« May 2005 | Main | July 2005 »
June 30, 2005
Komkomertijd
Komkommertijd, and just when you've marked out your place on the terrace for the summer and are looking forward to living the full 'freelancer lifestyle' someone spoils all your plans and offers you work! This is not the way it was meant to be!
Posted by Faith at 03:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Beach Babes
Beaches are the new urban accessory in Europe with every self-respecting city sprouting one in the most unlikely of places. Paris on the Seine, Berlin, London....you name them, they all in the past few years have succumbed to the fad for urban beaches. Amsterdam being the smallest of these cities in both area and population has to have four of course.
The other evening BBC-star-Kathy-Clugston and I were due for some Very-Important-Gossip so decided to explore the one closest to us, Strand Zuid at RAI. It is the least 'beachy' in amongst the concrete and glass but this made for a nice juxtaposition, maybe you could even term it 'urban irony'? It was however just a bit too 'beautiful people'. Everyone was trying so hard it hurt to watch and this combined with the fact that the food currently on offer was crap meant we quickly retired to somewhere else to continue sorting out who gets to stay on the christmas-card-lists. Amsterdam Plage looks much more my style.
Posted by Faith at 03:31 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
June 29, 2005
The unmitigated joy of seeing real monkeys
Posted by Faith at 11:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 28, 2005
Bijna een nederlander!
Eindelijk! Ik ben bijna een nederlander! Na negen maanden krijg ik een bericht van de IND dat ze hebben "u verzoek om naturalisatie met een positief advies voorgedragen aan Hare Majesteit de Koningin". Maar ik ben heel bang dat Hare Majesteit het nu een beetje druk heeft! Daarom zeker dat de brief zegt het kan nog steeds even duuren, 8 tot 12 weken.
After nine months I'm ALMOST Dutch! Today I received a letter from the Immigration and Naturalisation Service that my request for Dutch citizenship has been forwarded to the queen with their recommendation for approval. The Queen at the moment is also very busy, what with a new grandchild and all, so this last step can still take between 8 to 12 weeks but at least the end if in sight!
I haven't mentioned this bureaucratic fun-ride before as it is one of those things that doesn't make for good blogging. Dutch bureaucracy can take on proportions that would defy even Kafka's imagination and has been responsible at times for reducing me to hair-tearing, teeth-clenching, fetal-position-rocking combinations of rage and tears.
And as to why I want Dutch citizenship? Well that's another long and very practical story, to do with pensions, children and the flexibility to travel and live and work in both Australia and Europe. Plus, I'll be dammned if I'm ever going to go through the 'inburgering' process again!
Posted by Faith at 02:07 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack
June 27, 2005
Screeching at the animals
We had a very relaxing weekend doing exactly the sorts of things that would have once driven you mad but that parenthood suddenly makes you enjoy. (Its part of that turning-your-brains-to-mush process)Saturday was an 'gezellig' afternoon in IJsselstein for Tanja and Aunt Bianca's birthday, where Jacob got to run around screaming with a flock of four year-olds and cousin Joost.
Sunday was even better with a visit to a childrens zoo with best mates Maro and Dario. Real-live-monkeys and lots of other scream-inducing excitements! Two days living on cookies, chips, ice-cream and assorted juices, all the things his mean mum won't normally give him. Plus he got to be outside nearly all day and with a heap of other children. Jacob's idea of heaven!
Posted by Faith at 02:12 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
June 25, 2005
Sint-Juttemis
Well I've finished Maria Stahlie's Sint-Juttemis. And I loved it! 'Masterful' and 'deft' were the cliches lodged in my brain at the end. Now I have to rush out and buy everything else she has ever written although at the moment I'm not even sure what, if any, that is.
As I was reading it through a fog of Dutch I would really love to hear what anyone else who has read it thought of it. Its a very 'post-modern' novel (as they said in the 90's). I was very conscious of the author throughout, her use of literary devices and her handling of characters and their movement from one 'place' to another, bonds being broken and bonds been formed, both between characters and with the reader. It was this that left me so impressed, just how well managed it all was. In the end I found it un-put-downable, just to find out how on earth she was going to resolve it all without leaving me feeling flat? The ending was, in the end, perfect, the only possible ending it could have had. And the whole thing was perfectly set off with a very restrained and very dry sense of humour that manifested itself mostly through the character of Sophie and that would suddenly have you laughing out loud over one sentence.
At least thats what I thought.
PS. I'm turning into a bessotted fan. I've just found out that Maria Stahlie, or Madeline Tolhuisen as she is actually called, lives here in de Pijp. Where? Where? Where? Luckily she has also plenty of other novels for me to read.
Posted by Faith at 12:04 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
June 24, 2005
Heat wave?
Everyone's talking about the 'heat wave' and its now official, we're having one. Just to prove how relative these things are the Dutch metereologigical bureau defines a heat wave as five days of 25 C or more including three of 30 C. Mild summer weather in some parts, more like a heat ripple than a heat wave. Whatever, its just nice to be warm and dry for a change! Unfortunately it all ends tomorrow and its back to normal transmission. Rain.
