Sprookjeswonderland

This has to be shaping up to be one of the wettest Dutch summers on record. It seems to rain every single day and not just a little bit, either. It regularly comes down like a monsoon and is frequently accompanied by thunder and lightning.

The quantities of precipitation have been such that we’ve had some water in our cellar on a couple of occasions now; nothing too bad, but any water seeping into your home is unwelcome water. Still, this is Amsterdam and there’s not much you can do. Life here is a constant battle against water, as it is in most of the country.

Anyway, Sunday just gone offered a rare period of sunny skies in between predictions of doom and gloom on either side. Normally, we’d avoid any popular weekend destination in favour of a midweek getaway, but one can’t make any assumptions about the weather at the moment, so we took the car up to Enkhuizen yesterday to visit Sprookjeswonderland.

Sprookjeswonderland is a children’s park with fairy-tales forming the underlying theme of the various attractions. Children can enjoy everything from boat and train rides to mechanised fairy-tale figures twitching to piped music. Some of it was a lot of fun; other bits are a bit naff and showing their age. That didn’t stop the crowds from descending in droves, however.

In general, it was a great day out, because Eloïse loved virtually every minute of it. In fact, we had a hard time getting her out of there at 17:00, when the park was closing. She’d run around so much that we felt certain she would fall asleep in the car on the way home, but she amazed us by remaining alert not just for the ride home, but also well into the evening once we got inside.

I hope we can do a couple more day trips over the coming days, but the weather forecast is looking pretty dire again.

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Picking Berries

A week ago on Sunday, we seized a dry, sunny moment and drove over to the neighbourhood of Oud Osdorp, a lovely area of rural tranquility on the outskirts of Amsterdam and not at all representative of what comes to mind when one hears the name Osdorp these days.

The reason was the organic farm De Boterbloem, where Eloïse got to pick her own delicious strawberries from the vegetable garden. While we were there, we were also able to pick some flowers to brighten up the home.

It was lovely to be able to offer Eloïse the opportunity to pick her own fruit, thereby giving her her first indication of where the stuff actually comes from. It doesn’t just magically appear in the supermarket and it’s good for her to understand that a lot of time and effort goes into the stages of planting, cultivating and harvesting before she can pop a strawberry into her mouth.

And how pleasant that all of the produce is organically grown. The farm has a calming atmosphere about it, with a nice wooden barn in which the shop is situated. It reminded me a bit of the dog sleigh farm in Maine that we visited last autumn.

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A Stone’s Throw

I’ve been pretty quiet over the last month, perhaps longer, as much of my time became consumed by the contemplation of a major decision.

The time has come, however, to let the cat out of the bag: we’re moving.

Believe me, we’re nearly as surprised as you are. That makes it sound like it’s not our own choice, but it is. We instigated it and it’s all our own doing.

Why are we moving?

That’s a good one and, depending on my mood on any given day, I range from having a good answer, through having a lacklustre answer, all the way to having virtually no answer.

One thing is certain: we weren’t looking to move. We’re very happy in our current home, which is lovely and the nicest place any of the three of us has ever lived. However, we maintain an unwritten list of unique houses in our neighbourhood and have said to each other that we should view such properties, should they ever come onto the market.

Well, one of them did, and before you could utter the proverbial Jack Robinson’s monicker, a viewing had been arranged and we found ourselves seriously considering a new home. Four further viewings ensued before we eventually decided to buy it, which is a good indication of the extent to which we were torn about the right course of action.

A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then, however. Not only have we bought that house, but our own home has been put on the market, viewed many times and ultimately sold over the last few weeks.

Our move is scheduled for early September.

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Car Flashing

Did you know you can reboot and reinstall a car? That’s what happened to ours today, when I took our trusty A6 Avant down to the Audi dealer to have its MMI (user interface to you and me) updated.

The car emerged two hours and a few CD downloads later, sporting version C6-HU 34.6.0 0647 of the MMI software (hitherto C6-HU 21.2.0 0534, in case you wondered). As if by magic, the car now also speaks Dutch (and a few other new languages, such as Portuguese and Russian) when instructing me how to get from A to B.

The navigation system now offers a 3D view, with the camera angle slightly tilted to give the impression of being somewhat elevated above the ground. Perhaps the software update has added other useful new features, but I didn’t encounter them on the short drive home.

The new 3D view is nice, because the viewing angle compacts the field of view, which means one can see more of the surrounding area than when in 2D, even when the zoom is set identically, say at 400m.

It also works well with ‘junction zoom’, whereby the system zooms in ever closer as one approaches a junction at which a new manoeuvre is required, such as turning left or right.

The only thing I don’t like about the 3D view is that most streets don’t have their name displayed along them, which is the case at the same zoom level in the 2D view. It also seems impossible to obtain north orientation for the map (even though you can configure it for same), probably to avoid confusion or perhaps impractically sharp viewing angles when travelling east or west. Who knows?

Since Audi had a special offer going, I took the opportunity to avail myself of the latest Western Europe DVD for the sat-nav system, too, so perhaps the woman with the dulcet tones will now be less determined to send me via the perpetually languid Overtoom when I ask for directions to pretty much any destination inside the ring (A10).

Poland and Hungary have been added to the list of countries for which there are maps and guidance data, which could prove handy. Hungary would have been good to have a year ago, but at least we’re now covered if we choose to return.

It’s strange to witness a car being rebooted and reprogrammed, as I tend to still think of them as predominantly mechanical machines, but they’ve really been powerful computers on wheels for quite a long time now. Nevertheless, it still amuses me to think that a car can be improved and have features added by installing a new version of the software.

Similarly, it can have new bugs introduced in the same way, so I hope not too many of those have crept in.

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Lisa Gerrard Coming Back To Europe

Lisa Gerrard is coming back to Europe in the autumn. After the Den Haag (The Hague) concert in April, I thought that would be my lot for this year, so the news comes as a real treat.

The only Dutch gig scheduled this time is Rotterdam and this constitutes the first night of the tour. A couple of weeks later, she’ll be performing in Antwerp, which presented itself as a fine opportunity to make an overnight trip over the border to Flanders. We can go to the zoo in the afternoon and enjoy the charming cafés in the historic centre. Who knows, maybe we’ll even add an extra day and go to Brussels or something.

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