sprung

last week on Saturday {13/2}, i had to wear a scarf and a hat and gloves, when i set off for work... 

yesterday {20/2} i sat outside on the balcony, having my lunch before i set off for work...

last week, customers talked about the skating they had done, on {sometimes} busy ponds, in or near woodlands just outside of the city, the first time in many years, often, their faces adorned with a smile... 

yesterday, they told of lovely sunny walks they had in busy woodlands, just outside of the city, and they had smiles on their faces that gleamed...

last week, the radiators were filled with towels and cloths, drying and filling the living room with the scent of detergent...

yesterday, washing dried on the rack that i placed outside, smelling of Outdoors...

new moons

I'm not saying it has anything to do with the New Moon in Aquarius today, combined with a Mercury retrograde, or anything, but today felt a bit weird... 

Holland has been covered in snow, pretty much completely, since Sunday. we don't get snow like this very often, and combined with the well below zero temperatures, it's bound to stay for a while longer than the usual 5 hours. on Sunday i walked in to work, and enjoyed the beautiful scenes, watched dads pulls kids on sledges, saw people clear snow off the pavement, heard cars drive past very slowly, listened to the crunching of the snow under my feet.

since i cycled to work on the other days, i hadn't needed the car for over a week, and left it till today to see if i was able to slither along the uncleared road we live along, out towards somewhere pretty for a long walk and post some letters while i was out, but as i clicked the 'open' button on the key, it was clear that no driving was going to be done - the battery hadn't coped with the cold very well. dead as a dodo... so i contacted roadside assistance, and had to wait the full 90 minutes, to be greeted by a very lovely chap {...} who concluded {after attaching a machine to the battery} that it was going to be very likely that i would be calling out one of his colleagues again sooner rather than later - something i kind of expected, since this was the second time in a few months that the battery ran out... i followed the lovely chap to the Roadside Assistance workshop that turned out to be very close to where i regularly go for a walk, near the woods, and 20 minutes and a heap of money later, my little Yaris was purring happily again. 

i decided to take it for a bit of a drive, warm it up and find that Somewhere Pretty, taking the Tilburg turning, and regretted that quickly, as there was a jam, and i found myself wedged between lorries and vans, going incredibly slow, inching my way towards the turning off for the nearest village, but that was apparently closed off, and i had to drive to the next turning, and that took me to the other side of the city. from there i knew how to get to the woods, but all the parking places were either full up, or looked too slippery for my liking,  so i just carried on driving. my views were amazing, though... wearing my sunglasses to stop the snow blinding me, i was treated to landscapes that wouldn't look out of place in Germany or Sweden... 

i drove back home, parked the car and walked along the streets near my apartment, posting the letters i meant to post earlier. it was very slippery, and very cold, and very pretty. but i still felt weird. it was my day off, but my mind was nowhere near Breda. i have no idea where it was, but i was glad i was back inside, looking forward to my coffee and bit of chocolate, mulling over the odd coincidence with my friend over Telegram {a path neither of us had talked about before, but are both exploring now}, and a peculiar interaction with a penfriend, and the feeling of a clamp on my head for most of the day - quiet contemplation was called for...

a new moon starts today. time for some strong intentions

Paris

this photo is taken in Paris,

they are the steps down Mont Martre, i think.

it's one of the photo's i keep 

on my Pinterest boards,

which is dedicated to photographs 

{black & white mostly}

that i really like.

i'm not a fan of Paris.

it fills me with ambivalence.

according to my ex, this is because

i fear the confidence 

and sensuality {??}

that the city presents.

he was probably right.

Paris represents a confidence 

that i don't feel i ever had.

i also envy Paris this.

i can handle London 

- London is a mix of historical

and modern 

that i feel at home with -

i love being there...

i love Berlin

- it represents a more recent history

and celebrates alternative ways 

of Being Human,

and holds a German confidence

{or is it arrogance?}

that i like,

and i tend to ignore 

the Kitkat Club elements that 

the city is also famed for -

i loved being there...

i loved Barcelona

the warm, kind, life-loving vibe i got there

{or maybe this was just cos 

my son was our tour guide...}

the mixture of modern life

and centuries of history,

the daring architecture,

the way it was so Spanish

but also so much Catalan

i really want to go back there...

but Paris...

i don't know...

maybe i just need to go there again,

one day,

take the Thalys and book a hotel room

right in the centre

and soak it all in...

it worked with Berlin...

killing in the name of...

