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November 29, 2005
Positive thinking
We Dutch (ahem...) are masters of the art of putting a positive slant on things. Bad or depressing news is ignored altogether or presented as good news. Nowhere is this more apparent than when watching the weather forecast. As Marjon de Hond put it tonight: "If you love clouds and low-hanging skies then today was a wonderful day".
Amen
Posted by Faith at 08:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 25, 2005
Citypodding
As we all know new parent's have just hours and hours of free time and are often looking around for something to do in all those empty hours between midnight and six am. Our friend Jaap has been busy coming up with Citypodding, a really cool site from which to download people's podcasts about places they've travelled to all around the world. I'm planning on doing some podcasts myself once my laptop problems have been sorted out but in the meantime it's fun just listening to everyone elses!
Jaap and Sander are now on the path to legendary-internet-millionaire-status after their debut on Dutch radio at BNN this week.
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Photo Friday: Yellow
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November 23, 2005
Dinking
Dinking has long been banned where I grew up in Australia. Since I was a teenager I think. So it remains one of the quainter Amsterdam practices that I'll miss when we get back to Melbourne. There's nothing quite like being dinked home over the canal bridges on the Reguliersgracht to Ronnie's tuneless-but-fabulous "Tulpen van Amsterdam" warmed by a couple of extraneous jenever's.
PS. Of course from a practical point of view there's a few other problems-with-this-picture in Melbourne. The distances from A to B, the hills and the lack of canal bridges just to mention a few.
Posted by Faith at 05:48 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Mimi Very Long
Now that it's sufficently close to Christmas to be a really dumb idea I've embarked on the annual christmas-gift-knit-along. It's not like I've got anything else to do. Move continents, process and order 1 billion photos, build Dominic's web site, buy Sint presents, birthday presents, and did I mention pack-up-and-move-continents? So here's the first offering. In Rowan's Summer Tweed Mimi Very Long
.
I'm using much bigger needles than usual with this yarn as otherwise you end up with a very dense not to mention exceptionally expensive scarf.
Posted by Faith at 04:25 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 22, 2005
Blissed out
Once again, my happiness is complete. When will it all end?
Not only has Howard dropped 11% in the polls but a DVD is to be released of the first series of Aunty Jack! All I want for Christmas.............
Click here to read more about the fabulous Aunty Jack.
Posted by Faith at 07:49 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 21, 2005
Scary Super Powers
Coincidence or scary super-powers?
We have rented three different apartments since we have been living in Amsterdam. Can it be purely coincidence that EVERY landlord we have had has then married within a year or so of our moving in? Thats three out of three ladies and gentlemen.
Our current landlord has just returned from his honeymoon. What he doesn't know is that our last landlord/lady gave birth to a baby boy exactly nine months after her honeymoon. True, our first landlord's marriage was not followed up with a baby but as he'd married a bloke it would have been miraculous if it had. Seems we are the nuptial-fairy-tenants of Amsterdam.
Posted by Faith at 06:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Yeeha!
Finally the mysterious-invisible-people-who-support-Howard-but-won't-admit-it-in-public are waking up down there!
Posted by Faith at 04:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A laptop a day
After 'Lill Dell's descent into unhelpfulness last week the entire laptop population around us started falling apart. See, we have an old Mac laptop in a cupboard that we bought second-hand years ago and which we've never had time to get around to using. Since the Mac had everything installed on it that I wanted on 'Lill Dell I dragged it out and started it up. Ok, there were a few minor hiccups, a flat battery, a lost power chord and 'where's the 'on' button', but no more than you'd expect form a PC user struggling with a closet-Mac. Except, that when I did finally hit my stride, it seemed that everything on the Mac, EVERYTHING, was working except the one thing I needed last week more than anything else. Photoshop.
