. They've tried in that tree before but that didn't work out very well. Maybe they will have better luck this time.

Yesterday I was out in the grasslands to the west of the city, and got to see most of our breeding grassland birds. The Godwits, Oystercatchers, Lapwings, Redshanks are all back. I got to see a long Spoonbill, and the Peregrine Falcon at its nest high on a Telecom tower. Beautiful, green days.

Two Worlds

I sometimes think I live in two worlds, the regular one here in Amsterdam, and the other one down south. They are different, but sometimes they mix in unexpected ways. Like today. I walked out the northern exit of Amsterdam Central Station towards the ferry, looked to the right, and saw Fram. The last time I saw Fram she was sailing among the icebergs....

Summer?

I think it's summer again... I have the windows open at the office and in my house, the Storks are up on the nest in the park, people say the Swifts are back, though I haven't seen them myself yet, and there is a lot of garbage in the park when I cycle to work in the morning. And I'm wearing my summer slippers instead of three pairs of socks and the woolly ones...

Archives

I guess the subject of archives isn't necessarily the most exciting, but they can be fun. Today I went to have a look at the new Amsterdam city archive. The archive used to be in a lovely old building on the Amstel, but not quite in the centre of the city. The building used to be the town hall of one of the villages annexed by Amsterdam some time ago. The new building is in the centre of town, in a huge building that used to be the headquarters of one of the country's biggest banks. It was built in the twenties, a huge, dark closed block. It was always something of a fortress, a place in the town centre that was completely inaccessible. And now suddenly, it is open to the public. And you can see that the designers have managed to combine the grandeur of the old bank with the lightness of modern architecture and the demands made by the public.



On the outside the building looks like a huge vault that you cannot easily enter. When it was still a bank that was probably the case. Now it has been opened up a little and there are some windows on the ground floor, which allows you to look in, but which also allows you to look out into the busy street when you are inside.



I guess the real surprise is the inside, where you have high openings and glass ceilings between the different sections of the building, covered by glass roofs, which allow a lot of light in and which open up the building. The inside is modern, light and straightforward, but a lot of the details tell you about the history of the place.



I had a tour of the building some time last year, when the work was still in progress, and had a look round some of the board rooms on the upper floors. Beautiful big rooms, now once again filled with the old furniture. At the time they were still being renovated, and now they are no longer open to the public, so I can only imagine what they look like from the pictures up on the website.



The vaults are accessible and they probably give the best sense of the old building. The doors are massive, but the vault itself is beautifully decorated, with lots of smaller strong rooms leading off it. Many of the details were left intact and can be closely studied. The panel with all the technical controls is off to the side, all the small safety deposit boxes are stacked in the corridors and the smaller rooms. You can just imagine people over the years coming in to deposit or take out their valuables. The sense of history remains here.

Out in the Dunes on an Ordinary Sunday

It's nice to be out in the dunes on a sunny Sunday. In a way. But there are some distractions, it isn't all silence, sunshine and birdsong.

In the morning you are usually accompanied by all the joggers, arriving in their cars and then running some distance in the dunes. Some run by themselves, some with a friend or a co-worker, others run in bigger groups. Many wear the latest gear. Running like this often involves a lot of noise, as it can be a social event as well as a sporting one. As the day grows on you seem to see fewer joggers.



In the course of the day you get different people out there. We get the kilometrists, people who are in the dunes to walk for exercise, who walk at some speed and sometimes forget to look around them. Today at one of the viewpoints, while I was having a look round for birds, a man walked past me without stopping one moment or even looking up. I'm sure he enjoys his walks as much as I enjoy mine in his way, but I really like to take my time and to have a look round. The light was so beautiful today, it seems such a shame not to take time to enjoy all that.

In the afternoon you are joined by the young families, people with young children, on bikes or in pushchairs, the older children wearing their boots. And you get the social walkers, couples, groups of friends, catching up on all the news or xchanging experiences on mortgages or gadgets, or just sharing the latest gossip. Some are really nicely dressed, with nice shoes and Sunday clothes, and without a bag or rucksack. I always carry a lot of stuff as I am walking all day, so I have a rucksack filled with coffee, water, sandwiches, fruit, chocolate, camera. And in the course of a lovely day like today my jacket goes in there as well.



