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Showing posts from September, 2011
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The sun is rising, and Rotterdam is glowing. So is Delft, and so is Den Haag - all visible from where we live in a panorama sort of world. The clouds put on a pink and purple party last night and then again this morning... people think of autumn as having red and gold colours but the sky seems to opt for pastels an awful lot. At least the stunning view out my window is only marginally blocked by racks of drying clothes.... Airing clothes is fine with me, but when it's wet outside it takes a pair of jeans about 24 hrs to dry it's not a pretty sight (plus sometimes the dampness just stays and smells. Not cool.) At least once it gets colder there will be central heating and that should help. Ahhhh- the thought of sitting next to a piping hot radiator. So much cosier than the impersonal air vent system working through a ceiling. I can remember curling up on a warmed floor in Greece as a kid - there the heating often comes through the tiles as well. A big heap of warm robes and swe

Pull Pull Snip

So many other things to do - practice Taekwando, clean house, e-mail family members spread across the world, get ready for lunch at the school I volunteer at... and instead I'm playing with my plants again. Went out to water my geraniums this morning (the ones we 'live behind') and stopped to pull out some of the old growth... 20 minutes later I finished with the plants inside the house too, thinking busily. I pulled out handfuls and handfuls of yellowed leaves and old blossoms from plants that looked otherwise so healthy... how much is that like my life? Weeds are pretty obvious - they don't belong in plant pots or in life. Rude comments, bad behaviour. Fairly easy to see in yourself, not to mention that other people tend to point them out too :P ) But what about the tiny tiny little things? The little darting thoughts like, " I have so much more style than she does" or an extra 15 minutes wasted on a random Web site or impatience with how long it takes to

"We came with the two of us, but now, alas... "

The elderly lady in the elevator with me trailed off, then finished, "Nou, ja, zo gaat het." So it goes. I nodded and added a sympathetic "Helaas," back. She said she'd lived in our apartment building about 14 years. I'd guess she was in her sixties or seventies, and could picture her moving in with her husband, making a home here. We talked about how beautiful the view is from up high... maybe she and he sat on their balcony and drank coffee together, the way D and I do. Maybe they had hanging plants to substitute for the beautiful gardens in their previous house. It's rare to see a bare garden here, much less a messy one; block after block of houses overflow with flowers or are neatly tiled and decorated. I found six beautiful pink geranium plants in the dumpster room downstairs the other day, and brought them upstairs to be repotted and talked to. D laughed and asked if we "achter de geraniums wonen" - if we "live behind the geranium