I have often thought that one way to slow down the terrifying acceleration of time as I get older is to spend the days with small children. This is exhausting, but maybe that it the price you have to pay to get full value from every waking hour.
Certainly when my own children were small, the days seemed to last as long as they had when I was a child myself. The impression that time has speeded up - especially the months, seasons and years - has got more appalling the more I am away from small people.
The last 24 hours has been spent with the grandsons, and it's already lasted about a week. We have been doing - everything. I have sat on the floor a lot, and been climbed on. I have read, and re-read, and read out loud again books made of thick cardboard pages with pop-up sections. I have counted up to a hundred.
I have taught first one, and then the second boy how to play Connect Four... the the competitive part has not been mastered, but getting the counters into the tiny little frame has been completely understood - this little toy amused their father when he was a child... They have already lost two of the precious counters so I will have to move the sofa later to find them.
I have counted up to a hundred again. I have laughed. I have wiped so much green pasty stuff off the boys' faces you would not believe that so much gunk could have started as one innocent bowl of pea soup.
I have rescued a fine old chisel from being hammered into the floor. I have helped eat porridge with my fingers.
I have helped each boy have a go on a new (second-hand) pedal car, on the lumpy lawn in the rain. round and round, eventually abandoned to wait for drier weather or a harder surface.
I have played Spiderman Zipwire about 75 times across the sitting room, while discussing how wet my (his) feet could get if we splashed into a pond under the wire, and how scared Spiderwoman would be if he (yes, he is a superhero) if he had to do the same thing.
I have been in the rain to the supermarket, hearing the tune for Batman boysplained to me over and over and over again, and then performed - dinner-dinner-dinner-dinner-Batmannnnn! dinner-dinner-dinner-dinner-dinner-dinner-dinner-Batmaaaaaaaaan! (Many times). I have carefully selected which apple turnover to bring home, and then had to phone my DIL to find out if it can be eaten immediately... (No!)..... But then selected a box of blueberries to eat on the way home, and pushed home in the absolutely tipping rain with the two boys alternately picking blueberries out of the punnet with extreme delicacy, while the rain poured down their impervious face...... We came home without the Batman Chorus but full of blueberries and completely happy, wet from top to bottom. Next we made art on the phone with a digital paintbox, and emailed them to the parents.... And then we played trains, and watched some television, and texted to Aunty Lucie, and then ... well, it's mid-afternoon and we still have the rest of the afternoon..... So, this is my formula. I have been living in their timezone. It goes MUCH more slowly than old time. I recommend it.
Tuesday, 4 June 2019
Sunday, 2 June 2019
Sending children down the mines....
Half way up the Great Orme there's a pit in the ground, about the size of a couple of tennis courts. In 1987 there was a plan to make this into a carpark, and then preparatory works uncovered evidence of old mine workings - which they investigated.
The assumption was that the mine was a left-over from the 19th or maybe18th centuries - modern industrial times. But soon they started to discover old tools left behind, and these were made of stone, and animal bone. This was a previously unsuspected copper mine dating back 4000 years, in the middle Bronze Age. Its full extent is still to be uncovered, though they have penetrated down 9 layers, some 180 metres in depth. Only the first two layers are available for public visits, well lit and explained, but still - narrow, damp, dark and full of mysteries.
They think that copper would originally have been visible on the surface - malachite rock or other stones stained green or blue, so at first they'd have been able to scavenge on the ground, but gradually started to work their way down. Their pursuit - using their hands and rocks as tools - led them to gouge out a maze of tunnels and caverns, tiny, claustrophobic, and only accessible to children.
As one of the display signs says, this was all about the creation of wealth and power... new ideas in the world. The older ways - which had seen the spreading of mankind all over the world - were all about understanding how to wander with cattle and goats, and possessing skills, knowledge. People were nomadic. The goddess governed matters of life and death, according to her own seasons, dancing with the sun and the moon, the weather, the sea... nothing which could be owned.
But the mining of metals meant a complete change in everything... Now everything was up for grabs. Men seized control and authority.