So, after a wasted day it was onto the next laptop. Ron's work one. A useless machine set up for consultants to use so of course there is nothing but MS Office on it. Still, it meant I could access the internet and check my email (although most of my email addresses were still on 'Lill Dell). We did install Photoshop but the laptop doesn't have the sheer strength needed to edit one photo without crashing and needing a reboot. As I have almost a thousand to do it was looking like a loooooooooong week ahead. And after one day even Ron's laptop gave up the ghost and died on the one day a week he needs it at work.
In the meantime Dell support had identified the problem with 'Lill Dell as the monitor, not the Graphics card. We thought this was good news until we found out the price for replacing the monitor. 700 Euros! We can buy the whole laptop brand new with software and accessories for less than that in Australia in six weeks! So now all we need is a monitor to use with our laptop for the next six weeks here in Amsterdam. If you see one on a footpath near you call me!
Posted by Faith at 10:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 19, 2005
Photo Friday: Imperfection
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November 16, 2005
Look Mum, we can do penalties!
I've never even cared about REAL football let alone soccer but even I'm feeling happy that Australia is going to Germany next year. That will give Jacob two teams to barrack for! And oh Lord, twice as many matches that will have to be watched live at 2.00am from Melbourne.
And while the Australian team is certainly not yet at the same level as many of the WK veterans at least one significant difference has emerged between them and the Dutch team. Australians can kick penalties!
Posted by Faith at 02:11 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 15, 2005
Lil' Dell, they done him wrong
Lil' Dell, (our laptop, a Dell Inspiron) has given up the ghost. We now suffer the-green-screen-of-death with all the black transformed into a lurid green and everything pixellated to hell. I suspect it has something to do with our habit of leaving the laptop permanently-on-since-we-bought-it-in-2003. Of course if you'd asked me I could have figured out that this would be bad for it but NO ONE asked me!
Each night while we were sleeping Lil'Dell here was madly beavering away being sociable, NOT downloading software and music of course, just being sociable, and we never had to wait that few extra seconds when we wanted to use him, just wiggle the mouse and off he went, quicker than a bride's nightie! (Well not quite, it IS Windows) We did turn him off briefly once in a blue moon if he started dragging his feet some but only just long enough to re-start him. Lil' Dell took this sportingly and never indicated that it was getting too much for him, never pleaded to be given a rest, never complained.
The-green-screen-of-death first appeared about a month ago but after implementing a strict policy of "have you turned off the laptop?" Lil' Dell seemed to be coping and we were kidding ourselves that we could go on as if nothing had happened. This head-in-sand-policy was working for us until Sunday when despite a long and restful weekend little Dell just couldn't cope with one more start up. The green-screen-of-death appeared again and despite laying up for several days Lil' Dell doesn't appear to be improving at all. I toyed with buying him a new video card but ironically what attracted me to Lil' Dell in the first place has proven to be my downfall. I fell for Lil' Dell because of his new-fangled Centrino chip with WI-Fi. Seems the video card is included in the chip and doesn't exist as a seperate component.
Posted by Faith at 12:27 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
November 14, 2005
watch out for the cyclists
It's happenning again. Liquidated gangsters are littering the streets of Amsterdam and the dangers of cycling have scaled new heights as bullets fly and corpses straddle the bicycle paths like soft-and-lumpy-speed-humps.
OK. I am exagerating. But Amsterdam IS sufferring another of those underworld clean-outs we seem to have so regularly. And the dead are never johnny-average criminals but always the elite, the CEO's and MDs of the underworld. There are two things that strike one about this.
1.For a town with a population of less than 1 million people the proportion of underworld bosses seems staggeringly high. And thats just the dead ones.
2.The Dutch underworld must surely be suffering some sort of leadership crisis by now? All those middle-managers thrust prematurely to the ranks of leadership?
And the only thing cuter than the tours that enable tourists to take in the new murder-sites are the murders that are committed from a bicycle. So Amsterdam.
Posted by Faith at 06:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 12, 2005
Try harder next time?
Ron was out catching up with old colleagues and Jacob was in IJsselstein drowning out the locals with his Sint Maarten 'leidjes' so Friday night was the perfect opportunity for me to stay home and catch up on the wool wash, some darning and getting-the-grungy-things-out-of-the-plug-hole.
What I cannot understand then is how I found myself dining at A La Ferme with BBC-star-Kathy-Clugston before getting down at the Badcuyp with the fantastic Soldiers in the army of love. Damn, just have to try harder next time!
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November 11, 2005
Sint Maarten in de Pijp
Posted by Faith at 07:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Sint Maarten
Tonight is the annual "Sintmaartenlopen" evening where small children walk through the streets with their lanterns knocking on doors and singing songs in return for lollies. Jacob went off to IJselstein this morning clutching the lantern he made at creche last week and ready to launch his singing prowess on Oma and Opa's neighbours. At the moment he is focusing on volume rather than musicality so it's sure to be appreciated.
Coincidentally (;-) )it has been arranged that he will spend the night with Oma and Opa so it they who will have to induce the sugar-fuelled-boy into sleep tonight. Not me. Now that's planning!
Posted by Faith at 05:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Photo Friday: worn
This is the door to a sauna on the edge of lake somewhere in Lapland. The wood in all the buildings had lovely textures and colours from it's exposure to the elements. Taken with the Canon EOS300D.
Posted by Faith at 07:25 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 10, 2005
Dutch Housewives
Yesterday I had the pleasure of lunching with Odette at Bazaar where she nursed her hangover away and I tried to cope with a conversation that didn't revolve around packing, sorting, throwing out and "are we going to take the 500 CDs you've never listened too in the 5 years I've known you?". After that we bought some fish on the Albert Cuyp for Oleg's dinner, and snuck in a beer/glass of wine or two at Cafe Krull before finishing off the afternoon doing our grocery shopping for that evening's meal at Albert Heijn.
Loading our shopping onto our handlebars we compared notes on what our respective hubbies could expect for dinner that evening when I suffered one of those out-of-body-experiences where you see yourself from a distance as if you were someone else and could only think "My God, we are SUCH housewives!"
This and the socks-with-sandals and I'm on the brink of an identity crisis!
Posted by Faith at 01:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 09, 2005
To be sure
Its a well known fact that the Dutch are fond of their insurance. One thing I noticed when I first came here is that in general, people don't seem to like change, or surprises. Maybe that has something to do with it? I was also wondering if it has anything to do with the landscape. In a flat country you can see everything that's coming.
So, yesterday, when Ron sat down on the sofa to start the great-insurance-cancellation process I should have been prepared. We no longer own a house or much else but I knew we were still insured to a degree that I personally find mind-boggling. Mind you, the only insurance I've ever taken out was health insurance and that only after the Australian government legislated making it compulsory for people in my circumstances. I don't think Australians are terribly big on insurance in general.
I still haven't stopped laughing at the discovery yesterday that we have been insured all this time against things-that-aren't-covered-by-any-other-insurance, as it was explained to me. (Aansprakelijkheid or liability insurance I believe its called)
Posted by Faith at 12:03 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 08, 2005
Cozy
I never did get anywhere with Clapotis. Couldn't work out what to do with all those stitch markers and the pattern did require some concentration and I've now accepted that I'm a knitter of small and shiny things. Concentration and focus are beyond me. Lately I have been entertaining myself with Cozy. A very forgiving pattern, luckily, as there are quite a few too-many-glasses-of-wine or distracted-by-CSI-Miami moments immortalised in this piece. The pattern is perfect for me, very very simple but produces something that looks just a bit more complicated than it is.
I'm knitting it in Rowan's Summer Tweed Oats, which I already had, on 5mm circular needles. I was thinking it would then be a nice weight for those cooler summer evenings sitting in my Mum's backyard in Melbourne sipping my chardonnay.
