Varia Diversa

Hello blog, here we are again! I’m sorry for being absent for such a long time so you think I’ll have much to tell. Well, te be honest, the fact that I had little to tell was one of the causes of my absence so I have to do my best to get something worthwhile from the little corners of my imagination and memory. Of course, I could tell about my holidays and other stuff people tell each other when they are at work again. Why wouldn’t I? Well, we, that’s to say my wife Janine, our son Menno, our week-end “daughter” Elyanne and our dog Joris went sailing in Friesland, so we didn’t travel far away. It was lots of fun: the adults enjoyed the sailing and the children the playing along beaches and in marinas. We enjoyed all kinds of weather you can imagine: tropical heat, autumn temperatures, strong wind, almost no wind, tropical rain, Dutch rain (steady long term, not sudden showers), mist, clouds, clear sky, you name it, this is Western Europe, man! Now I’m at work again, already since a fortnight. My job is to assess dissertations or theses if you like, at bachelor’s level, and I try to avoid that the students’ stress will infect me, although many are in a hurry, if they get their grading too late (15 September they have to pay new tuition fees. No, they cannot charge it to me when it’s my fault because I left their work in the drawer for too long. I’m at an age at which many are already retired and I always try to keep up the image that I don’t want to retire that early and keep working as long as possible, but I know that’s not true, my true reasons for not retiring are secret and then you know already what I mean.

I’m also almost addicted to photography. Not that I picture everything that comes before my lense, but I like to photograph nice items, especially landscapes and “landscape furniture” such as mills, sailing boats, churches, etc. On my photoblog I discovered that there are as many photographers as kinds of subjects, and every photographer has his/her favourite subject items. My weakness is landscapes and related stuff, also because I cannot find time to be busy with creating the right light conditions, much Photoshopwork, arranging things, waiting long for the right moment, etc. No. Veni vidi vici (aut non successi): I came, I saw and I achieved (or failed). I make too many good pictures to post on my photoblog, which is restricted to only 1 picture per day – a very wise policy of the blog management.

Above I show you some pics that couldn’t be posted on my blog because of this restriction. I also don’t want to become a bit one-sided and show each time either a mill, a house or a sailing boat, so some of them could have a place here. Enjoy!

Like so many other people I’m also bothered about what I read in the newspapers. I recently read the startling news that 90% of all heroine is grown in Af…istan. It has been found that the Nabilat (I don’t want to be found by searching machines on these words but you know what I mean) encourages to grow it, and get much profit from it. I’m sure these opium farmers are faithful Mu…ms and I wonder what they would answer when you would ask them why they grow opium, and if that is OK with the K..an. I know what they would answer me: you are rich, you drive a car, you have a machine for everything in the household and thanks to you the climate is changing so that people in Bangla Desh suffer from floods when the sea level is rising because of melting poles and glaciers. So what’s wrong about a heroin enjoying looser who is, on top of that, a victim of your pagan way of living, no, if you would follow the K..an and become mu…ms like me, there would be no heroin problem; what do I have to do with it, a poor farmer who works hard to earn a living? Thirdly: if I didn’t grow the opium the Nabilat would punish me. Etcetera etcetera.

So many things are relative, and many times I feel I have to choose, take a standpoint, be a MAN! There are many view- and standpoints to choose. In debates you notice that everybody is right and only a few people are completely wrong, but that people who are both right don’t seek to compromise or to find the common basis of their different views, but on the contrary, want to show how different their view is from their opponent’s view, and how wrong he is, and how right their own view is.

So much for today. Next time my latest contribution to the school magazine if I’ve nothing else to report.