Posted by Faith at 03:51 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
June 21, 2005
Windmills of your Mind
One of my favourite songs ever, (especially when performed by Nana Mouskouri or Dusty Springfield) Windmills of your Mind is my first contribution to Dichters op Dinsdag. (Poets on Tuesday) In future I will try and find something a bit more Dutch, in keeping with my recent forays into Dutch literature, but for this first one this will have to do. Todays theme was 'endless'.
Windmills of your mind (Michel Legrand / Marlyn & Alan Bergman)
Round, like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel.
Never ending or beginning,
On an ever spinning wheel
Like a snowball down a mountain
Or a carnaval balloon
Like a carousell that's turning
Running rings around the moon
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on it's face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind
Like a tunnel that you follow
To a tunnel of it's own
Down a hollow to a cavern
Where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving
In a half forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble
Someone tosses in a stream.
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on it's face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
The Windmills Of Your Mind
Round like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning
On a never spinning wheel
Like a snowball down the mountain
Or a carnival balloon
Like a carrousel that's turning
Running rings around the moon
Like a clock whose hands are swinging
As the minutes on its face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind
Like a tunnel that you follow
To a tunnel of its own
Down the highway to a cavern
Where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving
In a half forgotten dream
Of the ripples from a pebble
Someone tosses in the stream
Like a clock whose hands are swinging
As the minutes on its face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind
Keys that jingls in your pocket
Words that jungle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly
Was it something that you said
Lovers walk along the shore
And leave their foot-prints in the sand
Is the sound of distant drowning
Just the fingers of your hand
Pictures standing in the hallway
And the fragment of a song
Half remembered things and faces
But to whom do they belong
When you knew that it was over
In the autumn of goodbyes
For a moment you could not recall
The color of his eyes
Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning
On a never spinning wheel
As the images so wide
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of you mind
Posted by Faith at 08:08 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
June 17, 2005
Photo Friday: Sport
This was taken at wolfshagen in the Harz Mountains in Germany in May with the Canon EOS300D. The local swimming pool had been cleaned and made ready to be opened for the summer and the opening was going ahead, despite the fact that it was less than 10 C and thunderstorms intermittently interrupted proceedings.
Posted by Faith at 11:43 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Barcelona, the queen and me.
I had four very relaxed days in Barcelona earlier this week. While Ron yawned his way through a Gartner symposium I shopped and walked but mostly caught up on my Dutch reading. For the record, I'm really enjoying Stahlie's Sint-Juttemis.
Our first day back in Amsterdam I was doing some shopping on the market when I saw a small crowd accompanied by media-cameras and all. The crowd was in between me and my favourit 'kassboer' so it was with some muttering and general crankiness that I decided we could live without cheese for one more day and took a judicious detour to avoid the fuss. Later I find out the queen had paid an impromptu visit to the market. Even if you're not a royalty fan thats gotta be worth a look? Up close and personal with the queen on your local market? Obviously I have a good nose for an occassion. Not!
Ron now has the flu and Jacob is getting a new tooth that if it is to be measured by his level of crankiness this morning is going to be too big to fit in his head. Dus, gezellig bij ons vanochtend!
Meanwhile it looks as though we may finally get a little bit of summer weather. Now THAT'S something to look forward too!
Posted by Faith at 10:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 10, 2005
In the bath
We have lived tantalisingly close to the Badcuyp for years. First 10 minutes walk away. Then 5 minutes walk away. Now for the last year we have been oh, at least a 30 second walk away, ....on a windy, snowy, rainy day, ....with a hangover. And yet despite our best intentions, we've never managed to get organised enough to actually go there. Until recently when we finally popped in on a Thursday evening fo a VERY enjoyable low-key evening of 1940's-Paris inspired guitar jazz. Think it might become a bit of a 'local' for us. Finally.
Posted by Faith at 08:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Photo Friday:Nerdy
You know its true when you catch him on the table playing with the laptop but the lid is down and he's focused on the cables and hardware. Gonna have to buy him those special bum-crack-jeans.
Posted by Faith at 11:30 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
June 06, 2005
Jacob, Joost en Tanja
Posted by Faith at 12:45 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
June 03, 2005
He may be biased
The incredible perceptiveness and impeccable good taste of my son has been established once and for all and is now set-in-concrete, totally undisputable, non-negotiable, irrefutable. Because last night after I rushed in from work and sat down at the table just-in-time to have dinner with him and Ron and Oma and Opa, he reached over, touched my arm and said, "Mama mooi".
Posted by Faith at 03:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 01, 2005
Hollandse nieuwe
It being June 1st, today is a very important day in Holland.
Oh yes, there's the trivial matter of the EU constitution referendum which is being held today in the Netherlands and at which apparently after much discussion about incidental matters everyone has decided to vote 'No' but much more importantly than that it is the first day of the "Hollandse nieuwe", the opening of the herring season and thus the chance to assess the new stock, as it were.
Raw fish being my thing I find myself on the Albert Cuyp with Jaap this afternoon taste-testing the new season's offerings. The verdict? Not bad, nice and fat, but also not the drop-dead-succulent-melt-in-your-mouth herring of which gastronomic history is made.
Meanwhile, BBC-star-Kathy-Clugston has been engaged in less wholesome pursuits.
Posted by Faith at 01:59 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack