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Showing posts with label the Netherlands. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the Netherlands. Show all posts

Wednesday, 9 September 2009

Enkhuizen...



Thank you so much from the bottom of my hot-dog heart to my reader (was it Sandi? Bless you...), who nominated me for Post of the Day over at David McMahon's yesterday. It is such an honour to nestle up against such wonderful bloggers and writers... Darling Saz was nominated too, and it's nice to have someone's hand to hold when you're up in front of David of whom we're all in such awe. The man is a marvel!

This is my second week back in the office, and you know when it all starts to do your head in again... So, a nomination for POTD stopped me taking to the roof with a bow-and-arrow... Well, I do live in Merrie Ol' England after all...

Merci mille...

office Pictures, Images and Photos

Anyhoo, my other-one reader has asked about my hollingberries, and admittedly I haven't said much - Well, it's like holiday photos, isn't it? You don't want to bore people rigid with your tales of glee when they've just got back from a Wet Weekend in Scunthorpe, right??!

But you've asked now, so there!.

On one of the days we were away, we took the train to Enkhuizen (say 'Enkhouzen') on a hot day.

We wandered the streets around the railway station, through the seventeenth century gate into the town, we sat by the water and watched the sunlight beaming across the ripples... We pondered on other, simpler times, when Enkhuizen had a significant fishing fleet, and we wondered about the history of a country, whose growth and development has depended upon mastering the sea, in a way that King Canute never could get the waves to withdraw...

Enkhuizen was great and good, lovely and charming, light-filled and breezy, peaceful and tourist-filled... Beside the Meer was a fascinating open-air museum, which I shall post photos of one day, (when I work out how to do it!), a reconstructed village with a school with all the school-children's clogs lined up on the bench in the porch; the church with its puritan light, spruce spartan space and its gleaming, golden chandeliers; a photographer's; a wood-turner, and trimmed gardens with women in traditional costume, clogs-a-clattering, chattering with their laundry flapping in the warm breeze of late summer.

It was magical, and not one bit cheesey... I loved it.

I hope you like this little taste of Holland, the Netherlands... In the meantime, slather a good slice of Dutch cheese on some rye bread, grab some crisp and fresh salad. Don't forget the tomato and a few walnuts, and I'd recommend the Witbier to wash it all down your gob with...

The sun's right over the yard-arm, after all.

beer Pictures, Images and Photos

Serving Suggestion. Enjoy Fhina's Warblings Sensibly...

Monday, 7 September 2009

Marken in the Netherlands... Life and happiness.

marken Pictures, Images and Photos

One of the most blissful moments of my recent holiday was spent here at Marken in the Netherlands, with my fuchsia-manicured, glistening toesies dabbling in the waters of the IJsselmeer...

Seated beside my darling son, who also had his long, bare feet troubling the waters, and with dappled sunlight winking on the gently lapping waves of what was once an island in the sea.

Marken in its time was a bustling village of fisher-folk and tradesmen, before the Powers That Be made the coastal location no longer, by draining waters and building polders, all for honest, economic reasons.

Marken makes its mark and captures your heart with its soul, its light and its beauty...

Thing is. Time was... Things pass. All must change. The beauty of life for me is captured in such moments. Fleeting.

Blink and you miss them.

Happiness to my mind does not stay long in the corners and recesses of our lives, waiting to be drawn upon, sucked in on a dying breath. Neither is it something you can rely on, rest your laurels upon, set any store by...

I believe you must grab it by the handful, and see it for what it is. Brief treasure.

Please gather it where you can.

Marken Pictures, Images and Photos

p.s. Please double click through to the bigger picture, if Blogger cuts it off in its prime...

It will give you pause for wonder this morning, mes bloggy Speculaas (spiced biscuits!)

Something I wrote earlier...

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