More Netherlands

So tell me, is this how it’s going to go? This blog is our main record of our trip, but so much is happening that never gets into it. It would be frustrating, were it not just how life goes – most gets missed and sinks into oblivion. So many stories never get told.

Here we are in Spain, and still so much remains to say about the Netherlands. Hm. There must be a way. I will concentrate on visuals.

There are wonderful, distracting visual pleasures in Wormerveer, Netherlands. Here are some within a short distance of our apartment there.

morning in our apartment, and its sunrise view

The cacao factory, filling the air with the scent of chocolate. A tug and a chocolate liquor barge on its way for the bridge, which will rise to let it pass. A work boat that has become a pleasure craft, moored just outside our place. 

The statue in downtown Wormerveer, "To the Fallen, 1939-1945." This serious statue reminded me that not all is beer and skittles in Holland's past. They've been through hard times, and deserve their good times.

So now come good times, which we may hope will last a long while. Everything ultimately revolves around the water here. Recreation, work, housing, the past, everything is tied up with water and its attributes, the mist and reflections, and the project of keeping it at bay. 

An old work boat now permanently moored, turned into a restaurant.

Well - maybe not absolutely everything is water-related. Here are signs of two businesses in Wormerveer, a brewery and a car-repair place, one shut and one rocking along.

The little guys rolling barrels have to do with a shut-up brewery waiting for a buyer. Almost across the street from that, this Peugeot repair place and its hand-with-wrench. Here's it's statement of purpose:

They fix everything from tractors and trains to coffee mills, housewives, mountain bikes, and cats and dogs. One can only wish them luck with that!

Visual delight is my only goal with these pictures, there's no higher intention here. Oh, I'm sure we'll get back to high significance, but a little low significance is OK now and then.

by Nancy