when i first moved into the apartment that i now live in, i was impressed with the may trees that surrounded the small block that my space is part of. there were loads, and in the October that i looked at the apartment, to see if it was to my liking, the trees outside the living room window were a gorgeous yellow, and i fell in love with this view. in the year since i moved in, or almost 18 months now, i've seen the seasons change, the trees lose their yellow leaves, be a refuge for the many little birds, looking for food in winter, and a place to rest, and as spring came, the gradual change from only branches to a lush, green, beautiful plant filled me with joy. okay, the endless bird poop on the car was a bit of a nuisance, and the cats lost their rag rather often, staring at the sparrows, and blue tits, and undefined green-ish birds that they couldn't ever reach, but really, small beer compared to the pleasure that we gained from having them outside our window, and outside the building, and in the area - the air that they cleaned, the birds that they harboured, the help to nature, something Breda council appeared to attach so much importance to... 

imagine my shock, when i received a letter from this council last Friday, stating that because of the work that will be done in this area on the sewage system, the trees along our building, and a load more in the streets further on, will have to be destroyed... and since it needs to be done before breeding season, it shall be done this week... oh, and can you please move your car for that day too. thanks. 

i cried, after i read this... i cried, and i was so f^%$ing angry, and disgusted and upset and dumbstruck... my beautiful tree, the one that gave me so many hours of joy, that fed the birds and gave them shelter and gave us shade and oxygen, was a commodity that stood in the way, and had to be removed... cos it was going to be in the way... 

the cutting was done just now, and it felt like i was being punched in the stomach several times over... the guys doing to looked like they didn't give a fig - young chaps mostly, more interested in their phone and another fag - and chainsawed the branches off the trunks, dug the roots out like they were evil that needed destroying, and i cried again... it felt so awful, so pointless. 

the work to the sewage will be done in the summer, so - yay - there won't be any new trees for quite some time. thankfully the huge tree in the middle, which i also stare at, is allowed to stay, and some others at the front that are not seen as commodities, so the birds won't be completely bereft of somewhere to hang out in, take shelter, find food, tease the cats. but still... i've ordered the spirits to find me a nice, comfortable, clean, easy to maintain house in the woodlands that i love to wander in. i'm done with urban life... 

wonder things

as i mentioned before, as a new{ish} user of Spotify, i'm finding it a treasure trove. songs i hadn't heard for donkey's years, bands i remembered from also donkey's years ago with their whole back catalogue on it, and i was finding myself scooting from Ramones and Smithereens to Scritti Politti and Warren Zevon, and my heart skipped a beat so many times, that it was getting dangerous... 

it reminded me a bit of my teens, when i knew a few people, mostly the dads of families i was babysitting for, who had an eclectic taste in music {from the 70's usually} and were delighted to share this with this weird person who occasionally looked after their kids. that, and the then mad radio-broadcasting system that had the days of the week divided into the 9 different religious/ideological broadcasting companies that Holland has {nowadays combined somewhat, but then each company had a day per week}, which had me mostly listening on Tuesdays only, when the music was chosen by people who had the same taste as i did  {until Studio Brussel happened, and i hardly listened to dutch radio at all anymore...}. back then it was mostly hoping that songs that i liked would pop up on the radio, while spotify gives the freedom to skip and chose. 

a band that i rediscovered recently:

* the Wonder Stuff *

an odd band, based around singer Miles Hunt, from the West-Midlands in UK {which is a collection of cities like Birmingham and Wolverhampton, with mostly coal mining and related industries at it's - former - centre} who made catchy folky pop, which i liked a lot around the time i was au-pair in East Sussex. it strongly reminds me of the time i went out a bit in Hastings {to a pub in the Old Town called Ye Olde Pump House, that we just knew as The Old Pump House, mainly...} with some fellow language students {some of whom i'm still in contact with} and i consider to be my version of Student Life... this lot was daft, weren't tied to one genre, and had mad lyrics which made little sense, and were incredibly British. their album Hup i owned on cassette, and i listened to it endlessly, so hearing it again on Spotify it was weird to be able to sing along to songs i hadn't heard since before my eldest was born, now 27+ years ago...

their albums had interesting titles, such as The Eight Legged Groove Machine, Hup, Never Loved Elvis and {brilliant this} Construction For The Modern Idiot, reflecting their daft take on things. they struck lucky when they decided to record the song Dizzy with British comedian Vic Reeves {who with his then companion Bob Mortimer stood for a surreal, absurd kind of comedy that regularly got quite out of hand...}, which hit the big time {just now found the original clip and was reminded of the madcap stuff Reeves & Mortimer got up to in the early nineties - oh, those were the days...}

they lasted until about 1994, when i guess the fun was gone from being in a band, which had rehashed into different set-ups, and they reformed kind of in 2000, again resulting in may different members over time, but still with Hunt as the front man. 

the novelty wore off soon, i must say, listening to them now, as the music and singing can get a bit incessant, and there's more stuff to get through these days... as opposed to 1990, when i was so delighted to have found a band that seemed to be daft, irreverent and absurd, and who's music cheered me up so much. the reminder was nice, though!