I suck at keeping blogs! It’s about 2 months ago since I last updated. Shame on me again! But I’ll drink some tea, scan some cards and hope to get this baby up and running again

I bought this new cat toy and my beautiful Norwegian Forest Cat Lion loves it to pieces. As you can see in the movie below.

Today I went to the Deventer Book Market, the biggest book market in Europe. Yes, I was in heaven! Well…heaven came down on us, actually. It was poring with rain the whole day Poor books! But even though there were less visitors than the years before (85.000 in stead of 120.000) I really liked the atmosphere, the 900 book stands, the smell and sight of old books. Fantastic! This day I decided to get some children’s books I always wanted. Including: Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Longstocking and The Brothers Lionheart. I also bought of novel of Dutch author Thea Beckman, Simone van der Vlugt and Annie M.G. Schmidt. Like I said: HEAVEN!

I really need to update this blog. Last entry was about a month ago… Shame on me! So right now I’m going to update at least the postcard bit of my blog. Got some amazing postcards lately!

Last night was kinda creepy but overall a night with way to little sleep. A huge ass thunderstorm was hitting the west of The Netherlands, leaving behind a trail of damage costing more than 15 million euros. Luckily the only thing that didn’t make it in my home was a yellow rose in the garden.  But the storm was kind of scary, I’ve never seen so much lightning bolts. Non stop heavy rain, heavy wind, roaring thunders which lit the entire home. I wasn’t the only one awake at night, as could be seen in the sleepy eyes of my co-workers! I’ve never seen something like that. Ever!

Storm front at the skyline of Rotterdam:

Picture taken in the north of Holland:

Yesterday I ordered a Hello Kitty mobile phone from eBay! It’s so perfect: my love for gadgets and cuteness combined… Of course I’m going to be laughed at at work, not to mention the strange look on people’s faces when they see my handbag lighting up like a disco ball… But I’m very much in love with my new phone. Well, it hasn’t arrived yet but today I got a message that my new best friend is shipped. Hong Kong isn’t that far, right?

Today I went to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the capital city of the Netherlands. The Rijksmuseum is currently being rebuild, but there is still an exposition of the finest works of the 17th century. The exposition is called ‘Masterpieces’ and shows all the works of the great Dutch artists from the 17th century like Rembrandt, Frans Hals and Johannes Vermeer. The highlights of the Golden Age.

I’m very much interested in Dutch history around the 16th and 17th century and I’ve never been to the Rijksmuseum before. Well… I have been on a class trip once, officially. I was exploring Amsterdam on a totally different way back then.

But… now I’m older and wiser (haha) and I thought it would be fun to explore the museum once again. The exposition is a bit small, but it’s true: all the highlights can be watched. I saw the impressive Nightwatch from Rembrandt and many more. However, I totally fell in love with a painting from Hendrick Avercamp called ‘Winter landscape with ice skaters’. It was painted between 1585 until 1634 and it shows a typical Dutch winter with skaters on ice. The incredible thing about this painting is the enormous amount of tiny details. I especially love the two farmers at the left of the painting who are taking a dump in public. Yes, this is truly a masterpiece!

Well, I have proof. The climate is changing. Just so you know.

My previous blog was about the Dutch skating fever. Well, I’m infected too! I skated last week and it was an enormous success. It felt great to be on ice again! Okay, I’m a terrible skater and it didn’t help that the last time I did it was over ten years ago. But all my limbs are still on their original place, so… bye bye I’m going to skate!

(Fuck, fuck, fuckerdiefuck, this will probably the last weekend with deep frost…)

It’s freezing for over a week in the Netherlands. And what to Dutch people do when it freezes? They skate! every Dutchman goes a bit crazy when there’s a thin layer of ice. Will it be possible to skate on nature’s ice? Well… it finally is! I think it has been more than ten years ago since we were able to skate on a decent layer of nature’s ice. Lots of Dutch kids never saw ice before. But the last days of 2008 en the first of 2009 were amazing. The Dutch skating fever strikes again (finally!)

Dutchnews.nl reports: “Skate shop owners report brisk sales, even before the first ice layer was formed. ‘It was a madhouse here on Saturday,’ Roelof Emck of wholesalers Schreuders Sport in Leerdam told the NRC. ‘We are open all day with 35 people working but customers had to wait up to two hours.’

The weather forecast for the next few days is for continued frost at night, with the temperature dropping to as much as -8 Celsius on Tuesday night.” (December 29, 2008)

Today I went to my parents house for my skates. Yes, I still have them! Mine look baby-blue and they’re actually kind of cute. This weekend we’ll finally skate! And I really hope I won’t break any bones because I haven’t been on ice for ages…

Well, that’s not entirely true. Last year we had one ‘good’ skating day and Alex took this wonderful picture in Kinderdijk. It was the first and last day it was possible to skate. Actually the ice was too thin, but crazy Dutch people didn’t mind… I hope to make many more pictures of this kind this weekend!