Contemporary with the Great Orme copper mines is the amazing gold cape found at Mold, now in the British Museum who accept it was probably associated with the works at Orme. How about that for a statement of wealth and power? (The gold probably came from Ireland).
So, this power came from the copper mines. You have to ask, which children went into the tiny shallow narrow holes in the rock in the pitch dark to bash away and scrape out more of the green-tinged rocks? Were they slaves? Who sent them? How long did these little scraps live? How were they paid? In food? In being allowed to live, at all? Children died in the copper mine, as young as 5, or 6. And women too, and men. Their grandfathers and grandmothers had been herders, wanderers.... but these people were destined to grub into solid rock. It's dark and cold down there. What stories did they tell? What did they believe?
Stones were hauled up from the beaches a mile or so away to be used as hammers and spades. And animal bones were fashioned and abandoned and left behind and became stained green from the metallic water flowing round them....
The scale of the excavations is amazing... not just the extent and depth of the tunnels, but the occasional ball-room-sized space, one of which is thought to be the largest man-made ancient hole in the ground in the whole world. Wealth and power. Not tribe and knowledge.
Whatever changes we are witnessing now, as the internet and artificial intelligence and dark data penetrate every aspect of our lives, I think it that is nothing compared to what rippled out from the Great Orme. Here they must have had many many people, over many generations - more than 1200 years - going down into that pit to pulverise the rock and drag the metal out into the open. They mastered smelting too, jettisoning iron as they didn't know what it was, and their fires were not hot enough to melt it... The copper was fantastically valuable - influencing technology, trade, power, mapping, politics. It was made into tools - axes, and spears, and these were now to be used as weapons against people, to establish ownership and territory... Kings created themselves. Is this the age of King Midas?
The very excellent booklet sold at the Copper Mine mentions the Dover boat in the context of trade with the continent... some of the photos from that booklet are used here.
If you get a chance, do go and see this extraordinary place. Until it was found, everyone thought that copper and bronze making was a matter for the Mediterranean, the Middle East... but this pit on the Great Orme has meant the re-writing of the entire history of that period for the British Isles. Much more is waiting to be uncovered.
The assumption was that the mine was a left-over from the 19th or maybe18th centuries - modern industrial times. But soon they started to discover old tools left behind, and these were made of stone, and animal bone. This was a previously unsuspected copper mine dating back 4000 years, in the middle Bronze Age. Its full extent is still to be uncovered, though they have penetrated down 9 layers, some 180 metres in depth. Only the first two layers are available for public visits, well lit and explained, but still - narrow, damp, dark and full of mysteries.
They think that copper would originally have been visible on the surface - malachite rock or other stones stained green or blue, so at first they'd have been able to scavenge on the ground, but gradually started to work their way down. Their pursuit - using their hands and rocks as tools - led them to gouge out a maze of tunnels and caverns, tiny, claustrophobic, and only accessible to children.
As one of the display signs says, this was all about the creation of wealth and power... new ideas in the world. The older ways - which had seen the spreading of mankind all over the world - were all about understanding how to wander with cattle and goats, and possessing skills, knowledge. People were nomadic. The goddess governed matters of life and death, according to her own seasons, dancing with the sun and the moon, the weather, the sea... nothing which could be owned.
But the mining of metals meant a complete change in everything... Now everything was up for grabs. Men seized control and authority.
Contemporary with the Great Orme copper mines is the amazing gold cape found at Mold, now in the British Museum who accept it was probably associated with the works at Orme. How about that for a statement of wealth and power? (The gold probably came from Ireland).
So, this power came from the copper mines. You have to ask, which children went into the tiny shallow narrow holes in the rock in the pitch dark to bash away and scrape out more of the green-tinged rocks? Were they slaves? Who sent them? How long did these little scraps live? How were they paid? In food? In being allowed to live, at all? Children died in the copper mine, as young as 5, or 6. And women too, and men. Their grandfathers and grandmothers had been herders, wanderers.... but these people were destined to grub into solid rock. It's dark and cold down there. What stories did they tell? What did they believe?
