Montmartre-Sur-Haringvliet...Well, Sort Of.

When you are a teacher, there are always pupils who have a special place in your heart. It's not done to let this show in class, but as soon as they've left school it's all right to casually mention that you've always thought they had it in them.
David Slob of Fantastix Entertainment & Productions falls into this category. Winner of Best Living Statue 2012 of The Netherlands, he has been organizing fun projects in Hellevoetsluis. And Montmartre aan het Haringvliet (a strange but eclectic mix of living statues, live music, flea market stalls and do-it-yourself art) was his latest.

My home town is kinda famous for its maritime summer festival called "Vestingdagen", this month the free pop festival Wallenpop made a triumphant comeback and we enjoyed the Fokveedag, but there is always room for one more festival in my opinion. Everything that makes its 40.000 or so citizens happy is a win-win situation.

See this? This is one of the entrances to the old naval port, called the 'vesting'. A vesting is a fortified piece of land, surrounded by a moat and grassed up walls and fortifications. Hellevoetsluis is an old naval vesting. When I first visited it as an 8 year old girl, it was boring as hell. The navy had just left, and the (by now substantial) suburbs had not been built yet. Hellevoetsluis was a dying port full of old fogies. I would not want to be seen dead here, even then.

Circumstances beyond my control forced me to rent a flat here in 1986, swearing I would get out as soon as possible, but here I still am, almost 30 years on.

And it has grown on me. Yes, it can still be boring. But quite often it is charming.

This afternoon I sat on one of the many terraces and just watched the Hellevoetsluis world go by.

Lots of older men and even older women (Dutch women outlive their spouses by years and years) in the wrong shorts happily listened to The Amazing Stroopwafels, who have been performing in these streets since the fall of Rome, gawked at the living statues and rummaged through the junk, or had a beer. And it was so...pleasant. Innocent, almost.

In Brussels some lunatic tried to mow down Thalys passengers with a Kalashnikov, and here an artist drew butterflies on the pregnant belly of a young woman.

Let's hope it will stay that way, and we won't have to polish those canons!

So, I sat there, with my own beer, contemplating what makes the town I live in and the people I share it with so special.

I think that it has come of age. From a dying but-once-great-naval-port it has taken those 30 years and transformed itself into a laid-back melting-pot of quite a few nationalities. We had a refugee camp over here, and many of the people who lived there have stayed in this town. The troubles we had in the early nineties with people from the Dutch Antilles have evaporated when some of those people were relocated (literally) to another town that was better equipped to handle them. The ones who remained have adapted.

We have our share of troubled youngsters and also of troubled middle-aged. But on the whole this is a friendly town, especially in Summer when the water on our doorstep shows its best sparkly face.

For the life of me I could not find any resemblance with Montmartre. But who cares, it was a fun afternoon! Do it again, David, by all means! You've made your old teach proud.

For those of you who are interested in The Amazing Stroopwafels (they are quite famous in The Netherlands you know) I'll provide a link right....here: Oude Maasweg (live)

All photos ©RenéeKoopman

Drones. Sometimes They're Wonderful Toys.

When drones are in the news, the headlines usually scream about death or mayhem these days. They are used by the military, or they are used by perverts (as in the last report I read about them concerning a town not so very far from where I live) who use them to photograph sunbathing girls.
But yesterday I was shown a beautifully and lovingly produced video about my hometown, shot by using a drone. 
An amazingly creative young guy has filmed over 10 hours with a drone, and edited it back to 5 minutes of beauty.
He has put it on unlimited YouTube himself, so I feel free to show it to you. Mostly because I am damn proud of what he has made. It's gorgeous.
Enjoy!

Flying Above Hellevoetsluis

Haaven, Hellevoetsluis ©RenéeKoopman

Stellendam's Flags Day - One Big Happy Family!

Today saw the rebirth of a once-in-four-years-event, which is a tradition in my country. 
Fishing villages and towns (and we used to have numerous; now we only have a few left) hold a "Flag Day" - vlaggetjesdag - to celebrate the fact that they have reached yet another Summer alive (my interpretation) and the fact that the fish have been gracious enough to get caught in their nets all year long. And it's great for tourism.