Wessel staying with us

This week I have the whole week off from work (school). Thursday I went to Bergeijk to pick up my brother who has the syndrome of Down, for a short stay until Sunday afternoon. Of course we had a break at the famous road restaurant Hajé, where all furniture is for sale (4th picture). Then we continued heading for Heeg, a small village with a reliable outboard engine sales and repair shop, where I bought a good 2nd-hand engine for my new 2nd hand sailing boat; he had good advice and we agreed that he would put the engine on the boat May 18, so that we could immediately sail to my newly reserved harbour place in Earnewald, at the Frisian lakes. I need the engine because you can’t get there by sailing because of the low bridges. I feel like a king. Wessel got a Tamaha-cap (the engine’s brand name) for his collection of I estimate a hundred different caps, and he was as glad as somebody “normal” who would get a Mercedes for free. The other day we went first to Leeuwarden to buy a clock, broken by Wessel at his arrival because we were so negligent to have it on our living room table, where it doesn’t belong, and to buy another cap worn by Frisian farmers as we told him (a tourist cap with Frisian flag decoration); in the afternoon we went to the clogs museum of the clog factory 3 miles further. Wessel can’t wear clogs, but he was happy with a red farmers’ handkerchief to put around his neck, how happy he was!

The 3d picture is a rack filled with tourist clogs (Frisians don’t wear them despite the flag decoration or maybe just because of that), the 2nd picture shows the genuine clogs from the area that many men wear when they do garden or other outside work, including myself. They show a traditional, centuries-old pattern.

In the clogs museum I took a picture of a school poster with a presentation in pictures and verses of what happened in Holland during World War II (1st photo). The fragment shows how in the Winter I was born (1944) masses of hungry people travelled by foot from the cities in the West to the North of the country where agricultural products were still available. It shows also someone listening to the English radio which of course was forbidden, and a group of Jews on transport to Westenbork, a “Durchgangsslager” (transition camp) to the final destinations in Germany. A very relevant picture today, the 4th of May. Click on it to enlarge so that you can see the details.

Queen's day

Today, the 30th of April, is Queen's Day. The queen will visit one or two towns somewhere in the country to be the special guest of the events and entertainment activities, taking her nearest family members with her. Traditionally, today everywhere markets are organised where everybody gets the opportunity to sell their redundant things such as toys, furniture, bric-a-brac, etc., all surrounded by music, entertainment and snacks.

So we did today, but we also paid a visit to two sailing boats in our hunt for the best sailing boat for the cheapest possible price. It's a training in self-discipline because when you are eager to sail it's difficult to radiate casuality and desinterest, like the seller must have an image of "I already got ten phonecalls today" and "this is the best you can buy for this money", and not to agree with a too low offer just because he wants to get rid of the burden a boat can be.

Anyway, the first boat was out of the question because you would be busy with delayed maintenance during all summer, and not be sure that there were no irrepairabilities. Best advice to him: give it away for bringing it to the junk heap would cost you more money. The second boat was attractive. Many things were lacking: motor, electricity, a third or fourth sail etc. but that made it cheap, the state of maintenance was quite well, and you don't run a chance that devices present would appear broken or malfunction afterwards.

I was enthousiastic but Janine was "interested". She withholds me from stupid things but this time I am sure it was a good bargain.

So we went there again so Janine could convince herself, and... we bought it, yes!!

Next time something more intellectual and less "bourgeois".

A nice weekend

<- Picture of a big apartment building (detail) under construction at Papendrecht, a town near Rotterdam (covered with wind-protecting foil), taken during our voyage through the Netherlands this weekend



Saturday 24 February we headed in the afternoon for Oirschot, a wonderful village between Tilburg and Eindhoven.