Stones were hauled up from the beaches a mile or so away to be used as hammers and spades. And animal bones were fashioned and abandoned and left behind and became stained green from the metallic water flowing round them....
The scale of the excavations is amazing... not just the extent and depth of the tunnels, but the occasional ball-room-sized space, one of which is thought to be the largest man-made ancient hole in the ground in the whole world. Wealth and power. Not tribe and knowledge.
The very excellent booklet sold at the Copper Mine mentions the Dover boat in the context of trade with the continent... some of the photos from that booklet are used here.
If you get a chance, do go and see this extraordinary place. Until it was found, everyone thought that copper and bronze making was a matter for the Mediterranean, the Middle East... but this pit on the Great Orme has meant the re-writing of the entire history of that period for the British Isles. Much more is waiting to be uncovered.
A drive across the country
Some observations:
The government's cut-backs are presumably responsible for a cut-back in cutting back the trees, hedges, shrubs etc which like to grow up beside roads. As a result, right across the country, road signs which are placed for our information and safety are - at present - very often hidden inside a crazy kind of Burnham Wood. This is both irritating and dangerous. Not everyone has satnav, and these indicator boards are essential. But they don't move and they are silent. Hard-pressed councils have put their maintenance and visibility right down at the end of the list of priorities.
Petrol stations are quietly transforming themselves into grocery shops. People are eating on the move. All the food and goods are wrapped in plastic. Not all garages have the facilities we used to rely on, air-pressure fillers for example. And none of them sell large road-maps any more.
They do sometimes sell small local car maps, smaller page size than A4. But these are not much more use than satnavs which give you such limited information. Our old car maps are so beaten up and out of date, and I failed to notice they were hard to renew nowadays. But only a large map covering a wide area and filled with proper details can show you your alternative routes, or interesting places to go and explore, or what the local place-names tell you. I feel bereft. (Also, as it comes to mind, I can tell you that shops no longer sell packets of ordinary house-hold candles. You can only buy tea-lights now, unless you revert to the internet.) Maybe this blog will become a litany of loss, recording the multitude of tiny changes which are sweeping the old ways away, and creating new ones which are not always welcome. So.....
Travelling across Britain by car these days is quite difficult. You can join the motorways where the traffic is frequently crowded or jammed or stationary, with bumpy noisy road surfaces due to age and method of construction, or the motorways are restricted by speed limits for long distances, and they are nearly always, and mostly, in any case, boring. I find I have a yearning to go by the old roads, because there I learn about the landscape, the history and community of the country. But it's no use being in a hurry. I think I shall add 'travel in England in the Middle Ages' to my list of subjects to explore.
Yesterday leaving Faversham at 9am we arrived in Llandudno at about 4.30pm. One of the greatest moments was a sudden brilliant glimpse down into the huge glowing estuary of the River Dee, with the tide out, and the swirling pinks and greens and golds of the water and mud stretching out into the soft light. Nowhere to stop and take a breathe. I wish our road system had 'aires' as they do in France, where you can stop and recover your spiritual equilibrium by just looking.
And I had another vision, as we saw various real or Victorian castles dotted about in the hills, that I need to think about the landscape as women and men see it... a male landscape, and a female. What items would we place in the masculine map? Castles, courtrooms and canals, bridges, railways, etc. Mines and quarries. Battle fields. And which would go in the feminine landscape? Not so easy to list! But wells and springs, cottages and gardens, herbal beds, the addresses of midwives....
The process of booking into a self-catering flat has become entirely automated these days. They send messages with entry codes and details of where to find a key, all that. Fine, as long as the messages arrive.
Montague House, (sp. var. Montegue) conceals itself at the end of a row of splendid early-mid Victorian holiday hotels and b&bs by hiding its name behind a built-on ice-cream booth. There are few if any house numbers to be seen anywhere… everyone is revelling in the Belmont, Merrion, Lauriston and Lawton, Milverton, Wildings, Tyndale, Annan, Whitemoor, Grand, Brigstock and St Davids……We were lucky that the ice-cream booth was open as the helpful boys working there found us someone who knew someone who could telephone someone who knew the owner of our apartments. A few calls were made. The owner (‘host’) sounded plaintive that his messaged instructions had not reached us….. But we did eventually get in.
