The 102nd dalmatian

Local theatre-maker and puppet-master extraordinaire Fred Delfgaauw takes the back seat when his pretty dalmatian, Meis, takes centre stage on a bar stool at the ADK this afternoon.

Conversation in the cafe (owner Hans prefers to call it a "living-room experience") ranged from the Cyprus situation to insurance scandals. Ach en wee, as the Dutch say (oh dearie, dearie me).

E-number Sunday

So what do you do as nearly-9-year-old in Gorinchem on a bitterly cold, boring Sunday? If your parents had a well-filled wallet and were that way inclined, you could go to a museum, an amusement park or the cinema; if any of your friends were available, you could arrange a play-date (using your mother's i-Phone); you could - as a last resort - spend all day glued to the TV or umbilically connected to the internet.

Given to me (the mother) on my 7th birthday

Or you could do some baking, perhaps inspired by your mother's old cookbook "Look! I Can Cook!", published in 1972. There are recipes from all around the world, so exciting.

Has a real Italian ever made spaghetti with meatballs?

Or, you could make these: Cake Pops, purchased at the Lidl in a choice of two flavours. Mum chose orange. Mum really had no idea what she was letting herself in for. Mum had forgotten her reading glasses when she went shopping and there was no way in hell she could read the fine print on the package. As it turned out, these are chocolate-coated cake lollipops which are also rolled in sugar sprinkles. 

Mum was rather surprised when she found her glasses and read the instructions: firstly one has to bake a cake, which is then reduced to crumbs, mixed to a thick paste with melted butter and rolled into balls, thus (see left). After cooling, the packages of white and regular chocolate have to be melted and decanted into separate bowls. One then takes one of the provided lolly sticks, spears a cake ball, coats it in chocolate, rolls it in sprinkles and then.... "stick the lolly stick in an upturned empty egg carton so that it can dry", suggests the tiny print on the package. This DOES NOT WORK. The lollies are top-heavy. The only thing that does work is holding the lolly until it is dry, by which time the chocolate for the next one (you can make 16) has solidified.


But here are the results: a solid 10+ on the yumminess scale from the head chef. Her only issue was that there were only enough sprinkles for half the lollies, so we had to resort to our own Dutch breakfast sprinkles. Mum and Dad promised to taste them later on in the evening, they looked so scrumptious, but they really couldn't manage to eat anything just now ("another tapenade on toast, darling?", "Hmmm, top up the wine").

So there you have it: one happy, if slightly hyperactive nearly-9-year-old and two plates full of E-numbers. 

Dusty Springjob

On Tuesday the 5th of March, my husband & I (imagine QE II saying this) filled a skip with 15 cubic metres of rubble and scrapwood from an old shop on the Grote Markt.

We put this:

In this:

... after which it looked like this:

And then we had this:

Tuesday was the hottest 5th March on record: the whole square suddenly came to life. All the cafe employees scurried around, setting up tables and by half past three one had to jostle to get one. We certainly deserved our beer: after five hours of monomaniac rubble-shifting, we were coated in dust, but mercifully unaware of how much every muscle would ache later on in the evening.

The market stall

Across the river is a secret place, which very few people know about: not just the privileged readers of "The Elephant in Codfish Lane", but even the inhabitants of Gorinchem in general. It's the market stall on the Steenenhoek Canal. 

I've been taking pictures of it every time I walk past during the last year and every time there's something else on offer: from kid's toys, flowers, tools, purses and plates to watering cans and pepper pots. You takes what you wants and - observing the exhortation on the sign above the stall - deposit an amount which you deem reasonable in the letterbox of the houseboat opposite.

I have no idea where these people get all this stuff. I keep saying that one day I'll ring on their houseboat door and ask them, but that would perhaps destroy the mystery of it. The not-knowing is half the fun. 

I've bought flower-pots and plastic doo-hickeys for Josephine, plants and bags. Most recently Bart bought a pristine current weekend  edition of the FD (equivalent of the Financial Times) on a Saturday morning, apparently unread. He paid 1 euro. 

Rain or shine, snow or howling gale, the anonymous market stall ALWAYS has something to offer. I think I prefer to not research who maintains it and keep on believeing in a kind of Harry Poteresque  entrepreneur.

Not beavers

As a reprieve from wild animals destroying our trees, here is a little interlude of other creatures around the town. 

For starters: two of the remaining gaggle of white geese who used to terrorise Gorinchemers. Once, they would gather at one of the entrances to the city, arrogantly crossing the road in large numbers, honking at the stalled traffic and attacking passers-by and their shopping bags of fresh bread from Van de Grijn bakers. 'Twas too much: the powers that be captured most of them and supposedly carted them off to petting zoos around the country. I do wonder if they really wound up on the plates of the local civil servants.

These two managed to escape the cull, and have temporarily taken up home between the houseboats and the train station. Try to take a picture and they make a vicious grab for your trouser-cuffs. And when they're not doing that, they're presumably having it off with each-other, and hey-ho, maybe next year the geese rounder-uppers will have another slap-up nosh.  