The weather was gloomy, one shower after another and no sun at all that Saturday. We had dinner at “Hajé”, a nice and cosy road restaurant, without that plastic and red-and-yellow atmosphere that most of these facilities have. On the contrary, all furniture is in wood, old and believe it or not, for sale. This entrepreneur made his restaurant both restaurant and furniture shop. If you buy a table, you can take it with you or let it deliver, and he will replace it by something else that’s also for sale and the same holds for the chairs, the decoration pieces etc. If you are travelling in Holland and you want a nice and cosy rest place, then this is the place for you. I admire the owner because he took over an almost bankrupt road restaurant, when this restaurant wasn’t located along the highway anymore due to its reconstruction along another route. Two predecessors didn’t manage to keep it profitable, but he did, and how! We arrived at Oirschot in dark and had some trouble in finding the Beukenhof , despite our detailed maps we had with us. It was really a nice place, something to return to at future occasions. It offered the comfort of a 4-star hotel, only less formal, with bigger rooms, no bath (only shower) and no restaurant: it was “only” bed-and-breakfast. Many sculptures and paintings, not the mainstream-taste as you see so often in hotels, contributed to an agreeable interior experience. (I could write a brochure for them I realize now).

We got up early and headed for Bergeijk, from there we went on to Postel. There we attended the Holy Mass, impressively old-fashioned with Latin Gregorian chants, and a spiritual sermon. After the Mass we visited the abbey restaurant of course, after which we had a walk in the surrounding woods and abbey gardens. (See above). Near the abbey there was also a typical Belgian “little street” of fried-potatoe-sticks stands (in the UK they call it “chips”, in the USA “chips” are round thin slices, in the UK they have a stick form, elsewhere in Europe they are called “patates frites” or more commonly “frites” (pronounce “freet”). Its awful odour spread all around the place, and its enjoyers were sitting, standing or walking through the street. I once read in a culinary column that fites should not be eaten in a restaurant, but are most enjoyable in a cold and gloomy environment with cold wind, a desolate parking lot, at the counter of a sober “frietkot” (frites sales stand). Well, here all these conditions were met, but we didn’t feel any appetite for this calorie-rich delicacy.

We also visited Turnhout, but although the town was nice and medieval in its impressions, the weather and the closed shops (all cafés were open however) weren’t really inviting for a long stay. Here you see a typical Belgian picture (it couldn’t have been taken elsewhere in the world) of a statue of the Holy Virgin amidst commercial and traffic signs on a café outside wall. I find it “typical” for Belgium because it tells you something of the way religion is integrated into their easy-going culture, that only on its surface seems to be easy-going and casual, but in deeper layers it houses grief and a tendency to flee into festivities and folklore. In previous ages, the Flemish people suffered much from the Church’s and nobility’s co-operative oppression, but they remained loyal to their shared faith. Even at the Mass this Sunday, there were a count and countess who were memorized by the priest and prayed for by the audience. Hugo Claus, a famous Flemish novelist, wrote a wonderful novel about it: “The sorrow of Belgium” (“Het verdriet van België”).

In Oisterwijk, after a visit to an old family member, we enjoyed the dinner, far more copious than we were used to, but that’s the way it is when you go out for dinner once every six months or so.

The other day I went on my own to Oirschot early in the morning to get some cash because that was the only way to pay at “Beukenhof”. Of course I took some pictures of the huge church, that one would expect in a big city but not in such a small town. At my return, the inn-keeper told us something about Oirschot. In the Middle Ages, when Tilburg and Eindhoven didn’t exist yet, it was one of the main cities of Brabant (next to Brussels and Den Bosch). It even had a medical faculty, and high nobility found there one of her dwelling places.

After checking out we went to Tilburg, to visit a modern arts museum, but what we already suspected was true: like all musea in the Netherlands it’s closed on Mondays. We then walked along the Goirkestraat (Goirkestreet, pron. Gorkestralt), the street where I lived during my sociology study at Tilburg University. Here you see a picture of the house: I lived in the attic, with windows at the other side of the house. The window at the right side belonged to the room of someone who is now a high official at the United Nations, the window at the left side belonged to the room of the current president judge of the court of Amsterdam, where big companies such as ABN-AMRO and Stork go to for disputes and disagreements between shareholders and boards of directors. Both are examples of people who start with minimal opportunities and use their talents and hard work to get where they are now, serving other people and society on top level. From the U.N. housemate I learned “how to behave like a gentleman”, from the president judge I learned how to persist and not to have my opinion ready the first time I hear or read something. 100 Meters further to the Southe in this street there is a graveyard next to (again) a monastery, guarded by angels, one of them pictured by me.