The photos which ‘sell’ these little apartment contracts do not, of course, contain information about noise or smell. This apartment which is otherwise almost quite sweet, is directly above the loudly-powered ventilation units clearing frying smells from two restaurant kitchens, so it is not the lack of sea view which depresses, or the proximity of the rear walls of the adjacent buildings, but the smell and roar of these fans. Alas.
But - it’s home for the next two nights. We went out to explore.
The broad streets of Lllandudno are very pretty. There was a building regulation or formula 150 years ago that ensured the houses were no higher than the width of the streets, which gives a very open and pleasing tone to the town. The huge wide bay sweeps round between the Great Orme and the Little Orme, and in the modestly warm air, children were scampering and families strolling along the distant water’s edge. Very pretty. The Ormes are two huge blobs of rock - baby mountains - which lurch out from the land towards the sea, and are thought to have been named by the Norsemen who thought of them as dragons, or worms…… (geddit?)
The broad streets of Lllandudno are very pretty. There was a building regulation or formula 150 years ago that ensured the houses were no higher than the width of the streets, which gives a very open and pleasing tone to the town. The huge wide bay sweeps round between the Great Orme and the Little Orme, and in the modestly warm air, children were scampering and families strolling along the distant water’s edge. Very pretty. The Ormes are two huge blobs of rock - baby mountains - which lurch out from the land towards the sea, and are thought to have been named by the Norsemen who thought of them as dragons, or worms…… (geddit?)
We perambulated, found that restaurant prices are quite high especially in the evenings (main meal ranging from £15-33), and eventually chose a Bengali place - mostly on the basis of price. Vegetable dhansak or biriani £9. There was a brief moment (as we climbed the stairs to the dining room) that we fancied we would be gracing them with our custom… (the arrogance of holiday-makers bestowing choice and money on a business!)… but when we go there it was crowded out, utterly heaving. We were lucky to get a table, and had a pleasant meal surrounded by happy families and chuckling groups of businessmen. And so home to bed. The noise and smell of the ventilators had died down. Hoorah! Sweet dreams.
Sunday, 19 May 2019
Do Jackdaws Nest in Planes?
While we waited and waited to be allowed onto our plane at Schiphol, this jackdaw caught my eye. It was waiting to get up the stairs ...
It tried several times, flying up to peer inside the aircraft door.
Each time, someone came out and it flew off. Its mate was sitting watching from the roof over our heads.... the bird had about three or four goes trying to get into the plane. Each time it was shooed away. Then waited and tried again. Sorry the pictures are not terribly good - snatched on my phone. A few seconds later, we were all allowed outside, so the birds flew away. But is this a well-known thing? An amazing bit of wildlife... a mystery.
Design and language
I wanted to change the time of my flight home, to travel earlier. That was partly because I was really tired after seeing those two extraordinary and powerful exhibitions, and partly because I wanted to get home in time to go to Duncan Grant's What a Liberty! party in Faversham. My original flight would be landing far too late, after 7pm at Gatwick.
The Easyjet app promises I can change flights myself if seats are available, and at a moderate cost - €30, which is enough to feel like a penalty but not too punitive. However, the app threw up an Error message saying 'Normal manage booking operations are not allowed with early flight transfer [4400008]'. This kind of jargon is extremely frustrating. It's preventing you from doing what it says you can do, in fact what it was specifically set up for you to do. And the wording is obscure and meaningless... What is 'early flight transfer'? What does 'Normal manage booking operations' mean? Aggh! Here is 'language' not working properly.
Anyway, I decided to leave the city early, abandon plans to mooch for the morning and get to the airport. There was a chance that if I was there in person, they could change the flight for me. I needed to be there as soon as I could. I went down to pay my bill. The hotel reception suddenly had a long long queue, another little glitch.