Semi-domestic

... and here - in great internet tradition - are CATS! I've learned that every good blogger falls back on them when you can't think of anything else to post. These two are playing trains on the back of the armchair.

Bon voyage! All aboard! A bientot!

Very domestic

Beaver shots*

Returning to the quite incredible news that there are beavers in the city of  Gorinchem: 

Beaver photographer Bas Breetveld changed my mind about how a beaver could have reached our town: apparently there is a colony just south of the river - almost under the motorway bridge near Woudrichem - who have two lodges. This most probably indicates  that the Gorinchem beaver (or beavers) made their way eastwards from the Biesbosch along the south side of the big river and then did a Big Swim northwards to reach our over-populated shores. 

Good on ya, beavers!

Bas sounded somewhat surprised in his e-mail: apparently beaver families usually kick their young, recalcitrant offspring out in the summer, giving the 3-year old youngsters the chance to set off and establish their own families in the balmy warm months. Whatever possessed these guys to start chewing on trees in the middle of Gorinchem in February? Perhaps overcrowding: these could be "Tramp Beavers". 

Heaven help us: beavers who just wander around with no sense of community and set up shop wherever it best suits them. What is the world coming to?

One thing's fer sure: these animals are DETERMINED. Read this account of how a North American town tried to get rid of them: 

Dang and blast them beavers!


... and here are Bas's quite breathtaking photos of beavers in the Biesbosch:

Beavers in the Biesbosch.


If you want, you can go on a beaver-safari with him. He guarantees a 100% chance of seeing the little hooligans for yourself. Check it out here:

Beaverwatch.

* shameless effort to generate more blog-traffic

City Beavers

This photo was taken this morning from the Zwaanswal, looking out across a scrubby promontary. At the base of the tree you can see a bright patch of freshly-chewed wood: an almost cartoonesque example of beaver activity. I couldn't believe my eyes. If it wasn't for the fact that this patch of no-man's land is virtually inaccessible for humans (the only way in is completely overgrown with brambles), I would have thought it was a practical joke played by local kids.

But a bit further on I found another poor tree which I could photograph from up close: check out the gnawing technique! See the giant beaver in the background! (Just kidding: that's my dog's bum...)

Beavers have been reintroduced in several locations in the Netherlands over the past few years and one of the most successful populations is happily chewing its way through the Biesbosch, a wetlands nature reserve south-west of us across the river and a good 20 km away. How on earth did this beaver (or beavers - could only one have caused this much damage?) find its way to Gorinchem? At some point it must have swum across the busiest inland water route in Holland, then paddled upstream along the shore, avoiding earth-moving machinery and construction crews who are renovating the dyke and keeping out of the way of dredgers digging a new canal. Then it negotiated the Vluchthaven, ignoring the river traffic in and out of the Grote Merwerde Lock, the screaming metal saws from the industrial park (see previous post) and the boat owners who are just starting to spruce up their sailing yachts and motor sloops for the spring. It chose a spot where it would be in full view of any people out taking a stroll, dog-walkers, their dogs, teenagers sneaking a fag or boys on their cross bikes. If anybody bothered to look, that is.

I was very excited: I reported the sighting of beaver activity on the report-sightings-of-beaver-activity website, but felt I had to share further, so I called up the local council. 

The receptionist was rather put out: "But why do you want to report beavers?" she asked. I was momentarily thrown off-course: why indeed? Because it's pretty bloody cool, actually. Obviously this argument wouldn't carry any weight, so I said "Because they're chopping down trees!" (Local government are obliged to respond to complaints, not cool stuff). Reluctantly, she put me through to a charming lady who thought it was pretty cool, too, although she was already aware of the beaver's presence. Apparently the Waterschap* are keeping an eye on the situation, but they haven't yet seen any evidence of a lodge being built. 

I think it's pretty unlikely that the beaver and friends will set up home here. Apart from the challenging location, there just aren't enough trees for them: on that little strip of land there's probably only a dozen, and they've already destroyed two. Where will they go from here? Further upstream to Vuren? Swim through the lock and head inland? 

Good luck to them, I say. It won't be easy.

Photo from Fotosloep.nl

* Waterschap: Dutch water board.

A quiet port of call

Camping spot on the Punt: note water left and right

 So in Gorinchem there's this sort of camping place for camper-vans at the "Punt" (the "Point"). We see the camper-vans entering the city center, making their way via Tom-tom through the busiest, one-way traffic and totally ignoring the exhortations of the local camper-spot people to take a better route via the easterly entrance to the town.

During the winter months things have obviously been quieter, not just because of the weather, but also because half of the camper-van spots have been occupied by out-of-water boats on the hard. Even though the temperatures are bitter, hardy camper-vanners are back on the road, and today there were 7 of them shrivelling it out there. 

I felt so sorry for them this morning. On-line it looks like a kick-ass location: close to the historic town center but situated on a promontary surrounded by water. The reality at 11 o'clock Saturday was: a container ship was moored next door for repairs (resounding metallic banging from hammering rivets), Mercon was in full swing across the harbour (screaming metal-saws) and the Beastie Eastie was howling through the rigging of the nearby moored sailing boats. 

