So I think I’m entering new territory today, having yesterday hit 365 days in a row of daily (at least) posts again. I’m fairly sure I’ve never managed to go more than 365 days in a row, so welcome to a new chapter. Since spring has very much sprung here in Amsterdam, I find myself taking more and more images of all the lovely spring blossoms that grace the city at this time of year – examples above and below from various recent walks and rides. Sharing these photos with you is such a good excuse, reason and motivator for me to get out and enjoy the various bits of beauty and joy I inevitably find when I’m paying the right kind of attention to the world around me. Enjoy :-).
Above, last Friday the 31st; below all from the frozen Saturday morning of January 11th. They’re all from the same patch of daffodils, so that frozen early morning clearly didn’t harm the blooms because they’re all still quite radiant and cheering.
Then there were these hardy early-January bloomers, in a patch of daffs that lasted from end of December or early January right up to a week or two ago before fully ending their bloom – in the process surviving snow and a freeze or two.
When I resumed posting last week, I started with daffodils photographed several weeks earlier, on March 7 on my way to work. Then, biking home from two lovely hours of doubles with friends late on Tuesday the 2nd of April…what should my eyes see but this lovely patch of flowers (are these daffodils? jonquils? something else?) lit by the late-evening sun.
Welcome back, dear readers. One or two of you have reached out to double-check that all’s well in my world. Truth to tell, it’s been a hard slog of a winter season / past six months in both life (A’dam really can get grim, wet, and windy in the winter months) and work. But there are moments of joy always, and this captures one of my finer bike rides to work recently. Imagine, if you will, the contrast between this and biking home into the wind and rain at the end of the same day. Which is a thing that has been known to happen more than one could wish, lately. I’ll try to get back to dailies soon, if not immediately.
No, I’m not yet back in Amsterdam, but I did collect some lovely photos of the spring bloom before I left. Thanks to everyone who’s been happy to see regular posts resume, I’ve decided I’ll try to go daily again, so this is being posted as I wait to board a flight from Austin back to SFO. Next up, more of Northern California, no doubt mixed with more from this weekend’s family Texas swing along with more from A’dam, and possibly even Bangkok or Hong Kong where I stopped for work on my way over…
These are from last month in Amsterdam…still alternating pics from the US visit with pics I took mostly before I returned. If you’re curious about the seasons in various places, try to open a photo and look at the title (if you’re on a phone, you can probably do that by tapping the image but it depends what version of the blog you’re looking at – full or “lite”), because I’m mostly leaving the dates in for now 🙂
Municipal elections for all municipalities in the Netherlands this week. While biking around The Hague & Scheveningen (you’ll see those photos some time soon-ish), we saw not only many an election poster, but also a march for one of the parties’ candidates.
My brother’s just finished a week-long visit during which the sun shone every day, ever more trees and bulbs burst into bud and flower, and the crocuses in this lovely central traffic circle (visible from my windows, as well…) just kept on blooming and blooming. I snapped these yesterday morning while walking back to my place, after seeing him onto the bus to the airport. And the one below, a full nine days earlier – as you see, these crocuses just keep on giving :-).
One of the Netherlands’ most famous museums is celebrating its 200th birthday this year, and it’s celebrating with flowers. Enjoy!
(so much world, so little time....) 