Lately ... in the Netherlands

I've been back for a week, and haven't had time to report!
We started out by each travelling separately to Rotterdam.
Ian got there on the Thursday night after a couple of days on business in Brussels.

I took the Eurostar on the Saturday, and after arriving in Brussels took the next train to Antwerp. Ian was there to meet me, and thanks to text messages we managed to locate one another. The station has just been redeveloped, and the arrivals information is not displayed anywhere prominent.
We walked down the road, and had supper before heading on to Rotterdam.

The next day we took the train up to Groningen in the NE of the Netherlands to meet my friend Gerben, and his girlfriend, Mijke.

We had a great day with them, and even managed to see some Open Studios, fortuitously open that day.
Amongst these was the silversmith, Willem Tredgett.

A quiet day in Rotterdam lead up to the opening of the railway signalling conference. We managed to wangle a visit to Folly DOCK Heijplaat, which should have been closed as it was a Monday. This international sculpture exhibition is in a now less used area of Rotterdam's docklands. Heijplaat is a model village, now in decline.

It is hoped that Folly DOCK will bring more people to visit the area. This exhibit is by a Scot.

The first day of the guests programme (Tuesday) included a visit to Amsterdam. I left by train before the rest of the party, so that I could do a few things on my own. I had been told by a lady on the train going to Groningen that I should visit a wool shop in the city centre, de Afstap. She said that they have lovely yarn. It was good, a Rowan stockist, and easy to find. While waiting for it to open I found a good architectural bookshop Arhitectura & Natura nearby.

Later, after a little shopping, I met up with my downstream SP10 pal, Clasca. I was able to take her some heavier goods than I would have posted. We met in the cafe where the Amsterdam SnB group meet, Cafe de Jaren.

Most of the time I was struggling to speak, but suddenly, shortly before we parted my voice came back. It was a pity that we had so little time together.

I rejoined the group, and after lunch at the Star Ferry we went to visit Gassan Diamonds.

Here we were able to handle rings and other diamond jewellery, some pieces costing up to €9000.00. As I carry a x10 magnifying lens with me, I had a great time looking at the details of the settings.

Back in Rotterdam the next morning I saw this unusual use of public transport to move bottles of water and soft drinks. The train was moving, and I was too hasty to wait for my flash to wake up.

On the Thursday I missed out on the first part of the guests programme, as I got stuck on the 6th floor of our hotel. With the lift not responding, and no normal staircase, it took me too long to work out how to use the fire escape stairwell to get down. I missed the boat!

So I skipped the visit to Kinderdijk. I had cycled there from Rotterdam with friends nearly 20 years ago. No doubt the windmills hadn't changed much in the interim.

I took a train to Gouda, and walked around a bit before catching the bus to Schoonhoven to meet the boat party. Schoonhoven is well known as a silversmithing centre in the Netherlands. Arriving an hour before the boat,

I had already worked out the galleries I wished to visit. One was in this watertower:

It also houses workshops for 4 silversmiths. It was an inspiring place to visit.

Next I went to Studio 925 which Willem Tredgett had recommended. Unfortunately the exhibion of jugs he had taken part in, had finished at the beginning of the week. I did see a few that had been sold, and were waiting to be picked up.

We then visited the silversmithing and clock museum, where Henk de Leeuw den Bouter gave a demonstration of silversmithing techniques.

Enough of our trip now, as the sun has come out, I think I have a voice, and I need to do more in the garden!

The best thing that happened so far today ....

.... was getting my latest SP10 parcel from the post office.

What wasn't so perfect was finding that I had no voice when I went to ask for it. (I've had a cold for the past week, that has just got round to day long voice loss.)
That was the first time I had needed to talk today, popping in to the sorting office on the way in to the Art Room.

The contents are perfect!!!

First the overview: yarn, yarn and a card with a coastal scene from Scotland.

Looking a bit closer you can find that I was terribly impatient, and wound the smaller skein up into a ball while at the Art Room.

I even redistributed the stitches of my current sock which was in my bag, so that I could rob a couple of the needles. Using this will take a little thinking. There is just over 100 gm, so it won't go far unless stretched with another yarn. It looks really good in this simple slipped stitch pattern, which also makes a lovely firmish fabric.

Then here is a close-up of the lovely skein of laceweight silk:Winding that is definitely a job for a swift rather than the back of a chair!

Thank you so much Secret Pal. You really got it right.

Losing centimetres (inches even!) in the garden

No, not me, not yet!

After having thought about it for a long time, we finally sorted out the fencing on the west side of our back garden.

When we moved here in December '95, we inherited a fence that we knew would need replacing sometime. Each winter we looked at it, and said "next year".

Well, this time round we had to do something, as our neighbours have a young dog who was gradually exploiting all the weak spots to look into our garden and bark at us (or passing cats).

Steve, Mr Smartfence came on Wednesday, and started the transformation. By Thursday evening it was done.

So here are more spot the difference pictures:

Here we have the quiet green decaying fence on the other side of the original 1920's (?) concrete posts.

And here it is with its posts hidden, and a new, (currently) two-tone brown fence.

This was a brilliant solution. Steve utilised the old concrete posts that were solidly in the ground.

In places he had to drill new holes through them to attach the wooden uprights before constructing a new fence.

Here it is undressed, on Wednesday evening.

The two-tone colour comes about because he had to go to more than supplier to get the right length of palings.

It seems that recently there has been a shortage of fence palings here in Britain, so we took what we could.

It will weather, and then we will paint it green to match all other fences on our property.

In the meantime I have other concerns. This bank holiday weekend, unusually, I am at home on my own.

Great, a chance to sort out SP10 parcels, and engage in the Fiber Swap run by Shelby.

But I have a cold, and woken by a sneezing fit at 02.30, I detected the sound of the central heating boiler (I can hear such sounds without my hearing aids).

After three exploratory trips downstairs, I was unable to sort it out, and dropped off to sleep around 03.30.

Today I have tried all sorts, and am not sure whether I have managed to tame it.

The boiler is spontaneously igniting, whether the timer is set to be on or not.

We never have the heating on at night, so it is even more disturbing.

Going back to SP10 and stashes, I had been looking for blogs of others in Shelby's group, and came across Baseball Knitter's post of April 28th on the way. Now that would have been the perfect parcel for me too.