A restful awakening it most certainly was NOT.

The poor camper-vans are behind the container-ship. Mercon is on the right, on the other side of the harbour and the pleasure-boat harbour with the wind screaming through the rigging is to the left.

Beasty Easty

 ... new meteorological term gleaned from BBC today: a "beasty easty" is a viciously cold easterly wind. 

Despite the apparent temperature, there were signs of oncoming spring on our walk today:

Snowdrops, or should they be "dried-up leaf drops"

We (the dog & I) also found a funny statue, which embodies said dog's stagnation in terms of obedience training:

"Lie down! ..... I said LIE DOWN!!"

And an opportunity not to be missed: details of gorgeous tiles on windows high up above the Langedijk. The only way to see them is from the flat across the road, which hubby is renovating. I'm not sure when they date from, but I find it charming that someone put so much effort into the architectural details which could never have been really appreciated by the man in the street. 

Above Cafe "De Knijp"

Sunny Sunday Buiten de Waterpoort

This was the first day of the year that it got really busy Buiten de Waterpoort (Outside the Watergate). People were out catching some rays, kids & dogs mucking about on the beach and the chip shop did booming business. 

My legs grew in the sunshine!

We met the bike cat

Two new shops

Gorinchem is suffering from the economic crisis: rows of shops display gaping holes, just like an old crone's missing teeth. "For Sale" or "For Rent" signs abound. It is therefore an occasion for celebration that anyone dares take the plunge and embark on a new venture. 

Funnily enough, the two newest entrepreneurs on our street are both of Turkish origin, although they have chosen very different directions: Oguz opened an interior furnishings shop today and Saadet took the plunge a while ago with her hairdressing salon.

Flowers for Oguz

Oguz's "Interieur Huis Gorinchem" has obviously got some serious investment and inventory. The showroom is strikingly minimalist in monochrome with red highlights and hints of silver and gold. After their opening (celebratory turkish drumrolls reverberated throughout the building, accompanied by occidental flute-playing), the shop windows are now filled with the bouquets of flowers that well-wishers brought as gifts. Good thing that they had lots of vases on hand.

Meanwhile, just down the road, Saadet's salon has been up and running for a few months. She's no newcomer to the town: many customers will recognize her from previous establishments where she worked, and are finding their way to her door. 

See the leopard-skin holster?

New hair

With a minimum investment and a maximum of energy, she's created a welcoming, light-filled space that reflects her enthusiastic and jolly personality. All the fittings and furniture were custom-made for her by friends and relatives. As a young mother and primary income-earner, she's a model for female entrepreneurs ..... Go Saadet!

Nearly forgot: today was Valentine's Day. Thanks, Josie, love the multi-media picture.

Give that river some room!

Mayor Piet Ijssels

I discovered these signs on our walk today. They commemorate the floods in 1995, when the dykes near Gorinchem threatened to breach at some points. Everyone in East Gorinchem was evacuated: if you had a three-storey house you could move everything up to the top floor, otherwise the inhabitants had to move their belongings to storage outside the polder. Apparently there was a traffic jam of moving trucks, trailers and rented U-hauls leaving the area. 

An evacuee tells his story

I say apparently because I wasn't here at the time: I was staying at my Dad's in France to help out while he had a cataract   operation. From what I could see on CNN, this part of Holland was already completely underwater. The phone connection was overloaded, so I couldn't verify the extent of the damage. I knew our house would be OK, being on a ridge of higher land, but I imagined the garden full of cows and sheep from the surrounding farms.

In the end the dykes didn't break here and everyone could move back home. But that threat prompted the Dutch government to embark on an ambitious project: "Room for the River". Various spots along the big rivers have been designated for potential, deliberate flooding in case of high water. As these posters say: "never again".

Today the river is pretty high: all that water from Germany! But there's no cause for worry this time.

High water again

Rio it ain't...

During Carnaval, Gorinchem changes its name to "Bliekenstad" (the "bliek" is a fish which used to swim in our river) and the mayor hands over his duties to Prince Carnaval. A parade invades the town centre on the Saturday and for four days oddly-dressed folk walk the streets and take over half of the pubs.

We are at the northenmost reach of the influence of the largely catholic carnaval. It never really took on in the protestant Holland. Southern towns like Maastricht and Breda, well, they really go all-out. Nobody there is expected to turn up for work and it's taken for granted that morals are flaunted and bottles are emptied. 

But whether you're on the outer reaches of carnaval's influence, or slap-bang in the thick of things, one thing is for sure: the old idea that the festival precedes forty days and forty nights of abstinence is long forgotten. 

I remember Pancake Day in England, when we had to use up our eggs, butter, sugar and milk before Lent. And of course the moslims also observe Ramadan. Carnaval just seems to be a watered-down version of a long-forgotten excuse for a party, at least here in Bliekenstad. 

But Josie enjoyed it.