Work In Progress

For some months now, Amsterdam has had elephants parading all over the place.  Sometimes in the shopping malls or like these on Museumplein or in our locals park.  They have all been decorated by local artists and are in aid of "save the Elephant".  Soon they will be auctioned off... shame, they have becoming a very colourful part of the Amsterdam scene.

Despite reporting all these outside activities, for the past week my main concern has been workmen in the house. Bob the Builder?? No, it’s Pavel and Karel our Polish builders who have been renovating our 17th Century Windows.

What a mess. I had hoped when I agreed with the landlord he could carry out the work,  that it would only take a couple of days painting the front windows of the property, but it turned out to be an 8 day total renovation job of burning off, priming and almost rebuilding the frames. This with the inevitable cigarette breaks to get away from the lead paint!! Can you imagine renting out your every expensive property then expecting the tenants to eat dust and have most of the property out of bounds for a week. It seems to be quite normal here. One of my Mahjong friends was asked to leave her rental property with something like only 24 hours notice because asbestos had been found in the building. I think they will find more than asbestos or lead in this house. Actually, there is a great book we have just bought because we are living in one of the old canal properties, called Amsterdam Canal Guide which gives the history of all the houses along the main canals. It says about our house that it was built in 1695 and had the façade renewed in 1890, hence the 17th century windows. Richly ornamented compared to our neighbour the book says. I wondered why so many tourists were staring up at our windows with guidebook in hand, not because of the peeling paint clearly. There is a totally out of character little pavilion sticking out of the wall just below our windows held up with rope –hopefully not 17th century rope or the whole structure could finish up in the street!! Like anywhere else, when the builders are in, if I went out, then work slowed up and the workmen left early, so I have been at home supervising or at least being a presence and not allowing shoddy workmanship to pass unnoticed.
I did make a break for it last Thursday and went on a daytrip with Amsterdam-Accueil my French ladies group, we went to a unique place called Broekersveiling. It’s the area of 1000 islands dating back to the 12 century made up of tiny strips of land accessible only by boat where farmers cultivate their strip growing fruit or vegetables.

We sailed around these tiny strips of land after visiting the museum which incorporates the Auction room where boats would arrive floating into the room to sell their goods. The boat would enter and approach the auctioneer with the name of the farmer and a sample of his produce onboard, ie cabbage, carrots etc, this would then be auctioned off. The starting price starts high and the huge clock ticks down to the price someone is prepared to pay. Hence the saying a Dutch Auction. A buzzer placed in the seat of the person in front gives you the opportunity to join the auction – I managed to buy 3 oranges that didn’t even come from Holland by fiddling with the buzzer – noone else of course had made a bid and that caused a bit of hilarity. I also bid and won 3 tomatoes!! Others did rather better, one of the ladies managed to get heaps of different vegetables, she was clearly going to make a “pot-eau-feu” for dinner. Apparently, this Auction House was used until about 1973, but once the Supermarkets arrived with a vengeance, farmers grew and sold their entire produce mainly to one buyer so there wasn’t a lot of need for daily auctions.

The nice thing is that they have turned the whole area into a place of interest, with the auction house and boat area converted into the museum, followed by the boat trip. Brilliant for children and adults alike. It was nice getting out of town for the day which also gave me the opportunity to get back into “French Mode”, make new friends and pick up a lot of tips over lunch, particularly on good restaurants and places to shop in general. The French inevitably find all the best places. The weather is still holding up, although now winter draws on, definitely gloves and bonnet weather. Am I glad I brought that old cagoule I have been wearing for years – nothing like the discomfort of cold ears when you are speed cycling!!!!