The dunes are a no-go area for dogs, so dog owners take their pets on to the beach. Today there was a meeting of dog owners, a big group of people and animals near the beach pavillion, so it was a little hard to get onto the beach.

On the south side of the dunes you have the race track, providing me with some background noise. It is mainly the sound of engines, but at some point around lunchtime the party sirens started to go off and accompanied me on my walk for about
half an hour. My hearing isn't very good to start with, so it got harder and harder to hear the birds. Those sirens can be very distracting.



And this is the time of year when the place comes alive again, when the new leaves start to appear, you can see the first signs of new berries. So many birds singing everywhere. It isn't too hot, so you can walk all day, and it's warm enough to take a break to sit down somewhere and enjoy the sounds and the views. The Lapwings, Plovers, Stonechats, Finches, Woodlarks and Woodpeckers. The Nightingales are back, and the Cuckoos, though I didn't hear or see those, but it's a nice idea that you might. And then to remember that it's only just over two weeks since we last had snow here....

Collecting

I sat and watched a documentary called "A Bittersweet Temptation" last week on the world of the Kinder Surprise egg. I know about these things, I've seen them around and I've seen them opened and eaten, though I can't remember actually eating one myself. Well, I THOUGHT I knew about these things, but I had no idea. They actually are a way of life for some people, apparently. The little toys and plastic figures inside are collector's items, and some now cost thousands of Euros. There are special meetings and fairs for collectors to meet, swap and buy. I guess in many ways collecting the eggs is like collecting just about everything else. In fact, some aspects of this documentary looked frighteningly familiar. I'm glad to say it wasn't completely recognisable. When one of the women was asked what she would do if she had to choose between her collection and her husband her answer, after a long pause, wasn't quite convincing. This was the same couple that will drive to Germany when a new series first comes out to buy boxes of the things, after carefully selecting the ones that will contain the figurines.

It also reminded me of the craze that hit this country while I was away: smurfs. When I called an English friend who lives in Amsterdam shortly after getting back she told me the country had gone crazy, everybody was collecting smurfs that were free gifts from a supermarket. Apparently 29 million smurfs were manufactured in China, and ten days before the end of the campaign they were all gone. I guess that means that on average every Dutch man, woman and child has two smurfs. There were none in my house until last Saturday, we had missed all this. But then we managed to become average again, my partner brought four smurf into the house. I am, for the moment, proud possessor of the girl smurf and the lazy smurf, he has the big smurf and the pancake smurf. Dividing the foursome was one of those difficult moments in a relationship.

So, Who Got Taken In?

Evolution in progress, as presented by the BBC and
Birdlife International.

Easter 2008

It was an unusual cycle into work this morning. In some ways spring has started. It was bright daylight when I got up at 6.45, and it even looked a little sunny. I saw the storks up on their nest in the park, and heard a lot of other birds along the way. But when I got up there also was snow on the square in front of my house. And I had to cycle carefully and slowly because the roads were white. It wasn't all that cold, but it did all look as unusual as beautiful.

And it's been a mixed day, really. Periods of bright sunshine, and grey periods with a lot of snow falling. As unpredictable as the end of March should be, really.

Support

Sometimes you suddenly find yourself in a new world, a different world, the kind you sort of knew existed but were never involved with. I hurt my leg in December and the wound hasn't healed yet, so when I got back after my trip I went to see the doctor. He told me how to treat the wound, and one thing he told me to do was to get a support stocking for my left leg. So I went to a shop that sells all these aids, walking frames and all that. I'd cycled past it regularly before, not thinking I'd be a customer there anytime soon.

Well, it was different. The lady serving there has probably seen it all and done it all and she is used to dealing with the elderly and all the others who need a little help. She was very decisive and knew exactly how it all worked. I was ushered into a small room, asked to take my sock and shoe off and then to sit down. I was measured from toe to knee, by someone who had obviously done this many times before. She said the stocking had to be made especially for me, so it would have the perfect fit, because my wound really needed to heal quickly. Then she told me to call back in about ten days to make an appointment.

