It took me a year but I’ve finally concluded that, yeah, I live by a lake now just like my brother does during his summers in Wisconsin – where this series had its genesis. (But just to be clear, it’s also part of the canal and water-management system, as is all fresh water in NL, aside from mud puddles in the street.) Above came near the end of my Friday-evening cirumnambulation of said lake (11,000 steps); compare the level of sunset at 19:18 on Friday the 27th to that at 20:00 in the other two from Saturday the 21st: ah, how the days shorten rapidly around the solstices! And the other was going to be part of a Signs of the City entry but it fits as nicely here. Yep, that’s my local swimming hole, unofficial though it may be.
We’re splurging all the remaining photos from our lovely May day-trip bike exploration to Muidersloot with this post. I’ll try to explain a few things that you may be curious about, depending what level of attention you give to these various images. Museums in the Netherlands like to do art in many ways. (The plural in Dutch is musea – which if we English speakers used a more latin-root approach I suppose we’d say too, but I think folks would laugh at me if I talked about going to several musea in a day…)
Above, you see one of the ways Muidersloot was adding contemporary art to the abundant history it always offers just being what is: installation art with a theme of rising sea levels. If you don’t get it, stop and think. It’s possible you’ll chuckle a bit. In other photos you’ll see various insect sculptures in the moat or on the grounds. While I wandered the gardens, I heard loud rumbling and noticed a pod of helicopters crossing the sky. Feeling all Apocalypse Now, I was torn between diving for cover and taking photos. The image below and a few more in the gallery demonstrate which instinct won. (And no, pods of helicopters crossing the sky are not a thing I’ve seen here before, nor do I know what this was about.)
On July 19, having gone even further north (and thus to the left, from the perspective of this image) for more than a month, the sun passed directly through and above this iconic landmark above, on its way back south for the next eight months. I’m already mentally preparing myself to miss it ever more in the months ahead, til I can again welcome it from my bedroom window once its come far enough north again.
Last images from my evening bike ride out along the canals, lakes and waterways of far western Noord Brabant and a wee slice of easternmost Zeeland, while visiting Bergen op Zoom back in May.
All from the Pride Boat Parade (the third weekend with an LGBTQI+ Pride event or parade, as it is I guess every summer, just I’ve not been around to notice as much the past few years) — fun, despite some brief rain showers that came on around the time of this photo immediately above. The inflatable things like the Ode to Queer Icons one, above, are pulled down to go under the bridges then pop back up – I caught the one at the top just before it popped back up :-).
Last shot I took before landing back in NL from the US, back on 14 May; and first shot as we took off on 8 September. The intervening months may have been the longest stretch without any flights that I’ve had since I moved here. As these pages attest, I got out and about quite a lot in that period but always by train. Carbon-footprint reduction plans in action. 🙂
When my train arrived in Vlissingen back in late May, I was struck by the frankly rather grandiose station building. Given that it’s quite literally the end of the (train) line in Zeeland, I guess the city felt a grand statement was important. Middelburg, very slightly more populous and the ‘capital’ of Zeeland (least populous of NL’s 12 provinces), went with a more utilitarian building below.
One wfh-morning, a week or so before I flew to Bangladesh, I decided that I really did need to finally go for a swim across the street, before the weather got continuously cold and rainy again. Why wasn’t I doing this every sunny morning all summer????
All from the Pride Boat Parade (the third weekend with an LGBTQI+ Pride event or parade, as it is I guess every summer, just I’ve not been around to notice as much the past few years) — fun, despite some brief rain showers that came on around the time of this photo immediately above. The inflatable things like the Ode to Queer Icons one, above, are pulled down to go under the bridges then pop back up – I caught the one at the top just before it popped back up :-).
(so much world, so little time....) 