And I'm hoping to get to Coco & Pearls which sounds a bit more fun than the average crafty expo. It does coincide with our nephew's birthday though so I will have to be creative in working out a way to fit in the two events!
Posted by Faith at 01:26 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
November 07, 2005
Travelling Light
For people who don't own anything, (or at least not anything in this hemisphere) we seem suddenly to have an awful lot of stuff. There's nothing like hauling it all out from under the bed, the cupboards and the spaces behind the books in the bookshelves to destroy the illusion of travelling light! The five years we've been in Amsterdam I've bought practically nothing (Kthunk! - sound of Ron passing out in disbelief) since we've lived here constantly under the delusion that we would be leaving 'any minute now'. No CDs, no books, no THINGs. (Relatively speaking that is....)
I've been staying-at-home for days now to entertain men-in-suits from removal companies and it's all getting terribly complicated. Removing windows to do the Amsterdam-thing with the gable hook and lower everything into the street, parking permits for the removals van, policemen (no less) to claim the two spaces required for the removal van! (Must admit I'm glad I don't have to do that, don't fancy defending two car parking spaces in the Pijp. Might well never make it to Melbourne.) And thats even before we broach the subject of Australian customs regulations!
Posted by Faith at 04:16 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
November 05, 2005
Photo Friday: Warmth
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November 01, 2005
It will all come back to haunt you............
Being the good parents that we are we are always reminding Jacob to stay on the footpath, not wander vaguely onto bicycle paths and roads, and that he must always, ALWAYS hold someone's hand when he is crossing the road. This is quite a feat. In Amsterdam there is often no visible differentiation between footpath, bicycle path and road. There MAY or may not be a curb. They MAY or may not be made of a different material, asphalt or cobbles, or a different colour. There are no certainities with traffic and it's regulation. Still, everyone needs a little excitement, no?
Since he is only two we don't expect him to actually understand or be able to grasp the significance of this information so we still use the backup-system of constantly running after him screaming "Nee Jacob. Stop! Stop! STOP!". But it seems he understands far more than we gave him credit for.
Sunday morning on our weekly 7.00am jaunt Jacob gave me his hand so that we could cross the now-deserted-but-never-busy-anyway Govert Flinckstraat and we set off the whole 1.5m to the other side. Half way over our progress was arrested by a VERY stern "Nee Mama" and I was DRAGGED back to the footpath by my son. "fietser kommt aan...pas op!" he said pointing down the still-deserted street. [Cyclist coming, look out] And if I peered very very carefully I could just see that indeed, all the way over the Ferdinand Bolstraat, maybe almost 100m away, there was indeed a very slow oncoming cyclist. For whom we had to wait before Jacob would countenance our going any further. And wait. And just a bit longer.....
We eventually made it the 1.5m to the other side of the road, after waiting for two more cyclists. At 7.00am on a Sunday morning you have to wait quite a long time to see three cyclists in the Govert Flinckstraat.
So, I should have been prepared for what happenned later in the day. When Jacob and I are cycling I keep him entertained at red lights by having him watch for when the little-red-bicycle has turned green. I thought this was more a game than anything else. WRONG!
Coming up to an intersection with a green light which turned to an amber bicycle just as we got there I decided to keep going. After all there wasn't any traffic, car, bicycle, tram or pedestrian anyway. Half way across the road I braked in panic as Jacob let loose with a blood-curdling scream. Pointing up at the lights he said "fiets NIET groen Mama, NIET groen!" Do I need to translate that? The amber bicycle had not escaped the newly-apponited-head-of-traffic-police and he was NOT impressed.
Posted by Faith at 03:52 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
November
It is November.
And that means the Melbourne Cup, NaNoWriMo and as I've just been reminded, MOvember. I don't know that I should be a party to encouraging men to grow moustaches. It would be a bit like encouraging people to wear socks-with-their-sandals but now that I've breached that taboo let's just see how low I can go hey?
Posted by Faith at 11:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack