As will be clear from what I have written recently, big plans are afoot. Myself and Astrid will cycle from Amsterdam to Hong Kong, with the expectation that we will arrived in the middle of December.
Since this is such an enormous undertaking, and since I would like to present the whole story in a more visual way, complete with map, I have decided to put the journey on its own sub-site. I will continue with HFTD on my return.
My parents, my sister, and her boyfriend arrived on Friday. This is nice, of course, but unfortunately I have had very little time to see them, for obvious reasons. Hopefully they will be able to entertain themselves while I am running about getting ready for the show and for leaving.
As mentioned, I will be taking part in an exhibition at het Glazen Huis (the Glass House) in the Amstelpark, opening this Sunday 15th March at 15.00. The exhibition is called Groene Vingers (Green Fingers) and is organised by Stichting ZET. All welcome!
In the meantime, I have been very busy trying to complete the work I will show. This will consist of a video, and also a series of “Kijkdozen” (literally “Looking-boxes”). To construct these, I have been making a lot of use of the robotic cutting/drawing machine I built last year, which has meant many a long day peering over the thing waiting tensly for it to screw up for the hundredth time.
Further to this, I have been all over town buying the things I will need – card, glue, fabric, LEDs, wood, plastic, foam, etc.
All this will hopefully be covered by the budget we managed to obtain last week. I was thinking about all the time I spent as a child cutting and sticking bits of paper and card, and how much fun it was then. The difference is that now I can spend €50 on card and glue, and it doesn’t come out of my pocket money.
There are a lot of downsides to a life trying to make art, but getting to do this type of things is definately one of the perks.
Astrid’s parents have been married 35 years, and so had decided to rent a huisje in the east of the country, not far from Enschede where I used to study. The whole family was invited along, inluding me, which has meant a few days of eating, drinking, swimming, and wandering in the snow. In the normal course of things it would hopefully be quite a relaxing experience, unfortunately I am so busy right now with work and various other projects that I felt it quite difficult to unwind. All the same, it was good to get away for a bit.
Everyone was continuously amused by the comical accents that folks have in this part of the country. I always have the idea that Twentse people speak a bit like how Geordies would speak if they were Dutch, if that helps by way of explanation.
This was also of course something of a farewell, since we may not see all of them before departing next month on our great trip. It made me think a lot of being with my own family in December, and realising that we will not be seeing each other for a very long time indeed. And dare I say it, for the older ones it was of course no means certain that that was not the very last time.
The time has come to move out of the appartment in the Staalmeesterslaan, which I only moved in to last summer. Myself and a few of the guys I was sharing with had hoped we could take the lease over from the woman we were subletting it from, but this plan fell through when it turned out that I would need to be earning €45000 per year to be eligible to be a tenant. Frankly, if I earned that much I would not be living in a tower block in Slotervaart, but there you go.
Since we will be departing on foreign adventures quite soon, I haved decided to try and save a little cash by staying at my studio for the next month or so. This is not really allowed on the lease, so I will have to make sure that the anti-squat company doesn’t find out (I do hope that they don’t know about this website).
Other more immediate difficulties are that there is no proper heating and no shower. Also, I was sitting in my armchair the other day when I saw a small, scurrying thing dart across the darkness at the back of the room – a mouse, of course. And naturally they are rarely alone. In fact, he has already become less timid in the last few days, daring to dash right past my foot as I filled the kettle for a cup of tea.
What strikes me as quite stupid about our having to exit the old flat is that according to the rental agreement everything had to be thrown away, even the carpets and laminate flooring. Whoever comes next will have to replace all this. It just seems a totally senseless and wasteful way of managing property, and very much against the grain of the otherwise environmentally-aware Dutch way of doing things. Not only that, but the guy from the rental agency who came to inspect the scene of gaping emptiness which the place has become informed me that they don’t actually have anybody to take it over, and in fact have numerous empty apartments. Given the silly requirements mentioned above, this does not surprise me at all.
For the second time in the month I have spent an evening at Café Pakhuis Wilhelmina. The last occasion was at Hogmanay, whereas this time it was to attend a Burns Supper. Now, the purpose of this event is of course to celebrate the life and works of the poet Rabbie Burns, who lived from 1759-96 (according to Wikipedia at least). He is a national hero in Scotland, and his birthday, that is the 25th of January, has become a sort of de facto national day. I for one am quite pleased that we have taken to celebrating the life of a drunken, womanising, working class poet instead of some general, king or politician.
This particular event had been thought up by a guy called Andy Bruce, a fellow Scot living in Amsterdam, who had actually emailed me about a year ago about arranging such an evening. I was very curious about the sort of crowd that would turn up – would it be a room full of homesick expats, or instead mainly confused Dutchies? In fact, it turned out to be mostly the second with a few of the first.
The evening got off to a fine start with plenty of whisky, soup, music, and of course the highpoint of the evening – the piping in of and address to the haggis. I am not aware of any other cultures in which it is normal to talk to a plate of dead, cooked meat before plunging a knife into it and waxing further about its “gushing entrails bricht (bright)”. It is certainly a site to behold.
I must say that the guy flown over to address the beast and later to read Tam O’ Shanter was brilliant. Worth the entrance money on its own!
So, more music, whisky, beer, and so on later, it was time to head back home through the freezing midnight of Amsterdam in January. At this point, while trying my best to cycle in a straight line while somewhat worse for wear, I was stopped and hassled by the police because I did not have a little red light on the back of my bike (I did have a white one at the front, but that is not enough). I tried the tactic of talking at them about nonsense until they got bored and drove away, which amazingly worked. No fine this time, at least.
One last thing – Andy had wrote to D C Thomson to ask if they would sponsor the event. Naturally, being skinflint east-coast types they did not, but instead sent this enormous ceramic cast of Maw and Paw Broon and the Bairn. Doubtless not many non-Scots will know what I am talking about, but here is is anyway.
Myself and Astrid have been in Scotland for a few days. This was of course mainly to spend Christmas with my family, but also of course so that I could see some friends in Glasgow.
I’m not a big fan of Christmas, but this one was actually quite stress-free and enjoyable. Perhaps because I see all my relatives so rarely these days, I really liked spending time with them and of course enjoying my mum’s cooking. It was also an interesting introduction for Astrid to British Christmas traditions, such as crackers, plum pudding, and the like. We spent Sinterklaas with her folks a few weeks ago, so now the cultural exchange is complete.
On Saturday night we met up with Danny and then Chris in Glasgow, a slightly chaotic affair with far too much beer and whisky being consumed (on my part at least), to be sure. Still, always nice to experience old ways for short periods.
There was a third purpose for our visit. We need to buy a whole lot of stuff for our cycling trip next year, and recent changes in currency values mean that it is much cheaper to buy things in the UK as compared with the Eurozone. So it was then that we have been round various outdoor and bicycle shops in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and have come home with quite a lot of booty (and much lighter wallets in the process, unfortunately). Highlights include waterproof panniers, a stove that will burn petrol, diesel, aviation fuel, in fact almost anything, a high-tech water purification system, Gore-Tex shoes, socks that you can wear for a month before they smell, and other such innovations. Perhaps most important of all, I have some special cycling underwear. Sexy it is not (it looks like you’re wearing an enormous rubber sanitary towel) but pretty much essential if my arse is not going to look like one of those pink baboons after 10000km.
I have been very busy during the last few weekends with a new project, this time aimed at earning some cash. All this came about when I was called a few weeks ago by Emily to ask whether I would like to become involved with a little business that she and her friend Maaike were setting up. The purpose of this business was to carry out general decorating and other handiworks, such as wallpaper stripping, electrics, and so on. Since I have been very keen to find a source of income that does not involve working with my laptop the whole time, I was keen indeed to be involved.
Our first piece of work is fixing up a room in a doctor’s surgery not far from my old house in Amsterdam. We’ve been busy every weekend stripping wallpaper, sanding the floor, and decorating. So far it’s going well; let’s hope it will turn into a regular source of income. Coming home in the evening caked in plaster dust with a toolbox under my arm, I feel like a real bouwvakker (builder), and to add to the atmosphere, we’ve been drinking plenty cups of tea and listening to a cheesy classic rock station on the radio. It’s all stuff like Genesis and Status Quo, the sort of music that you wouldn’t be seen dead with in your record collection but which kinda fits with the job.
After much work organising a boat, trailer, and car, not to mention arranging help with filming from Astrid, it has finally been possible to do some filming for my Australian desert boat project.
The logistics of this were quite complex. Laura had kindly (and perhaps quite foolishly) agreed to let me borrow her car. I had to pick it up in Alkmaar though, where her mum lives.
Now, I hate driving in any case, mostly because I’m not very good at it. Not only that, but I have never driven on the right side (or for British people, the wrong side) of the road before, and in fact not on any side of any road for more than three years. I spent about twenty minutes driving around Alkmaar trying to find my way onto the motorway, time which was probably in fact quite well spent getting to grips with this new state of affairs. Countless times I cursed as I smashed my left hand into the door trying to change gear, since the gear stick is of course on the right.
Sweating and trying to keep it calm, I headed south towards the tiny village of Nieuwland between Utrecht and Gorinchem, where I had arranged to pick up a trailer from Astrid’s cousin Arjan (who I had met a few weeks ago). In the end I had decided that his boat was just a bit too big – a decision which proved later to be correct – and had instead arranged to borrow the other boat that I had seen recently. This meant driving a little further to Gorinchem to pick it up.
With boat, trailer, and Astrid collected, the last journey of the evening was back north towards the Lange Duinen near Soest, where the filming was to take place. With absolutely no spare cash for anything so extravagant as a hotel room, we instead set up my tiny tent in the car park next to the dunes. This is of course niet toegestaan (not allowed), which we were reminded of the next night (keep reading…).
This film work is all about optimism, and my own sometimes unreasonably optimistic outlook showed its downside the next morning. The weather forecast was rain across the whole of the Netherlands, but I had told myself “What do they know? The sun could just as easily shine if it wants to”. Of course it didn’t.
Since the next day did indeed have sun forecast, this did not need to be a disaster. We took the time to try out various shots and camera angles, and to actually see and feel what it was like to drag the little boat over the sand. Despite its size, it was still a big effort to get it moving. This is a good thing though – the strain in my muscles and face in the film will be real. Just as well I went for the smaller of the two boats.
There was not too much to be done with the rest of the day except to head into Soest in search of something good to eat. For what is one of poshest parts of Holland there were in fact precious few restaurants to be found, aside from a Chinese restaurant established in what looks like someone’s living room. The food was nevertheless delicious, and much appreciated after a night and day in the cold. Later we had a drink in what seemed to be the only pub in town. Across the bar, a group of middle-aged men were gambling quite huge amounts of money.
Heading back out into the frosty air, we made our way back to the tent and settled in for a good night’s sleep before Wednesday’s filming. It was thus quite disturbing to be awoken at 3am by headlights and the noise of car engine outside the tent. Sure enough, upon unzipping the tent we were confronted by a dark figure in uniform towering over us. The conversation, roughly translated, went like this:
Policeman: “Good evening. You do realise that you are not allowed to camp here?”
Me: “Uh, um, no, yes, uh, no…”
Policeman: “There’s a wee yellow sign that says so.”
Astrid: “Do you want the long or the short story? The short one is that we’re here to make a film. We’re here with our boat and the car over there and we’re filming here tomorrow.”
Me: “It’s an art film, you know.”
(long pause)
Policeman: “And you’re going away tomorrow?”
Me: “Yes.”
Policeman: “And is there anywhere you can go to now?”
Astrid: “No.”
Policeman: “And there’s no-one else coming?”
Me: “No.”
(long pause)
Policeman: “Well, in that case, I wish you goodnight. OK?”
Both: “Thank you!!!”
And that was the end of the incident. It could have been a lot worse, I can tell you. I suppose it balances out my previous bad experiences with the law in this country, at least a little bit.
On Wednesday morning it had stopped raining, but a new problem had presented itself – the ground was completely frozen solid. Not only did the dunes look even less like an Australian desert than before, but the rock-hard sand would have scratched the little boat to pieces. There was nothing to be done but wait.
By around 12 o’clock, the sun had driven most of the frost from the ground and we were able to beginning filming at last. All the troubles of the preceding days suddenly evaporated as the sun cast a beautiful orange glow on the dunes and the adrenalin hit of actually working at a project kicked in. That sounds terribly clichéd, but it’s true – it’s the feeling that comes so rarely but it’s unmistakable when you have it.
By 4pm, the light and the batteries for the camera were up, and it was time to pack up and go home. What followed was another 3 or 4 hours of driving in the rain to bring everything back to its rightful owners, and finally a very annoying and unscheduled hour of waiting in the middle of Amsterdam for a night bus home. At about 2am, I finally fell exhausted into bed. Only later will it become clear if all this was worth it.
Encouraged by having found “the” boat yesterday, I took a trip today to the Lange Duinen, the large expanse of sand near the village of Soest where I intend to make a short film in the near future. There were four things I wanted to do;
Everything went pretty OK, except that this little “desert” was not very “deserted”. What I mean to say is that there were people walking dogs everywhere, and the sand is quite churned up by footprints all over the place. It will not exactly evoke the unexplored Australian outback that I had in mind.
Thinking about it later though, it occurred that this might actually make the film more interesting, and certainly funnier – if it in fact becomes more about some lost traveller from the past stuck in the middle of Holland. A sort of refugee looking for a wilderness. Need to think it through a bit more.