In the end she called me after a week to tell me my stocking was ready. I could come over so I could be shown just how to put it on. I walked over to the shop, had to sit down again and take my sock and shoe off, and then she showed me the stocking and how to put it on. She had a greenish thing that looked like a sock, but only
reaching halfway up my foot. It is supposed to help me put my stocking on. The lady told me to fold it "like a gnome's hat", and that remark knocked me out completely. She proceeded to show me how to put the stocking on in about 30 seconds, and after that I couldn't see what the difficulty was. Then again, I'm not sure I understood
what she was saying. I just put it on every morning and hope I'm doing it the right way. I am sure that I fold my little gnome's hat properly, anyway.

Costanera del Sur

One of the best things about Buenos Aires is a small nature reserve on the bank of the Rio de la Plata, called Costanera del Sur. It's one of those sites that were meant for development, but it didn't quite work out, and the natural world took over while the developers weren't looking. Now it is officially a Ramsar site and it is protected. They say there are some 200 species of birds there, plus the local guinea pigs, amphibians, insects. It is only a walk of a few kilometres, walking all the way round the reserve is 7 kilometres, but you can see a lot on your way so you can easily spend a day there.


The good thing is that you can see a lot of birds throughout the day. Even before you are actually in the reserve you see the first birds, and it may take you some time to get past the information centre. Right next to the small centre is a tree that attracts hummingbirds, or picaflores. You can stand at a couple of metres from the tree and observe the birds without disturbing them, they are just too busy feeding. Then, as you walk further into the reserve, it feels like you have to stop every 20 metres or so, to work out what it is you are hearing or seeing. The local woodpeckers show themselves, a tortoise by the side of the path, Monarch butterflies, lizards quickly crossing from one side of the road to the other. Sometimes we were the ones being observed, for example when a Red-crested Cardinal decided to come up and have a good look at us from among the leaves up in a tree. I was lying in the grass just then, so we had a chance to take a good look at each other. He was very pretty.


We took a walk through the reserve on our first day in the city, in the blazing sunshine, but on the second it was closed in the morning because of the rain. The rain... There was the slightest drizzle, not enough to get anyone wet, but the men at the gate were afraid the paths might get muddy and slippery. We walked along the main road next to the reserve to the other entrance, watching quite a few interesting birds along the way. The Guira Cuckoo was sitting on the wall enclosing the reserve, a Snowy Egret and Wattled Jacana were foraging side by side in a shallow pool just a little further on.


When we got to the other side the guards had probably decided that it wasn't going to rain any harder than it was and we were allowed into the reserve. The paths were perfectly alright, and it turned out to be another good walk. We saw the Pampas Cavy again, always a favourite for any Guinea Pig lover, and the Golden-breasted Flicker. Once again there was the same mix of the familiar and the unfamiliar. The Flicker is obviously a woodpecker, but it doesn't look like our woodpeckers. You can more or less classify the birds you see everywhere, work out what family they belong to, but many are just a little different. The Egrets look like our Egrets though... And then there are the more tropical birds like the Parakeets, the Cardinals, the Hummingbirds and the Kiskadee that make it all very different. Then again, we recognise the sounds the Parakeets make because of the introduced Ring-necked Parakeets we have here in the park. It's all familiar yet confusing.

Buenos Aires

After a long time spent in the cold and wet surroundings of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, it was quite a change to be in Buenos Aires for a few days. A big city, about 30 degrees during the day, sunshine, a lot of people and a lot of cars and buses. A busy and lively city. I liked it. I liked seeing the Casa Rosada, and
thought about Evita there, the way most people do, I guess. I also thought about the mothers who used to stage their protest against all the disappearances there. The square still is the site for peope to protest against the things they don't agree with.



The city consists of wide avenues and narrow streets, with lots of small shops and cafés. The cafés are simply furnished, but the service is good and you can get good food there. The people look elegant, and the place has the southern feel to it, partly because you see children in the streets until quite late. Tango is everywhere, the shows and the tango cafés, the music shops.



Buenos Aires is definitely not a European city, but at the same time in many respects it is. It has a strong southern European feel to it, because of the many European influences that helped shape the city and the nation in the past. And some parts reminded me of the modern European cities. The area around the docks, Puerto Madero, has been redeveloped, it now looks modern and expensive. All the warehouses have been converted into offices, lofts and hotels. It looks very much like the former docks of Amsterdam, London and Liverpool. And it boasts a bridge designed by Santiago Calatrava, the Puente de la Mujer. And then there is a lovely museum ship, which reminds me of some other ship.