Dutch girls

Something that strikes me as odd in Amsterdam is the existence, side by side, of two radically different ways of being (or looking) female. Two styles. The Red Light District style—the naked body, make-up, red fabric, black leather etc—and the scrubbed face, denim, bike-riding, no-nonsense types. We speculate that there is even a cross-over between the two. Are there young women who arrive by bike wearing their jeans, undress, put on the make-up and stand in the window? This whole juxtaposition seems to us Dutch and not English. We are similar but not, after all, the same. [See also ‘Dutch Girl’ by Lisa Yuskavage, recently acquired by the Stedelijk Museum. Nice modern take on Vermeer!]

Another clue to the difference in cultures might be the lack of attention to safety precautions on the city’s many building sites. A has noticed builders on scaffolding without hats, and items being lifted and lowered with no safety barriers, while pedestrians walk beneath—not just on one site, but generally. Is this (I speculate) another facet of the same basic attitude that gives rise to the existence of the coffee shops and the prostitution?

If I were younger I would start asking at this point “and is it a good or a bad thing?” But these days I don’t think in those terms nearly so much. It’s an interesting thing, that’s all. It gives rise to some consequences that are probably good, and some others that are undesirable. On balance, would I choose to live with it or not? I’m not sure. My answer might depend on how lucky I was feeling when you asked me. My optimistic self would find it refreshing. My pessimistic self might be scared.

Greatest art experience ever

This happened 12 years ago but it’s still vivid in my mind. I hope it always will be.

It was the year Andrew and I got engaged (we were married in 1997). We got tickets for the great Vermeer show in the Mauritshuis at The Hague. We were not the only ones looking forward to it as the best art show of the decade.

When we got there, clutching our timed tickets (for 6pm, if memory serves—purchased from the Dutch consulate in London) the museum was closing and the last visitors were being ushered out. We argued. An official was fetched. Our tickets were examined. An executive decision was taken.

For the next hour, accompanied by a bored security guard, we had exclusive access to the Vermeers. We wandered, we peered, we savoured. We ran from one to another exclaiming and comparing. Look! He’s used the same props in this one. And again—the yellow dress—look!

They aren’t very big, Vermeers. They are exquisite. They had never all been together in the same place before, and probably they never will be again. The next day, back among the crowds for a second look, joining the scrum around every painting, we realised the full value of the luck we’d had. It was amazing.

Generation gap

[OK, so now I’d better actually write some stuff.]

Recently we’ve established social contact with the son of one of my cousins, and his girlfriend. Nice young people. It’s been a curiously disturbing experience, though. Here are people who are a whole generation younger than us, but nevertheless adults. Weird. When you reach middle age you think (well, I thought) that life would run out of novel experiences to show you. But it doesn’t.

On not writing

Well, I haven’t been.

Or reading, either, in fact.

I’ve been in a state of transition, and I don’t find such states conducive to processing much in the way of input, or to producing much in the way of output. I now have the impression (though only time will tell whether I’m right about it) that smoother water lies ahead. This might be a good time to start the blog again. Let’s see.

The art of living well

I’ve been reading, with great pleasure, French women don’t get fat. It’s a supremely elegant book, both in content and in presentation – and inspiring, too.

Actually I bought my copy several months ago but couldn’t get through it then. It seemed to be promoting an ideal that was so far out of my reach as to be depressing even to think about. Not in the least inspiring.

Now it is different: I’m most of the way through my weight-loss program (with 16.8 Kg gone at the last count, obesity already a thing of the past, and entry into the ‘healthy’ range – BMI 20–25 – anticipated later this week) and am thinking hard about my future relationship with food. The book is a delightful companion on this part of the journey, and has already given rise to several pages of my notebook covered with new ideas for ways of living differently and better.

Tagged

Alan Little tagged me in a recent posting. This is what I’m supposed to do:

1. Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.

2. People who are tagged write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.

3. At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

4. If you fail to do this within eight hours, you will not reach Third Series or attain your most precious goals for at least two more lifetimes.

The chance of my responding to anything within eight hours is remote, especially this week, but fortunately I have no idea what Third Series might be – so I guess what I don’t know won’t hurt me – and I don’t believe in reincarnation anyway. Here goes:

1. I’m not a night owl any more. Maybe I never was, really. I wake early (around the summer solstice, very early indeed) and am most active early in the day.
2. I haven’t been on an aeroplane since December 2005.
3. I’ve lost about 12kg of body fat in the past 7 weeks. (It’s OK, don’t worry! I needed to lose it, it’s a medically-supervised programme, my doctor approves, and I feel much better for it).
4. Tomorrow is our tenth wedding anniversary.
5. I love to dry laundry outdoors. I study the weather forecast and wait till it’s going to be a good drying day before starting the wash. I arrange the clothes in patterns on the line: first a row of T-shirts, all with orange pegs, then a row of socks, all with yellow ones...
6. I owned a horse for a while, a few years ago. It didn’t work out well. It was a learning experience.
7. I’m scared of heights. It’s a problem when boating sometimes (especially when negotiating deep locks).
8. I visit Venice most years, usually by train (the night train from Paris is best). I mean the Venice in Italy, of course, not the one in California.
   

The difficult bit, as Alan found, is thinking of eight people who might not mind being tagged. I don’t read very many blogs. Here are the least unpromising seven from the list in my feed reader:

1. Rod
2. Animoose
3. William (but his blog is really too serious for this kind of trivia)
4. Vicki and Alasdair (though given their posting frequency, a response is unlikely)
5. Tromey
6. Derek
7. Paul Butcher? Unlikely, though – his is not really that kind of blog

I’m editing this post to remove people from the list if they don’t want to play. My original 8 is now already down to 7!

Storm in a teacup

While dramatic floods are causing mayhem in the rest of the country, all there is to report from our stretch of riverbank is ... a cow in the water. There is much very localised excitement. I called out the Pindar, who turned up half an hour ago with a rope but is waiting for his team. Meanwhile the cow has got itself out of the river and is grazing on our neighbour’s back garden – which would be fine except that the only way back to where it’s supposed to be is via the road.