Then we drove home, experiencing the “East-West, Home Best” poverb after our arrival.

Geese, meece, a dog and two ducks

In the park where I often walk with the dog, I meet often peculiar birds, such as the "Ijsvogel" ("common kingfisher"" ), and since a week or three some "zaagbekken"("common merganser"). I only had my mobilephone and these birds hate human company so I couldn't get closer, but a got a nice picture anyway.

Easier to put on a photo are the geese around our school. The building you see is part of our school hotel where students practice for their future work in "real" hotels. This is also a real, 4-star classified hotel, where "real" guests are staying. Being served by students they find often attractive. I wonder if the geese don't make too much noise to wake them up too early. But they are good guardians against possible attacks by our competing school at the othe side of a small river that separates our premises from theirs :-).

Then here we have Menno, cleaning the cage of his 3 meece. Joris, the dog, is taking care that no mouse will escape. The desk and the table I discussed earlier in a post called "father's furniture". Under the desk cover is my computer where I use to blog.

Father's furniture

<- me (left) and my father (right), Winter 1946-1947. The planes on my clothing were inspired by the food dropping flights during the Winter two years earlier (this also in a response to Caroline's comments).

During thirteen years we had a table and four chairs made by my father-in-law who used tob e a carpenter and built many beautiful pieces of furniture in his life. When we got it, I adjusted it a little bit because the table top was worn. It was beautiful Mahoney wood but covered with a thick layer of dark lack, which I removed and replaced by wax. OK thus far. Then one day, two months ago, my ex-wife called me and asked if I was interested in the old desk that I got from my father, who repaired and renewed old furniture, but not as a profession but as a hobby. At our divorce I had left it with her, but now she would move to a smaller house and couldn’t place it. After I cleaned and waxed the desk again (I’m now typing this message behind it) and put it in our living room, it was a terrible contrast with the table and four chairs from my father-in-law. So we went looking for a new table, also in oak, which would give room for 8 people when we would have guests; up to then, we always had to “put up” by getting an extra table from upstairs. After a few weeks looking for it on www.marktplaats.nl we found what we were looking for, at a quarter of the price for this kind of tables. Now it’s in our room. We already had some other furniture as well from this site, because I prefer used furniture above new (I feel like a hunter sometimes). And what happened when we recently paid a New Year visit to my parents-in-law? My father-in-law just gave us the price of the new table, not knowing that he was paying for it! You have to know, that he is a rich man nowadays. In the fifties he built his own house in a small village near Rotterdam. A couple of years ago, he found it too big for only he and his wife, and sold it to a far richer man at the current market price, which was more than twenty times the price he had built it for. He also feels that he is growing old and every New Year he gives a small amount of money to his children. Of course we didn’t really need the money for the table, but refusing it would be a serious offence against his intentions. The new table also promises some nice working hours for me because, you gess it already, it is covered with a thick layer of boat lack asking to be removed and replaced with something more decent for such a piece of craftsmanship. The table symbolizes the bond my late father has with him in my eyes. Even when you are in your sixties, your father or father-in-law keeps following you with little household helps: a nice desk, a table, etc., just as you do with your children. Goethe once wrote (in his Westöstliche Divan):

Do good things because you love goodness,
Transfer it to your children,
In case you don’t succeed,
It will benefit your grandchildren.

But also, in the same chapter:

Do good things because you love goodness,
Whatever you do, doesn’t remain yours,
Even when you keep it in your possession,
Your children will not keep it.

Sounds like a riddle: how to combine the two advices, which both seem to be equally true? This is what I love so much in Goethe.