My Easyjet info was telling me of yet more traffic delays due to roadworks south of Amsterdam, and also said some trains weren't running at all. The text was not clear... some or none? The hotel receptionist said to use the bus and explained it wasn't far away. So I lugged my now heavier bag along to the bus stop, weighed down with art books. (Why didn't I bring a wheeled case?). I got to the bridge, I could see the bus. But, between me and the bus station was a massive tram-line installation thing going on... the new tramlines were set in gleaming new concrete beds, and the whole road was fenced off in both directions as far as the eye could see. I was going to have to walk right down to the far end - almost out of sight - and then back again, to get to that bus. I was weary and worried. (Damn those synthetic sheets! Hot and sticky nights make for poor sleep and bad moods).
The bus driver was kind. He doesn't handle money - you can buy a ticket using a bank card. He drove so swiftly and surely through the streets, it was a joy to watch. The morning was light and sunny, the streets quiet and gentle. Amsterdam looked lovely and here I was, leaving it. At the airport, unlike the London set-up where the name EasyJet is emblazoned everywhere, I couldn't see it at all... had two or three goes at finding a desk... But, the young lady put down her phone where she was evidently canoodling with someone, swallowed her chewing gum, and swiftly changed my flight. And when I asked how much, she shrugged. She meant 'Nothing!' Hoorah! Win!!!!
I had to queue to check in, in one of those ghastly sudoku-type zigzag lines, which in me at any rate arouse deeply depressing moods.... but it only lasted about 15 minutes. Then up and through the amazing security checks, where - unlike London - you do not have to unpack half your suitcase and spread it out in those heavy plastic trays. It all stays in the bags. I had inadvertently left my waterbottle in my bag, and that went through fine. As you walk through the X-ray arch, you have to lift your hands high in the air... not all that easy for some I imagine, and humiliating... the staff were laughing.
On the train to London, the pretty girl sitting opposite me had three bottles of fruit-flavoured cider with her, and proceeded to open the crown tops with her teeth. I bet she won't be pretty for long.
At home at last, with a swift change of clothing from travel-baggy jeans into gladrags, we were off to Duncan's Private View... he had swatches of his beautiful cloth there, 100% silk from Liberty of London, and Tana Lawn, in his lovely friendly designs. This very day, it was announced that Faber, printing the Booker Prize winner 'Milkman' by Anna Burns, had chosen one of his designs as the jacket cover. A big day! Liberty have 'first pop' at all his other designs now too. He makes these sitting in a van, at night, on the road somewhere, waiting with the road-mending gangs, as he is by training a geologist and materials engineer... he helps with the pouring of new road surfaces, and does these amazing doodly drawings while he's waiting. (If he was Dutch he might have been working with that tramline gang in Amsterdam). Now his genius has been recognised and he'll be world famous.
Friday, 17 May 2019
Art
Hotel breakfasts in a foreign country are something of an adventure. You never know quite what is going to be presented. Even when they're doing their best it may not be what you're expecting. In Holland, they like to offer you hard-boiled eggs, kept warm under a kind of towel, and then served on a plate - which is fine, but a bit awkward. I used the glittering toast-making machine which was very efficient, and got my coffee from a machine which offered macchiato – this turned out to be a cup of hot milk with a tiny drip of coffee poured in at the end, not what most Italians would call a macchiato, but still....
My walk to the Van Gogh museum was very pleasant, since the marauding mobs of football fans had all gone home. My friend the caricaturist Mark Thatcher arrived and we spent a happy couple of hours looking at the paintings and drawings. The Hockney/Van Gogh exhibition is absolutely fantastic. I've always been slightly put off by Van Gogh, by the slightly deranged appearance that his work presents, but Hockney has clearly seen in him all the dynamic enthusiasm, colour, movement, and love of nature which also inspired his own work. The parallels between some of Van Gogh's paintings and Hockney's own are really remarkable. I love the vivid colour and the fresh brilliance of what Hockney has done with his landscape works and his reverence for VG.
As he says, if they had been available, Van Gogh would almost certainly have used iPads to create his works.
I was also very struck by how Hockney was able to assemble groups of works in say charcoal, or watercolour, and show that as a group these works have greater power and more meaning than any of the individual works could have produced.
