Chronicles Continued

May your day be cheery and bright.

May visions of sugar-plums dance in your head- if that’s your thing.

May there be time for a winter’s nap;

Watch out for the mice which might be running rampant elsewhere in the house while you doze.

All in all a day to stop and smell the roses – or dig yourself out from a snow storm.

Plan on later enjoying a mug of something warm and a fire – hopefully only in a fireplace..

Across the water from my front door, the moorings of the quay are being repaired. The responsibility for this upkeep belongs to the City,. The work is anticipated to consume several months. The time for work chosen is the non-tourist seasons of course, but the water is cold. In preparation, all boat owners were instructed to move their vessels, from the right hand side of the photo to as far as the eye can see. Apparently this one owner didn’t get the memo.

Sint lies-in-wait on board and somewhere on board there is also a horse.. His hiding place is opposite my front door. He will motor to the City’s main Dijk to surprise the waiting children and parents.

The mask-less parents and mulit-generation-exposed public, anticipating the arrival of the Old Bishop.

The traffic jam as a result of his presence.

Any questions as to why The Netherlands is at Code red for C-19?

An invitation to streaming appeared unexpectedly in an email offer. Leapt at the chance: a streaming of the Glass Menagerie* in only two hours time! Ordered ticket. How could it be other than wonderful: starring: Isabelle Huppert, directed by Ivo van Hove in a second directorial effort for Théâtre de l’Odéon in Paris. Full-disclosure: I have seen every Broadway play Ivo van Hove has directed. All of my experienced and accomplished actor friends find his interruptions beyond reproach. I have yet to understand his appeal. Apparently my lack of something. Well, this was an experience: lots of hurry & flurry by Huppert; lots of vocal utterances without nuance, a few actual script changes resulting in alternative actions, a suitor of indeterminate age and more ‘actions’ you have to have seen to believe. To say nothing of the staging. A diversion it was, an adventure of sorts and of course the price was right.

*La Ménagerie de verre.

They are needed on the ground…. “A group of animals has been drafted in to combat a hazard in the skies above the runway of Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, The Netherlands aviation hub. A six-week pilot project is studying whether a small herd of pigs can deter flocks of geese and other birds attracted to discarded sugar beets on nearby farmland.

The 19 pigs have been enjoying life on a 5-acre plot between two runways, turning a field of crop residue into a muddy haven and eating the food that attracts the birds, which can collide with planes and in the worst cases even get sucked into engines.

Two years ago, a KLM Boeing 747 was hit by one such suspected “bird strike”, and had to return to the airport. This was also the cause of the famous US Airways near-disaster in 2009, when both engines lost all power and the captain, Chesley Sullenberger, had to land his stricken Airbus A320 on the Hudson River.

In the year from November 2018, there were 565 strikes near Schiphol, peaking in the summer. The number fell to 259 in 2020-21 as air traffic waned during the coronavirus pandemic.

However, long aware of the safety risk, the airport – which is surrounded by natural areas that attract wildlife – has 20 bird controllers tracking avian activity and using technology such as noise and laser beams to deter them.

Stan Gloudemans, co-owner of a small-scale outdoor piggery, Buitengewone Varkens (“extraordinary pigs”), was keen to help when the Royal Schiphol Group, which manages the airport, came to him to see if his animals could do even more.

“Geese like beet, and when it’s left on the fields, they flock to eat it,” he told the Guardian on a visit to the trampled field just west of Amsterdam. “Over there are 30 geese enjoying the beet, but those geese are a danger to aircraft. Here, the pigs have eaten up the beet so the geese stay away.

“This is a trial with two hectares, although the Haarlemmermeer [the district surrounding the airport] is 2,000. I’d dare to say that it’s already a success; next year, on to bigger fields!” Although the noise of planes taxiing and taking off is loud and frequent, there is no evidence that the pigs are bothered, with their tails high and wagging. Herman Vermeer, a researcher in pig welfare at Wageningen University & Research, said although he had not investigated the effects of noise on outdoor pigs, they were likely to become well adjusted.*

*Senay Boztas/24 November 2021. The Guardian

Perhaps the next experiment will involve Chickens-crossing-the-road

No, one may not simply trade a US state-side driver’s license for a Dutch one. A two-test procedure has to be followed. First theory and then practical behind the wheel. The theory is like none other! The test is 64 questions from a 1485 question data base and you must within eight [8] seconds find the correct answer. The questions are sneaky. One sees a photo situation and in those 8 seconds do you see: the children playing behind the parked cars. can you read the road/traffic signs and the additional under-signs correctly. Can you immediately recognize who has the right away. What about the bikes, motorbikes, motorcycles, electric bikes, old-folks-pushing-walkers, horses and pedestrians how do they play into this order of who goes first. All anyone can say is: Good luck!

Oh yes, and you have to know all the arm signals of the officer as he over-rides whatever signs may be posted anywhere around him.

It is, as they say, a sight to behold. The ships start as they lie at anchor. At the gun, the anchors are hoisted and as sails unfurl, the ships race across the Ijsselmeer toward the buoys positioned at three small towns: Medemblik, Stavoren and Urk and back to the start, now the finish. They have between the hours of 10 am to 4 pm to complete the course. Here are two entrants:

Deciding to continue my art acquisitions have been weekly browsing the ‘art department’ of my favorite emporium. This department is a couple of vertical shelves stacked with empty frames and dusty prints. But you never know. This appeared:

a water color, signed and dated ’05. Would you believe that when I hang my red dish towel to dry at the end of the day, I hang it over the counter’s edge. The pot keeps it from slipping off onto the ground.

There is no chicken/egg here as my dish towel purchase was 2018.

Was returning to my City on what was the last train for the night. The next train leaving the station would be 5:09 the following morning. A school-aged-boy came and stood beside me waiting for the train to stop so we could open the doors. At the same moment a conductor also appeared. The school boy asked the conductor what stop this was? The conductor said, “The last stop”. Full Stop. The fogged head of the boy cleared in an instant. He began to protest that he needed to have gotten off in Amsterdam. [He needed to have disembarked 50 minutes earlier.] By the look of him, he had been imbibing somewhere, and had boarded the train at a southerly station. Now he was at the northern station–the end of the line. I heard him inquire about the cost of a cab – close to 100 euros. I walked away figuring the train personal and he would not welcome or need my input into finding a solution.

Was sitting on the dock of the bay and this sight appeared