Amsterdam

In a moment I am setting off on my own to go to Amsterdam for a couple of days. My plan is to go and see the Hockney/Van Gogh exhibition, as recommended by more than one friend. I'll be meeting up with Mark Thatcher, who lived in Faversham until last year when he located to the Netherlands with his Dutch wife and their daughter - he is both a witty caracaturist and a fine artist and we'll go together to the exhibition, and then on to the Rembrandt. 

I booked my flights without realising that the cost of hotel rooms in Amsterdam triples on Friday and Saturday nights. I could have avoided the extortionate hike in prices if I had booked from (say) Tue-Thur, but chose Thur-Sat instead. Thus the cost of my trip is about double what it might have been but it would have been even more expensive to change the flights. Darn it!

Coming back on Saturday I hope I'm not too late to get to the Private View/Party which Duncan Grant is holding in the Hot Tin in Faversham - a celebration of the contract he just won from Liberty of London, for some of his designs to be made into Tana Lawn and Silk... the Small Town drawings look wonderful as fabric. I feel rather chuffed that I started buying his pictures before he was so famous!

For the last two days I have been grappling with my usual pre-travel anxiety, made worse this time by knowing I will be on my own. All travel in the last 3-4 years has been with Andrew. I fully understand this is irrational, but it's an insight into how other people say they feel... normally I am not anxious (much) about anything at all.  This feeling makes me prowl around, almost shaking. I need to understand why this happens. It's fear-based, but why.    I discovered that once I knew how to get from the airport to the city centre, and then how to walk to my hotel, I calmed down. So - it's fear of the unknown..... 

Amsterdam, here I come!