©WibeKoopman Photography

© WibeKoopman Photography

What I mostly saw today though, was a trade with pride in their work, and very happy to give us, landlubbers, an insight in their daily business. This business is catching fish, and the vessel I was welcomed on, the GO-29, is a shrimper.
The young guy in the photos is Jeroen, looking a tad grim, but so would you if your day consisted of 24 hrs of shrimping for 3 to 5 days on end, with a rigorous grueling schedule of 1/2 hour on and 1 hour off.
Today I saw him looking happy, rested and glamorous, the perfect host for all those strangers who were welcomed aboard of the GO-29. You can look up the video on YouTube (called 'Stellendam Flag Day 2015'), or use this link:Leaving Stellendam Harbour

Those letters GO stand for Goeree, the Zuid-Hollands island with the home harbour of Stellendam. But this fishing family actually comes from Moerdijk, up river, where their grandfather did his shrimping on the river in the days when Moerdijk was an island. Now it is dry land, safe behind dykes. But the fishing is at an end there, and the few families that remained fishermen were forced to bring  their vessels to Stellendam. 
It is not all rosy, explained skipper IJsbrand's nephew to me. The fish they used to catch on the river, spiering (sprot in English) likes brackish water. But the salty sea water doesn't reach Moerdijk any longer due to the Deltawerken (which keep the Zuid-Hollandse isles and Zeeland safe from the sea surges), and the spiering has disappeared.

IJsbrand and his family were very hospitable, serving free cold drinks, beers and shrimp sandwiches. And let me tell you, those shrimp are the best and tastiest shrimp in Europe! They are tiny, but will have your tastebuds in rapture.

Now, obviously my videos are amateur. I have no pretensions. If you want to view the pro stuff, you will have to visit my son Wibe's website soon. He is uploading the photos of today as I write. I will put a link at the bottom of this post.

What I would like to end with, is a plea to remember Goeree. Whenever you are in the vicinity (and Rotterdam, very hip these days, is only 35 kilometers away), do come to visit our islands. First you pass the island of Putten, then (only across the canal) my home island of Voorne, and then you cross the Haringvliet dam to Goeree-Overflakkee, the last Zuid-Hollands island before you cross another dam to Zeeland. 
Our islands, my Wetlands, are the ultimate Dutch delta. Almost my entire country is a delta, but WE are the delta of all deltas.

Link 2: leaving Stellendam harbour ('Stellendam Flag Day - 2')Leaving Stellendam Harbour -2
Link 3: passing Hellevoetsluis harbour ('Stellendam Flag Day - 3')Passing Hellevoetsluis harbour
Link to Wibe's website: Wibe Koopman Photography

I'll leave you with one of Wibe's photos.

©WibeKoopman Photography - Norfolk Beach

Tour the France - Yes Folks, It Will Hit Hellevoetsluis on Sunday!

If you know me at all, you'll remember I am a cycling enthusiast...
But with that term I mean tour, recreative tour, cycling on a normal bike with no more than 8 gears. In my case including a battery to ease my arthritic knees, but that's beside the point.

But, oh my dear Frith, we are in the claws of the racing cyclists at the moment...The Tour the France starts in Utrecht this Sunday, and boy do we know it! The newspapers are overflowing with yellow polkadot sweaters, routes are being published, roads are being closed, people are being urged to come and watch (and spend money, please) and...and now we are at the crux of this post...wanna-be tour racers are everywhere.

This afternoon, after a long and strenuous day of planning for the new school year, I cycled home along my usual cycle path. It takes me from the historical town of Den Briel to my own home town of Hellevoetsluis, along this idyllically situated cycle path, right across the meadows and fields with wheat and fodder corn.

This is not the exact location, but you get the picture, sort of. I was contemplating my first beer of the day, when I heard a shout behind me, sounding like "Watch it!"

I thought "Watch what? Watch the birds, watch the trees, watch the fodder corn, what?" but before I had the chance to watch anything at all, four guys in racing gear, on racing bikes, with frantic determined expressions overtook me. I swear they thought they were Contador in quadruple. They nearly ran me off the path, and (much worse!) they almost ran an older couple (I estimate in their seventies) off the path four meters along.