Mark and I found a great deal to discuss in the exhibition and enjoyed exchanging ideas as we wandered round.
When we came out we looked at the extremely expensive gift shop and decided that the 10 cent plastic bags were the best value.
We then wandered off and found some lunch in an Italian café. Exploring that district was very pleasurable. But eventually we made our way back to the Rijksmuseum to see the Rembrandt show. This could not offer a greater contrast to the works we had seen in the morning. The rooms were really crowded which was rather frustrating as it was quite difficult to see some of the works.There are literally hundreds of tiny engravings which Rembrandt made over the course of his life, as well as set pieces and portraits of such glittering power and beauty that we were spellbound. There was in fact far too much for us to take in in one day and we emerged about 4 o'clock absolutely exhausted.
I feel, at the end of the day, that I'm not really doing justice to the extraordinary day we have spent, looking at works of such power and importance.
We had a beer in a cafe where a customer built up such a debt that in the end he paid the owner by installing a statue of himself as a kind of attraction. It's rather good but a bit small.
Mark eventually headed back to the station to go home to Harlem. I came back to the hotel to drop off my things and then go out for supper. I made the mistake of going back to last night's café which was much more crowded than last night, and I was persuaded to choose a different dish which was more expensive and not as nice as last night's supper.
I now also know that there are big disruptions to the public transport tomorrow so I have no idea how I will get back to the airport.
One good thing about the day is that I have made a series of ink and wash sketches at various points which is always pleasing. Mark did a couple of caricatures of me, while I was drawing buildings, motorscooter, bicycles, and the funny statue outside the café.
My walk to the Van Gogh museum was very pleasant, since the marauding mobs of football fans had all gone home. My friend the caricaturist Mark Thatcher arrived and we spent a happy couple of hours looking at the paintings and drawings. The Hockney/Van Gogh exhibition is absolutely fantastic. I've always been slightly put off by Van Gogh, by the slightly deranged appearance that his work presents, but Hockney has clearly seen in him all the dynamic enthusiasm, colour, movement, and love of nature which also inspired his own work. The parallels between some of Van Gogh's paintings and Hockney's own are really remarkable. I love the vivid colour and the fresh brilliance of what Hockney has done with his landscape works and his reverence for VG.
As he says, if they had been available, Van Gogh would almost certainly have used iPads to create his works.
I was also very struck by how Hockney was able to assemble groups of works in say charcoal, or watercolour, and show that as a group these works have greater power and more meaning than any of the individual works could have produced.
Mark and I found a great deal to discuss in the exhibition and enjoyed exchanging ideas as we wandered round.
When we came out we looked at the extremely expensive gift shop and decided that the 10 cent plastic bags were the best value.
We then wandered off and found some lunch in an Italian café. Exploring that district was very pleasurable. But eventually we made our way back to the Rijksmuseum to see the Rembrandt show. This could not offer a greater contrast to the works we had seen in the morning. The rooms were really crowded which was rather frustrating as it was quite difficult to see some of the works.There are literally hundreds of tiny engravings which Rembrandt made over the course of his life, as well as set pieces and portraits of such glittering power and beauty that we were spellbound. There was in fact far too much for us to take in in one day and we emerged about 4 o'clock absolutely exhausted.
I feel, at the end of the day, that I'm not really doing justice to the extraordinary day we have spent, looking at works of such power and importance.
We had a beer in a cafe where a customer built up such a debt that in the end he paid the owner by installing a statue of himself as a kind of attraction. It's rather good but a bit small.
Mark eventually headed back to the station to go home to Harlem. I came back to the hotel to drop off my things and then go out for supper. I made the mistake of going back to last night's café which was much more crowded than last night, and I was persuaded to choose a different dish which was more expensive and not as nice as last night's supper.
I now also know that there are big disruptions to the public transport tomorrow so I have no idea how I will get back to the airport.
One good thing about the day is that I have made a series of ink and wash sketches at various points which is always pleasing. Mark did a couple of caricatures of me, while I was drawing buildings, motorscooter, bicycles, and the funny statue outside the café.
The sounds of football fans
If you're flying from Gatwick North terminal, it's always a relief if they send you to gate 54 because you don't have very far to walk. My flight to Amsterdam was said to be fully booked but amazingly, I had an empty seat on either side of me, which made for a very spacious and pleasant flight.
However on arrival, I found the bus system was disrupted due to a huge celebration in the city centre for the Ajax football team. After several aborted attempts to find the right bus I finally got onto one which took me to Amsterdam south. Even then I made the mistake of not clicking my bus ticket as I got off the bus. We were told on the bus the entire city centre was closed! Along with a few other confused visitors and tourists, I found the Metro and asked for help to get as near as I could to the hotel. A girl in the ticket office was extremely helpful and taking my ticket went through the barrier herself with her own ticket in hand in order to click my ticket into the 'getting off' mode.
The centre of Amsterdam is so breathtakingly beautiful it's difficult not to just stand and stare. The streets were filled with chanting roaring drunken football fans whooping and calling like animals, and parading along in groups, throwing beer cans and generally having a great time. I was glad to find my hotel was away from the centre in a slightly quieter area.
My room is right at the top of the building three floors up and looking onto the back which is quiet – I can hear birds singing and I can see one tree. Having established myself in the room I went out to have a walk round. While I was sketching the street scene over a glass of indifferent wine, I had a great idea - that there might be a branch of the wonderful Danish shop Tiger somewhere nearby where I could look for more sketchbooks which I had failed to find in Canterbury yesterday. This turned out to be the case and gave me a great excuse for walking through into the centre again and exploring further. I was really pleased to find they had some of the little books so I bought eight and lugged them back. Around me the football fans chanted and shouted. Street cleaning machines could not clear all the litter. The police stood in groups, or rode past on huge horses.
Back to my quieter area! Then I found a place for supper, had another glass of wine – much nicer than the first one – and ordered a vegetarian moussaka and salad which I ate looking over the Prinsengracht canal and feeling very content.
The whole of Amsterdam is very trendy, young, fashionable, funny, and stylish. Not unlike Covent Garden in London or the Ramblas in Barcelona. I really love it.
However on arrival, I found the bus system was disrupted due to a huge celebration in the city centre for the Ajax football team. After several aborted attempts to find the right bus I finally got onto one which took me to Amsterdam south. Even then I made the mistake of not clicking my bus ticket as I got off the bus. We were told on the bus the entire city centre was closed! Along with a few other confused visitors and tourists, I found the Metro and asked for help to get as near as I could to the hotel. A girl in the ticket office was extremely helpful and taking my ticket went through the barrier herself with her own ticket in hand in order to click my ticket into the 'getting off' mode.
The centre of Amsterdam is so breathtakingly beautiful it's difficult not to just stand and stare. The streets were filled with chanting roaring drunken football fans whooping and calling like animals, and parading along in groups, throwing beer cans and generally having a great time. I was glad to find my hotel was away from the centre in a slightly quieter area.
My room is right at the top of the building three floors up and looking onto the back which is quiet – I can hear birds singing and I can see one tree. Having established myself in the room I went out to have a walk round. While I was sketching the street scene over a glass of indifferent wine, I had a great idea - that there might be a branch of the wonderful Danish shop Tiger somewhere nearby where I could look for more sketchbooks which I had failed to find in Canterbury yesterday. This turned out to be the case and gave me a great excuse for walking through into the centre again and exploring further. I was really pleased to find they had some of the little books so I bought eight and lugged them back. Around me the football fans chanted and shouted. Street cleaning machines could not clear all the litter. The police stood in groups, or rode past on huge horses.
Back to my quieter area! Then I found a place for supper, had another glass of wine – much nicer than the first one – and ordered a vegetarian moussaka and salad which I ate looking over the Prinsengracht canal and feeling very content.
The whole of Amsterdam is very trendy, young, fashionable, funny, and stylish. Not unlike Covent Garden in London or the Ramblas in Barcelona. I really love it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)