They went so fast, that they were gone before I had the chance to shout "Selfish Morons!" back at them...

And now my town of Hellevoetsluis will host the Tour the France on Sunday. That is to say, the "karavaan" will whisk through it on its way to the next island of Goeree-Overflakkee and then on to the finish at the Neeltje Jans (Deltaworks). 

It means us islanders cannot visit each other for half a day, much to the chagrin of my daughter, whose boyfriend lives on Overflakkee. And that most major roads are closed off.

It also means us islanders will take the opportunity to party. I mean...Tour the France...wine etcetera.

It also means we will have to put up with wanna-be tour racers for another two days.

Well. I would like to say something to them:

Hi, welcome to our beautiful islands. We hope you will take the opportunity to enjoy the surroundings. Do race, by all means, as this probably is your reason for living. But try to realize that you are just another cyclist, who has to abide by our cycling rules. Which means, that just taking right of way is not the done thing. And just because you travel in groups, doesn't mean that you have more rights than couples or singles. So, be a gentleman cyclist! 

Happy Tour the France to you!

Swans - Very Much a Part of Hellevoetsluis Life.

We like, perhaps even love, our Swans in Hellevoetsluis.
Originally rather elusive waterfowl, they have become an established ordinary inhabitant of the historic naval port, home to some 40,000 people. Drivers are quite used to entire swan families (of up to 10 members) inhabiting the grass verges of the roads, and keep an eye out for swans crossing the road at their leisure.

 © Wibe Koopman Photography

Hellevoetsluis has a lot of waterways, and that is the key to our great mute swan population, for although they have become confident town dwellers, they do want their bath close by.

In Spring people are charmed by the fluffy white cygnets, who cluster around their parents and usually mirror their movements perfectly (if not sleeping). I have witnessed seven cars patiently waiting for a swan family of nine to cross a busy thoroughfare, and have frequently seen people leaving their cars unattended in order to herd some swans to safety.

Folks feed them as well, and this presents some problems. For swans, like all animals, like their home comforts, so when they realize there is a snack-to-go nearby, they tend to cluster around that house and leave their huge droppings all over the pavements. And they can become quite pushy about their food, as one of my friends found out.

Years ago there lived a swan family of six in the small park near their house. My friend was given to feeding them left-over bread, and one day the cob followed her home. She thought this amusing, so fed him some bread on the garden path. The next day he was back, and again she fed him some bread.
He started coming every day, and started bringing his pen and cygnets as well, who modestly waited at the garden gate while Mr Swan waddled up to the back door. This went on for some days, to the amusement of all.
But then, Mr Swan started coming earlier and earlier, until he was literally hammering on the back door at 5 am.
This my friend thought not quite as amusing, and she started closing the garden gate to keep him out. Undaunted, he walked around the house and started hammering on the front windows.
It took her weeks of ignoring him until he took his loss and stayed away.

We have swans in the pond of the park behind our house. We love watching them when the young swans are practicing their flight. The pond is adequate, but not very large, so it takes some clever navigating to actually take off in time (it always reminds me of Faro Airport, Portugal) and they have to make an immediate sharp turn after lift-off to clear some huge willow trees.
We hear them making speed on the surface of the pond, with lots of flapping and many false starts. We have heard some almighty crashes after one of the swans has made a wrong turn, or a wrong calculation, but so far no casualties. Not even when one of them crashed into our neighbour's roof (the story of this is on my blog of Feb. 21st of 2014, I believe) and fell on my neighbour's head.

We have not incorporated swans into our mythology (as far as I know - I'm not all-knowing though!)in the Wetlands. Strange, really. But we do love them in Hellevoetsluis.

This is the entrance to the port of Hellevoetsluis

(On May 15th, 2014 I again blogged about swans, but from a different perspective. And if you like reading about animals: I very regularly blog about the birds in my garden, my butch tomcat Viggo, the deer I chase with a camera and my old dog Gina)

 (except for the photo by Wibe, the rest of them I have lifted from the Internet and so do not know who has taken them as they were there anonymously)